02 Introduction to Basic Rotary

Welcome

To help players who are interested in learning the advanced helicopter flight mode in Arma 3 (or RotarLib), there is a basic introduction course available which will take pilots through all the basics of this flight mode including how to set-up your controls. The course takes place using a custom designed mission where the potential pilots can make mistakes and not be penalised. The course consists of the following:

Basic Controls

Advise on how to set-up your joystick and which key binds are essential to have handy while flying including throttle settings, wheel brakes, in-game comms plus others. The main stick and rudder sensitivity controls are also shown. It is highly advisable to use a joystick of some description for the advanced flight mode, using a joypad or keyboard and mouse to control the helicopter is extremely difficult and you will not learn a great deal.

Understanding the dials

A quick run through of the on-screen dials and what they mean including speed over ground, altitude from ground, engine torque, rate of climb indicator and compass/wind indicator. There are other additional indicators which are also explained.

Basic Take Off

Learn how to take off gently and then obtain a hover. You will be shown how to increase the collective to the bite point and then raise slowly to start gaining altitude. At this point, it will be made clear to you that each model of helicopter will react differently and you will need to compensate for initial damping to control the movement of the vehicle.

Basic Landing

Learn how to gently touch down without flipping over. You will be shown how using your rate of climb indicator is of the up most importance during landing, plus when available, using points of interest to focus your position and helicopter direction and rate of decent. Bring all of these together to accomplish a smooth and gently landing.

Basic Flight

Learn how to control your cruise flight via the controls including how to change directions without loosing altitude. By setting your collective and cyclic correctly, you can obtain a steady cruise flight without exceeding maximum torque and maintain steady altitude. Once achieve, you will note you can completely remove your hands from the controls and still maintain straight and level flight.

Understanding "Vortex Stall"

Learn how and why this happens and how to get out of it without crashing into the ground. This strange behaviour that can happen when you come initially arrive in a hover state can catch the best of pilots out. You will be shown how to avoid and how to recover from obtaining a vortex stall.

Course Duration

This can vary depending on the number of candidates and the skill level of the candidates, but the average time for each course is 2 hours. However, at the end of the course, candidates will be advised to then spend many hours practising the skills learnt before considering applying for the Basic Rotary exam.

Course Instructors

Current qualified instructors are:

  • BabylonCome (lead instructor/course developer)