[Sgian Dubh]

So I have been trying my hand at the SH60 for grins.

So far I like the platform except for one exceptional problem which, in many ways, renders the SH60 as a "mini-Orion".

A helo's main advantage is to hover and then to proceed from place to place without having to fly big figure "8s". So I was trying to move the SH60 along a somewhat complicated set of waypoints. I noticed that it was overflying the waypoints and acting far more like a fixed wing instead of a helo.

But I said to myself, no problem. The Ai just isn't refined enough to really take advantage of the helo's flight characteristics. So I changed my waypoint configuration to "one-at-a-time" and allowed the helo to come to a hover at each way point before proceeding to the next one.

Boy was I surprised and disappointed when the helo, starting from a hover, had to fly a rather large (nearly 2 nm circle) to come about to the new course heading.

*Sarcasm on* Did the programmers not notice that there is this large, fan-like device on the SH60. It's called a tail-rotor and it serves to stabilize the yaw/heading of the helo. When a helo is in a hover and needs to change from a heading of 090 to 270, the pilot simply eases up on the rotor and the helo pivots in place. It can then proceed along the new heading. *Sarcasm off*.

Now, I will admit that initially, I did not see this taking place and/or I was more concerned with my sonobouys. I will pay closer attention next time. Perhaps I changed something and didn't realise it. But I don't think so.
It certainly makes setting up MAD runs far more tedious with the SH60 than need be if this behaviour persists.