So refreshing to hear a voice of reason talking about the Gaz. Thanks very much for making this video, it's very much appreciated.

Having been through the identical flying training as Gizmo - I totally agree with everything he says. I "Fly" the helo (and all helos I have ever flown) from the moment I start to move the collective and I am adjusting the rudder pedals before it has even left the ground. The skids are NOT level when you Take-off or Land. I seem to remember for the Gazelle it is the right rear skid tip that lands first and take of last. In the Lynx it was the Left rear as the main rotor went around the other way...

As a horse rider, flying the gazelle in DCS and how people treat it feels very familiar. People will be holding onto their HOTAS as if their life depended on it, getting tense and doing huge imprecise movements, ending up fighting the aircraft, just like novice horse riders will grab the reins as tight as possible and pull on them because they want to feel weight in order to feel safe. If you just relax, and use your HOTAS to indicate to the aircraft what you want to do instead of trying to force it into compliance, just like more experienced horse riders don't hold into their reins, but just slightly move them with very small movements and nearly no tension, because the more relaxed your arms are, the more precise your movements will be, and you'll feel way less like fighting the aircraft

“The cyclic doesn’t exactly behave the way you’d expect” The kind of wording that usually makes me preemptively dive under my desk…

This is brilliant! Keep the content coming!

Just 34 views, it's criminal that high quality info doesn't get better viewing figures

On my 15cm extended Warthog, I flew the Gaz at 100% sat and negative 5 curve cyclic. I love how nimble and twitchy it is. I could always put it exactly where I wanted with but a thought

Gazelle is my favourite module in DCS. Such fun to fly. Very nice to hear RN pilot describing the module. Cant wait for Polychop to finally fix the cyclic.

Wow now seriously interested in this module :) Thanks for this :)

This was incredibly helpful, thank you.

Good stuff Sly, keep these videos coming!

Hi Sly this is great stuff. Keep em coming

Bought the module a few days ago and on the first flight I couldnt really controll her. The UH-1 and the KA-50 are a lot more "lazy" and very different from the Gazelle. Now with Your tips the handling is much better and flying is fun and rewarding. Thanks a lot! I fell in love with the Gazelle and cant wait to dig deeper.

I think it is easy to fly, love that it stops very fast compared to the other helis. The only thing I do is hold a little yaw when flying else is just minor collective input to keep the altitude.

Subscribed, great stuff

Easy to fly, finesse flying at it's best. But learning the Gazelle will make you a better helo pilot.

Brilliant video, thanks! I have the same setup you do: the Pro Flight Trainer Puma, and at the moment I can’t enjoy the Gazelle sadly just because of how the cyclic behaves. With a Warthog stick it’s absolutely brilliant and lovely to fly, but not with the Puma at the moment. I’ll stick with the Mi-8 and Huey for now, but will definitely revisit this module later on 🙂

Brilliant video ✅

What an awesome nickname! :D

Great video, also, there is a way to increase your VR recording quality for the initial VR videos by setting ur desktop to 4K, are you familiar with that? Great video. Enjoying it. I’m loving the Huey and excited for the Apache.

Nice vid guys. Did you ever do an update after the updates?

It would be great to redo this with the new flight model

Great video, I've been looking into the Gazelle but my main point of hesitation is that it does look as though it has a lot of staying power due to a very limited load capacity and I'm a little uncertain of how its role actually fits into DCS and a lot of the missions encountered.

Wow. That some control setup you got. What brand is that and whats it cost. Impressed

Did they change the stick behavior on this recently? When I tried this module before it definitely did not work as a deflection or pressure side stick with center being the trim state and pressure causing a continuous rotation rate. I actually prefer this style similar to a Side Access Controller since I don't have a pole cyclic or FFB stick. This is why I use GlovePIE in EECH, Comanche Gold, and DCS's helos. Obviously that's not necessary in Janes Longbow 2, which, other than its glitches on modern systems and fact the autorotation, low RPM, and VRS (or whatever it is) doesn't work right at higher framerates, I consider the gold standard of SAC helo home sim flight models. Janes made a very smart choice using this AFCS flight law for Longbow, because hardly anyone owns pole cyclics or FFB sticks at home. I'm getting EECH very close to this now with ini changes and GlovePIE, and of course the RAH-66 and Tigre can both do this (among others) with Art Stab and auto trim pitch loads in X-Plane. I do not like the three available DCS trim stick settings. I think they should just have two choices: side stick with auto trim (currently not a choice as far as I know) or pole cyclic with no DCS trim (one of the current three options). The two joystick settings with center trimmed dead zone and manual trimmer button (one that waits for you to return to center and the other that doesn't) are idiotic options that represent no real helos and are just awkward for home sims. By the way, I've been harping on this joystick vs cyclic issue since Black Shark 1, and I'm also the guy that was lambasted on the DCS forums for claiming VR would eventually be huge for home flight simulators and beyond. Here we are, still talking about the DCS cyclic problems but not addressing the true core issue, and VR has blown up. Ignore my comments at your own peril.

Just started the dcs trial period on this helo. 9:50 talks about you have to control the helo all the time, but I found that if you just go of your joystick it just keep flying straight - as somebody said as if it is flying on rails. It feels very odd as there are no physics in place.

Well I have to get back to this copter now

Nice video, what settings do you recommand for a warthog hotas with 12.5 extension ?

I think a lot of players have taken out most slack from their sticks, iirc the devs had a self centering stick in mind controls wise but maybe im talking shit love flying it, it's so pure compared to the apache or even the hind

Are you guys using an actual collective control or just a hotas throttle? I also feel like a having an actual long cyclic would make it easier to fingertip fly I’m the hover, etc. ?

But the FM is still broken right? I mean it feels very aerobatic and it doesn't care if you are carrying missiles or not.

Thanks for help to understand it, Do you also know why often my Gazelle lose control or upside down all of sudden after flying about 20mins in the air? I dont know why but some times it happens.

If he sets saturation to 60% for a non extended stick, what should I set on my full size gooseneck extended stick? At 100% it is way too sensitive.

Very short. They need to fix the controls. I dont know what takes them so long, but I sure will wait with excitement. Guess 2022 would be a estimated timeframe. Should been have fixed already though..... Work harder :)

People needs to understand that what a Saturation means before starting to suggest it everywhere. A saturation is a ratio as percentage from input device to output device. Let say that one has joystick that tilts 35° in either axis. And for argument reason let's say that a real aircraft stick/cyclic tilts 35° degrees as well in any direction. Then 100% means that it is 1:1 ratio and 1° tilt in joystick means 1° tilt in real one. If one sets his saturation to 60% then it means that joystick can move to 35° angle, but it will move real stick/cyclic only 60% from its maximum tilt angle, so instead 35° it will only tilt to 21° degrees. And you have NEVER a capability to move that real stick/cyclic past that 21° to 35°. What would happen in a real aircraft if someone would come and physically limit your stick/cyclic movement range to 60% of it full movement range? You would die in the moment you are required to move that physical stick/cyclic past 60% movement range, but you can't as it is physically limited. You would never have 100% movement capability for your real stick/cyclic. Now why would a any engineer design a aircraft that will never be using more than, let's say 20-30% of its movement range in flight controls? That you need to do so tiny, so small adjustments that if you sneeze that you overdo it. No real helicopter has such sensitivity, not even R44 or R22. You constantly move very wide ranges of the controls in normal flight, you don't reach maximum but you have times when you need to give 100% of the control input to fly. Be it a full pedal, full collective, full cyclic forward or to side etc. There comes times when it is required or you die. Now if we simulate the aircraft and we make the control system so twitchy that you can't even move it with a extended stick, as same length as same real cyclic is (+/-5% accuracy in length) and you can not use even 10% of the movement range physically (from top of the stick) as in a real aircraft cyclic positions are as you flip around, it means that developers has just taken the input values from joystick wrong. Like when flying Gazelle, the cyclic doesn't move unless you wave joystick in 100% at full deflections. In real helicopter cockpit the cyclic moves a lot. We talk about 50-100 mm movement ranges to any direction, in hover, in level flights, in slight turns and so on. They cant just apply suddenly 200 mm forward cyclic as it flips things over, but that happens with 3-5 mm in virtual gazelle 3D model. And as Gazelle is so light helicopter, it should turn around instantly when that 20 mm cannon is firing. Requiring full pedal to compensate it's firing. Now there is nothing. No forces. Nothing. The 20 mm cannon far to the right can be used to fire forever and helicopter doesn't react to any of its forces at all. Same with rockets, missiles and all. The 60% saturation is just a dirty fix to get virtual gazelle in some kind control. But not a proper modeling regardless that.

id like to see this video remade now its had a flight model rework

Such good assessments in this video. Spot on. I was part of the tweaking of the flight model and the update on January 2018 with Sven, the CEO of Polychop. I've been saying FOR YEARS that the flight model IS correct. But everyone kept laughing at me (and others that maintained that same fact.) And it was only in the english speaking community. I have proof on tape from an actual special forces active duty gazelle pilot (still to this day) testing it in VR with properly sized flight contols. But sadly the video is mainly in french. Good to see someone from the english speaking community FINALLY corroborate those facts. It blows my mind that after 3 years of having it spot on, people are still complaining about the Gaz FM. If you're interrested in the footage I was talking about above, hit me up, I can also have it translated for you.

#crazyrussianpilot :-> Awesome video!👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

question is were did he do his training ?

Nicely done video Sly but the instructions was a little bit repeated.

Wait, how does a real heli's cyclic actually work then? Does it not snap to centre?

My Dad was based at Culdrose for a long time, was on 705 squadron for part of it before flying & instructing on Sea Kings. I guess it's possible he might have known Gizmo at some point. Anyway, as kids we'd go to the Air Day there a lot and back in the day there was a Gazelle display team called 'The Sharks' which was always a blast to watch. I'm enjoying trying my hand at flying one of these myself! Here's a bit of a clip of an air display I found : kzfaq.info/get/bejne/idiIi5Smqd66mX0.html

2x speed recommended

Good grief that should have been a 5 minute video and I am still unsure about 60% on pitch and roll. Is it 60% on X, Y or both?

Brilliant video. I referenced you Gizmo in my own appraisal. FWIW, 'Golf Echo' is the initials of my mate who has 15 years experience flying the Gazelle and watching from the sidelines! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/grufm5ihnd7PgHk.html

In the real world and it's strapped to your back you have more input going on, using a flight sim is not comparable, if you are deciding to buy the DCS module look for advice on setting your curves, otherwise you will be disappointed, but once mastered you'll reap the rewards.

It behaves unreasonable, doesn't seem the physics are modeled with respect to reality

Great Info. I tried the Gazelle (shit name), and i had heard from the community about it's handling and issues. But i didn't even get to setting curves, because i hate the sound of this chopper.

Bad FM is just an excuse from guys playing every module on a rush, switching from one to another. Just play the Gazelle one week, and muscle memory will do the rest. Curves or not. This heli does not feel arcade or simplified at all. It is just not a phat ass Huey.