Great video step dad! Keep up the content mate, its great to see you showing the non believers that the Apache is far from unflyable!

I needed this. DCS virtual ground crew looking at me like I'm drunk.

Great vid as always mate! A good tid bit to pass on from my Lynx flying days for those who are struggling - You're thinking too much. Stop it. Stop *thinking* about what you need to do, and *do* it instead. You've got to tell the conscious part of your brain to STFU, and fly the crate. Pick something on the topography near you, and *just* hold a relative attitude/position to it. When you stop shoving the thought process in the way of your subconscious, it turns out its really good at holding you relative to something. Rolling to one side? Let the body deal with it. Side slipping? Look at the topo, pick a thing, and stop relative to it. Oh, and my pet peeve from when I did my instructing stint: STOP SLAMMING CONTROLS. Gentle, gradual inputs make a happy, controllable airframe. A happy airframe makes a happy chief. A happy chief doesn't bust your balls cause they're changing the swash again.

Good pedals made a difference for me in managing Helicopters

Huey is good practice for this as it doesn’t have a hud/Monocle so you have to look up and out and ‘read’ the terrain. Try the lift off but without the monocle.

3:53 Nailed it, especially that play with jets part :D

“You’re gona get frustrated and play with the jets, which is lame” haha, best helo pilot quote.

These short and specific videos are great resources for learning this thing, thanks a ton!

When I fly Huey or Mi-8 in DCS I look outside of the helicopter so I can hover (more or less). In Apache I need to force myself to not stare at the acceleration/velocity cue and look at the surroundings, because looking at the cue makes it much harder for me to stabilize the hover (despite I believe that it was designed to help you with hovering, not to distract your attention :) )

oh dang this is super helpful, thank you up til now i've just been flying drunk to cancel it out

Thank you for the videos it's really helped a lot. I've only just started using the Apache in the last couple of weeks and haven't even fired the weapons. My main focus has been taking off and hovering and a little bit of low level flying. Personally for me I'll enjoy the other parts of the Apache once I've mastered the hovering. I'm using the turtle beach stick with twist but have just received my WinWing Hotas which should help a lot.

Чувствуется рука профессионала!!!

I found for me, great practice to "getting on top of everything at once" is switching from CPG seat back to pilot seat whilst in a hover. Yet another great vid, thanks for putting all this stuff out and for taking the time, I've had so much fun learning the Apache!

Best Hover IA George Mode On :)

“Get frustrated and go play with jets which is lame” LOL. So good! This last year and a half I’ve gotten so into Heli’s on DCS multiplayer, a lot more entertaining because not only are other players trying to kill you, but so is the ground and the helicopter itself sometimes.

I think this community sometimes takes for granted what it's got. We've got an awesomely detailed world to play fighter pilot/apache pilot and get ourselves into all sorts of mischief. And we've got people like you, C.W Lemoine and a few others (I forget their names, but if you know any reply to this so I have more content creators to follow!) who have done this for real and are willing to bear with those of us who didn't go to flight school and maybe didn't even finish high school as we try learn how to pilot these awesome machines from the safety of our own homes. Thanks for your work Casmo!

Loving these video's about controlling the aircraft. Would love to see more like this, including more advanced and evasive maneuvering from hover and flight in motion!

I just keep flying every helicopter in DCS as much as I can and memorize by feel the rough positions of the cyclic and pedals on liftoff. A force feedback stick would really help with the trimmer, but i've got my own janky system to trim as well. I have stopped trimming for hover as well and my hovers have gotten better for the AH64. Although at a target area, I prefer a subtle 10-20 kt strafe, especially against BMPs with toe missiles.

Great tips, thanks Casmo. I do struggle with this at night, taking off or landing with a regular combat load. I think a lack of peripheral vision hampers my ability to get ahead of the aircraft quickly enough. Practice, practice, practice.

Good stuff Casmo. This is where I hope they add a windsock to the airfields so we can predict effects on the aircraft movement. Holding a tail-wind hover is much harder than off the nose.

As a kid.....many years ago now......I was always fascinated with helicopters. I actually wanted to go in the Army and fly them, but alas my eyes were not good enough. Thanks for the video Cas.

Great Video Casmo, can't wait to get the Apache! Love my Hind but still haven't mastered her.

Wish I had someone to give all these tips in 2008 when I was learning the Black Shark. That's an even easier helicopter to fly, and it was still giving me fits when I was new. Only stuck with it because, as you said, going to play with jets is lame.

Just came back after a few months and noticed the yaw trim is working correctly now. You barely have to use the pedals as much to takeoff now. I think a lot of people use too much input, but they are also using a desktop stick with no extension. I would recommend at least a 20cm extension for better control. Relax your grip and just control it with light tension. With the extension you only have to move the stick with a couple fingers.

"you'll go play with the jets which is lame." 🤣

Very good Video again. You gotta anticipate what the aircraft is doing...that is the hey point in aviation. Whether it's a hover in a helo or AAR in the fixed wing department. The more experience you have on your chosen mod the better you'll get at it...hopefully that is. 😉 I fly in VR only. It gives me the perfect immersion and 3D vision. Especially helpfull in a helo. Thanks Casmo for sharing this video. You're the man. Let's go put some warheads on foreheads 🤘🏻😄 (I love that line of yours...can't ya tell 😇)

Regarding wobbling i discovered that it is not necessary to apply curve/saturation to all axis but only on the roll axis. I have warthog stick with circa 20cm extension: pitch-all default,no curve, roll- linear &35% saturation, yaw 20% curve, default saturation. This settings made it so much controllable for me.

nice video as usual. You can get rid of the mesmerizing monocular by pressing "I" and learn to fly the bird with a better impression of movement. For overcontroling issues,try to fly the thing link an umbrella on your fingertip.

Half the time I don't even flip down the monocle till after I finish initial climbout. I am looking outside the the whole time and for me it is easier to hover without all that extra stuff than it is with it.

See the motion, stop the motion, settle down!.

Good tips :)

OMG, this is soooo me.

So, tl;dr - get good :D In other words - practice!

Hey Casmo. Just a quick note concerning a lot of gripes I have had. I have the stable (non beta) version of DCS. They just released the update finally that the beta guys have had for a few months now. Holy smokes! They made some HUGE improvements regarding the Apache. Other than the visual improvements to lighting and graphics they reworked the infamous SAS SATURATION that used to drive me nuts. Now it's just a short beep and the message flashes briefly. So much nicer not having that thing yelling at you. Overall the Apache just works smoother. Maybe it's just me, but I am trying to find update list to see what all they added/changed/removed. Or a video. If you know of such a thing, please share. I will keep looking and hope to see a new video from you soon!

Hey @CasmoTV can you make a short video about aerobatics please? I'd love to understand the hammerhead maneuver! Thx

Blaze it

I found that the aircraft wanted to roll over on me on take off. I thought there was something wrong with the aircraft at first, or maybe because I was taking off from un-prepared terrain but it turns out it's normal and I just needed to pre-empt it. Just like Casmo, back and left a little and she picks up great. @Casmo how do you have your rudder set up. I'm following chucks guide for my curves etc but i'm finding that the pedals are WAY sensitive. Slightest touch of them is full left/right pedal which obviously becomes next to impossible to control in a smooth manner. For reference i'm using Crosswind v2's.

Great vid @Casmo, one question- I get into a hover with little to no rudder input, i am guessing that's the heading hold taking effect is this a correct assumption?

single biggest problem with the Apache is framerates. if you have less than 30fps (especially in VR), then you can'[t possibly fly the heli. no chance for a stable hover. So check the fps, lower the gfx settings until you have stable above 30. before that dont evbe try to fly this. Other than that of course its not easy, but after 2 weeks of flying on e hour here and there i am comfortable to land on a rooftop (or hove abvove it for that matter)

Took me awhile to figure out that I don't need pedal input for hover. The aircraft holds the heading all by herself, it seems, although sometimes we fight for control a little bit. Which can be annoying.

How did you put the SRS overlay in the base of your monicle?

Nice. Now if I could only get taxiing down. Rudder pedals do my head in....

Have you also tried the helicopters on Microsoft Flight Simulator and what do you think?

My recipe for stability is: freeze the controls. Just don’t move then at all. Fix axes one by one then freeze it again. Move to the next one. Collective: pick the chopper up then freeze it. As one gets better the amount of deviation following the inactivity of the controls will shrink. You’r wobbling? Freeze everything. Deal with axes patiently and individually Hover: don’t do it! Just stabilize your axes. Hovering should not be the aim, it’s just a consequence.

Do you unlock the tail wheel so that you get a feel how much it wants to spin?

Apache unflyable? lol ... uhm i guess those are ka-50 drivers (the shark is so easy to fly u can use a gamepad). Yes the flight model needs some work (its EA), but its far from unflyable. Those peiple should start practicing on the UH-1 (no fancy pants SAS to save your butcheeks).

i never trim the choppers. i use muscle memory.

Every time I let go of the cyclic my aircraft starts pitching up and rolling until it crashes, this is on the runway instant action mission.

Weird chopper to fly u gotta treat like a fixed wing a/c u need forward movement to get some sort of control

Jets are lame, you heard it here folks.

If the symbol is creating a trendency the pilot chase, why didn't they(military )redesign it to go opposite the way? That's killing me. I like mi24p bs123 mi8 flying experiences as they are smooth to fly, and autopilot sys is doing really pro. When flying with ah64d, i feel no good and a bit frastrated ,even more the auto hold alat function always disengaging itself and failing to activate. It's just like an incompleted autopilot system installed to it and not to a usable standard(maybe just not for me), but the strange thing is that they are actually using it in reality today.

play with the jets because it's lame? I couldn't agree more

i dont get the point of the video. in the beginning you say: "even if you dont have trouble [...]" what do we learn here? use your trimmer to trim out the Apache to get a stable hover?

There's 3 options for the trim button. Which one do you use please ?