[TIPS] Auto Rotation

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BabylonCome

[TIPS] Auto Rotation

Post by BabylonCome »

Since the last Arma 3 updated which included one feature which has been missing from A3 since the beginning, that is the ability to slide helicopters across the ground at low speeds (previously as soon as you touched the ground, the helicopter would stick to it), it is now possible to have a good fighting chance of landing a chopper after being hit by an AA missile. Normally being hit by a missile will knock out at least your tail rotar but usually take out your main rotar too. This then forces you to land with no engines which is also called "Auto Rotation".

To achieve a successful auto rotation you will need to be flying at less than 200 meters, while it is possible above this altitude, it is extremely difficult to stop the very heavy lump of metal called your helicopter from dropping at an ever increasing speed and thus hitting the ground too fast to survive.

Once you are hit, the first thing you need to do is to drop altitude and reduce speed. This is achieved by immediately going into negative thrust (collective all the way down) and pulling the nose up - yes up. This should then start to drop your speed, once you have achieved a speed of less then 100kmph you can level out your nose and start looking for a landing place while your altitude starts to drop. Hopefully, once you have a speed of about 50kmph you should be fairly close to the ground at which point you will find that the helicopter will start to spin due to having no tail rotar. Once this starts to happen, then raise your collective all the way to the top at which point the engine should fully stall. Then comes the critical few moments of trying to 'guide' the chopper gently to the ground while keeping it level and not hitting any objects on the ground that will cause more damage or flip you over.

Hopefully this will help any budding pilots out there to survive an AA hit and walk away with only a few scratches....

Comments and questions welcome..
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