Flying question: Turns - Yaw then collective L/R or??

[Jermo]

doing sim work "orientation" training. When I get bored I fly around a bit. I'm working on technique. When I turn I try to maintain altitude..etc but do I tilt collective then spin yaw or spin yaw then collective or both or??

I'm working to develope good habits early when I can.
Jermo

[spork]

Well, there's likely to be some debate about this, and to some extent it depends on how much positive pitching moment the heli has in forward flight (I like 0.0).

But here's the deal. You'll bank into the turn with cyclic (i.e. side motion on right stick). Then you'll feed in enough back cyclic (right-stick) and rudder (left-stick) to maintain the turn. Throughout the turn the cyclic will be centered left/right, but will be aft enough to maintain the turn.

So, the left/right cyclic rolls you into and out-of the turn, but is centered during a coordinated turn. During the turn you have left (or right) rudder, and some aft cyclic. Some would argue that you have to add collective in the turn - which is true if you want to maintain your exact entry speed and altitude - but I don't usually bother with collective (I guess the forward speed just decreases slightly).

[vera]

Eyeball it to see if the nose and tail are following the same path and use however much rudder it takes to keep them together. I'm not sure that's clear. Turn up the imagination full blast and imagine a pencil attached to the nose drawing a line on the ground, and another pencil attached to the tail drawing a line on the ground. If you're doing the right thing with the rudder both lines will overlap.

If you fly with a heading hold gyro you will have to use some rudder or else the gyro will fight the turn. A standard gyro will fight a little but loose, but it helps to give a little rudder control. No gyro at all works without any rudder input because the tail will simply weathervane.

I donno about the simulator, but either way, real or simulated, eyeball it and do whatever is needed with the rudder to make the tail fall in line and follow behind the nose. If you have too much rudder the tail will be outside the circle - farther out than the nose, and too little rudder and the tail will be towards the inside of the circle - closer than the nose.