Whirlybug Mark I for FS2002 and FS9.
Very simple helicopter with a self-powered rotor driven by two tiny engines.

I originally designed this as a back-of-the-envelope 'what if' concept and for a long time was considering actually building it.  Common sense (and lack of money) prevailed in the end and I have since redesigned it extensively.

Mark II has collective pitch, a conventional joystick and most importantly, the engines are mounted back to back, as close to the centre of rotation as possible and the propellers driven by shafts and 90-degree gearboxes.  Also, the main structure has been changed from mostly carbon fibre to easily obtainable and workable aluminium tubing.
Consequently, the weight and complexity has gone up quite a bit and I'm now having second thoughts about continuing with the design.  Ho hum.  :-)


However, I still have a soft spot for the old Mark I (as it is incapable of autorotation you would need a VERY soft spot!) and with a desire to see it fly, I have modelled it for Flightsim.

Fairly easy to fly if you can already fly M$ helicopters with the added advantage that you can safely do a run-on landing.

The 2D panel is aliased to the default Bell just for reference but I recommend the amazing 'Heli-HUD' panel by Stephen Hanley, available right here at Hovercontrol.
The simple VC has no gauges because the real thing doesn't have any either.  This is a 'seat-of-the-(brown)-pants' helicopter in every respect.

I have included a special gauge to trigger the clouds of two-stroke smoke that would be present at most power settings, plus the smoke effect...  


Installation:

Drop the Whirlybug folder into your main Aircraft folder.
Aircraft will show up as an Unreal Aviation Whirlybug Mk1.

Drop the fx_twosmoke.fx file into your main effects folder and move the Unreal folder into your main gauges folder.
You must keep the TwoSmoke.xml file in its folder or it won't work.

If you want the smoke effect to work automatically then you will have to edit your Bell206b (or whatever panel you use) panel.cfg file by adding the following line:

gaugeNN=Unreal!TwoSmoke, 2,2,0,0

where NN is the next gauge number in the sequence.  If you have decided to use Stephen Hanley's HeliHud panel then add the gauge to that.

Modifying your Bell panel,cfg in this way will have no effect whatsoever on the Bell but if you're worried, make a copy of it first.

You can of course simply toggle the smoke effect manually if you don't want to muck about editing config files.


Flying:

It's a helicopter - crash in the normal way.  :-)
Actually, it is really a joy to fly, especially from the VC and not too difficult to get used to.  I recommend 70% zoom for the VC.

Due to the whirling mass above your head the rotors actually carry quite a bit of inertia and it is not as agile as you might expect but with practice you can really throw it around and annoy the neighbours.

You can do run-on landings (recommended for safety in case of engine failure in real life) but the wheels have no brakes.  Pull back on the joystick and apply a teeny bit of throttle to brake.

For maximum realism you should REVERSE the axis on your joystick to mimic the control bar (not recommended).

Also for maximum realism; if you get an engine failure you should leave the throttle partially open so that the rotor doesn't attempt to autorotate but instead comes to a quick stop so that you plummet to your doom.  Aaaaaaarrrrgh!


Thanks to Lasse Lindh for taking time out to show me how to animate the rudder.


This is my very first helicopter release to the world.
Sorry the pilot doesn't move but this is only my third aircraft and I'm just getting started...

Comments welcome.

Have Fun.

Kevin Bryan
Unreal Aviation
