Helicopters

#1 I wouldn't imagine it being that difficult to implement yourself...

I would personally, have it have a constant acceleration normal to the helicopter, IE, the vector pointing UP from the Helicopters point of view.

#2 Depends how much you want it to behave like a helicopter. Some of the force and torque components to consider are:

1) Lift force parallel to the main propeller axis
2) Roll/pitch torque orthogonal to main propeller axis. This torque is a result of the lift imbalance imparted by the variation in blade pitch as the propeller turns and is used to cause the helicopter to pitch forward/backward and roll to the left and right. Pitching forward causes the main propeller lift force to have a forward component that accelerates the vehicle forward.
3) Propeller drag torque about the main propeller axis and in the opposite direction of propeller spin
4) Propeller gyroscopic torque orthogonal to both the main propeller angular momentum vector and angular momentum acceleration vector (rate of change of angular momentum)
5) Tail propeller thrust parallel to tail propeller axis. This thrust just balances the main propeller drag torque for straight forward flight. Thrust greater or less than the main propeller drag causes the helicopter to yaw. You can probably ignore the tail propeller gyroscopic torque.
6) Fusilage drag.

I think I hit the main ones. You can probably get by without some. Hope this helps.

Kristen.

#3 There is. I seen a video on the forums of one a while ago. Im trying to find it.

Ok found the thread

http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=18434

#4 You might want to try your luck with Peter Khojasti, who is developing Poacher, which appears to have fully functioning choppers.

#5 No thats fine. These are hover helicopters so i dont need to rotor system e.t.c

Well tweak the hover and flyer classes to achieve a similar result. Thanks for the replies.

#6 Brett Fettori has done helicopter simulations in Torque I believe.