Ok, so Im still pretty new to this sim, and helo flight in general. So I have an issue with flying these things. I know its not a glitch and Ive been told to watch out for it (not sure what it was called exactly) But say I pop up over a mountain, theres an AA gun, I lock him, shoot a hellfire and try to hide again before he shoots me so I chop throttle a bit and descend, but then my helo starts wobbling and I have to power to 120% for about 3 secs to recover (and I usually dont have enough time to recover) So basically I descend and just plummet. Can anyone remind me what it was called and how to avoid this fate?

VRS, vortex ring state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_ring

Just add some forward speed and you will be fine.

Does anyone really call it that? I've always known it as settling with power. And you just push forward on the stick, a little forward speed will stop your decent.

From the Wikipedia article

"Settling with power" is how it's taught in the U.S. at both civil and military flight schools.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settling_with_power

In order to settle with power, you must meet three conditions:

You must be below your aircraft's ETL (effective translational lift) speed,
You must be descending at greater than 300 feet per minute, and
You must have a power setting of at least 20%.

So I guess if you could hover with only 10% torque then you would never have to worry about settling with power. But anyway, as has been stated several times, to get out of it you should reduce your collective and add forward cyclic to gain forward airspeed. So if it happens when you're really low, you're really screwed. :P

Thanks a ton guys! but is there anything I can do to avoid it completely instead of just knowing how to recover?

Yes there is. Keep watching your rate of climb/descent when you drop the collective to hide again. As mentioned, it shouldn't go below -300 ft/min.

Dan, I think you might want to read this article.

http://www.eechcentral.com/wiki/index.php?title=Vortex


No, it's just like how to get a spinning car straight again. Avoid it. Go low and slow, and prevent fast maneuvering.

Well, really there is a small "trick" to what you want to do.

When you "pop up" don't rise very high, only go as high as you absolutely need to, then when you drop down you don't need to drop but a few feet to be hidden again.

Also, if you fly as BLUE, then you can exploit the LOAL hellfire launch mode.
If you fly as RED, well, then you'll just have to wish you had a LOAL launch mode. =/

You might also consider circling attacks. Basically, you fly in, strike, then turn hard and circle back, then re-approach your hill or whatever you're hiding behind. like so:

T = Target
H = Helicopter
C = Cover
|/\ = Movement of helicopter

T



CCCCC
|\
| |
| /
H

Ok, thnks again for all the info! Im sure it will help me a ton!