Welcome to ehcHeli

What is ehcHeli?

ehcHeli is an open-source cross platform remote control helicopter simulator. While still in its early stages, ehcHeli aims to offer the most lifelike physical simulation available, and for free rather than the $100s of dollars other good simulators cost.

A simulated helicopter that flies like the real thing, rather than a complex model with thousands of parameters to tweak is the goal. I believe that a simple physical model which makes many assumptions about the operation of a helicopter can provide a sufficiently accurate simulation when compared to a more complex model which attempts to simulate every part of a heli. The reduced number of configurable parameters will allow users to more easily tweak the simulation, the end result being a simulation which functions more accurately than much more complex models.

Graphics and flashiness are nor priorities, and while help is appreciated (for the program and the website), current focus goes to the simulation itself, so don't judge on the graphics.


Who are the developers?

estace is the main developer and started developing ehcHeli in his free time in early October 2010. Development has been slow because he has to squeeze time in between hunting down terrorists and ending world hunger. He believes that current helicopters simulators are either too inaccurate or too expensive.

crazynorman is a contributing developer. He began contributing late November 2010 and is playing an increasingly important role in the project.

Getting ehcHeli

ehcHeli is currently only developer friendly. You need to know how to use a commandline in order to use it. Therefore, we do not have any binary releases. You can get the latest copy from svn by running the following command:

svn co https://ehcheli.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/ehcheli ehcheli

Building ehcHeli

  1. Install glfw, follow all glfw instructions to set up your machine for glfw development.
  2. Under Linux run the following command:
    >./build
    Under Windows open the included solution in Visual Studio (Visual C++ 2010 Express Edition will work) and press F5.

Using ehcHeli

By default you can simply run ehcHeli

>./ehcheligcc

This launches ehcheli in keyboard mode. The controls are as follows.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 - Sets the throttle and collective pitch y,u,o,p - Tail rotor control a,w,s,d - Cyclic controls

You will quickly find that the helicotper is nearly impossible to control via the keyboard so you will want to use a flight controller or joystick. ehcHeli currently only supports controllers which expose a joystick interface. The common $20 FMS controller is supported. You must specify joystick control via commandline arguments. Here are some examples:

#Sets the throttle to channel 2 of joystick (reversed), keyboard for everything else >./ehcheligcc -t=j1r #Sets cyclic to channel 3 for x, 5 for y, 3 reversed, 5 normal >./ehcheligcc -c=j3r5n #For those of you who don't enjoy guessing channels, #this is the standard FMS controller configuration >./ehcheligcc -t=j2r -r=j3n -c=j0n1r #Currently there is no way to specify a joystick other than the primary joystick. #Maybe submit a patch ;-)?

Now you are all set to "fly." Press space to reset and escape to exit.