ARM505

If you sit on your washing machine doing a spin cycle whilst playing, that's probably a start! :) Well, that's been my experience of fling wings in general - maybe having two rotors makes it better. I was very impressed to look very closely at the edge of the HUD, and especially at the wet compass up at the top of the windscreen to see them vibrating. Sorry for not actually answering your question though!

ABRIS VNAV is for planning purpose only - the autopilot cannot use info from the ABRIS for command guidance. Edit to add: OK, I'm going to have to stop racing GGT, he's always faster :)

This may be a silly suggestion, but it sounds like your PC is dying whenever the dust effects are supposed to be showing. There's a way to turn those off, but I can't remember how (some editing of a .cfg or .lua file). Turn them off and see if your PC still behaves the same way - at least it can help narrow the search down.

The moveable mountings and electrical connections required for the Vikhr's are not present on the inboard mounts.

This engine has always suffered from the 'supersoldier' effect, ie troops tend to be superhuman when it comes to absorbing the blast and fragmentation effect. Some excellent example screenshots are around from Lock On, with MANPAD troops standing amongst hundreds of craters as though nothing has happened.

Yes, as GG said - I always have some sort of wind and turbulence on, even if it's minor, otherwise you end up in that netherworld of computer simulation, ie a world of perfect physics where stable conditions can exist for an infinite time :) Autohover is an active (rather than mostly neutral or passive) stabilisation system - handy in the real world, when riding something that is most decidedly dynamic.

There's no such thing as a 'hands off' stable hover in a helicopter, especially in any sort of breeze. Autohover can do this for you though.

I know a skin isn't really a mod (or is it?), but there's an excellent Slovakian digital cammo job by VikVaughan / Toiletduck (?!), well worth having, and it works well for winter terrain.

An excellent post DD, defining the problems, with good suggestions as to solutions...

BS does use the texture trick, just it's not so pronounced, almost like the 'shutter speed' of your eye is very fast (just a tiny amount of blur). I think they've struck an excellent compromise (having watched lots of props and rotors IRL). As has been mentioned, it's very fps dependant - I have some details turned down, and it seems very good to me (normally 35+ fps). Props and rotors can be a bit of a sore point in some sims. Some people think it looks unrealistic if it doesn't look like what is seen in movies, but the truth is that real props and rotors don't look like in the movies at all. The '2/3/4 triangles glued to the hub' look of choppers in the movies is purely due to the fps of the recording device. IRL, props and rotors tend to look like a faint, almost completely transparent disc (especially props). You don't see 'motion blur' IRL, or at least not in quite the same way.

It seems like airliners, when compared to helicopters, have much larger margins of bleed air available from the engines. Plus, airliners tend to have a whole bunch more altitude to play with compared to helicopters, so there's time to sacrifice some thrust. In theory, a crossbleed start could be done in flight, in some weirdly abnormal situation. Some waffling: Having just done several crossbleed starts (unserviceable APU again) this week, it doesn't take much N1 RPM to get the required 30 PSI or so for the X-bleed start on the 737 - and as far as I remember, doesn't the QRH show envelopes for 'Starter-assist', and 'No Starter assist', ie it doesn't really care what the air source is? I'm going from memory here as I don't have a copy of a QRH with me. Therefore, in theory, you could use crossbleed in flight, although the 'Engine Inflight Start' checklist does pretty much tell you to use the APU, especially since you'd also need it to power the failed engines generator bus as well. All from memory, so I could be a little off on wording of the QRH bits. I have a technical refresher on the -200 coming up as well, so I suppose I should be studying anyway....

From the Boeing 737 manual (just for example) - use engine nacelle anti ice when TAT (total air temperature, ie Static air temp plus the increase in temp due to compression heating, if I can call it that) is below 10 deg C, AND in visible moisture. The key being the temp, combined with visible moisture. You shouldn't be able to ice the rotor blades, regardless of temp, without being in rain, sleet, snow, cloud, mist, fog etc as far as I can tell, but then I could be missing something.

It's like an elephant, flapping it's ears when it's angry and about to charge. :)

I'm told there's some kind of downside to editing the near and middle clip values. Does anybody know what this downside is?

But couldn't you just turn the autopilots assisted stuff off then? Or am I missing the point entirely here? (Entirely likely!) Is it easier (or do you specifically choose) to fly with no assistance, other than attitude guidance from the HUD?

I fly the real thing all the time (by real thing, I mean using a real FD, not Ka50!), and the FD's are almost always engaged, except during things like a visual approach, when changing the input info constantly is counter-productive. FD's are there for when the workload is so high, that your instrument scan could benefit from a 'single glance' point of reference. Looking at the FD bars (crossbars, in a B737 for example) immediately tells you if you've got things pointing in the appropriate direction. An example of this kind of situation would be some kind of failure that kicked out the AP, whilst flying in cloud. It's very easy for a slow roll to put you in an unusual attitude before you know it, and even easier for an engine failure to do the same thing. A quick glance at the FD bars gives you peace of mind (provided the FD is being given the right info of course). All it shows is what the AP would have done, had it been engaged. So, if you feel that you will not encounter a steady state flight condition (ie straight and level) where your AP is unavailable, and your workload will be high, do not use the FD mode. In the 737 of course, the FD's are on all the time if you've turned them on, regardless of whether the AP is engaged or not, it's not 'one or the other'. I never use the Ka50's FD's.

Whilst I too would love to see something like the Longbow, it's actually mind boggling how complex this thing is, and even more so to simulate an AI front/backseater. I can see why ED chose to simulate a single seater attack helicopter, a very wise choice. For those who want to get a clue just how demanding operating a Longbow Apache is, and how much crew co-ordination is required, read the recently released 'Apache' by Ed Macy, detailing the Royal Army Air Corp (something like that!) involvement in the Helmand province in Afghanistan. Frankly, I don't think a fully realistic representation of what this helicopter can do is possible on todays PC's, let alone a plausible CPG representation, where the dismal levels of even the best AI would really show up. The book is a good read (obviously they deal with the Westland Apache AH Mk1, the British version, but the concepts are the same), and the part dealing with the evacuation of Royal Marine Mathew Ford makes for very exciting reading. Worthwhile. My point then, is rather go for the A model Apache, rather than the latest and greatest Longbow version, there's a much better chance of getting something a little closer to reality.

Yup, that's the way it works...

Was just wondering about the same thing - I was cruising, weapon system in Nav (reset) mode (poor terminology, sorry), and the screen, which of course had been in it's grey, 'off' state, showed the test pattern for a little while. What triggers this? I've seen it before of course, but it would be nice to know the answer...

Definitely. FBW would allow pilots to safely unleash this things full potential. See how quickly those Commanche prototypes could roll?

'Damnage modelling'...but I'll call it realistic, nothing a Ka50 can carry will hurt a large damn!

Papa Doc, Papa Doc....now there's a name I haven't heard for about a zillion years....from the newsgroups? Comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flightsims or something like that? Sorry, OT, but the name somehow rang a bell...maybe I'm thinking of somebody else anyway.

There are infantry units (goodies and baddies, you can tell who the baddies are because they have beards ;) ), and they will fire at you with their rifles and MG's. They can move as well. Don't expect Armed Assault levels of AI though (ie they are even further below 'vegetable' level), they only do what they're set to do from the mission planner. Basically they're like mobile shooting targets, but they do the job and it's great that they've been included.

Seriously, modelling the electrical system in such detail (to manage voltage and amperage fluctuations and spikes as systems are switched on and off) is a) a seriously massive job, and b) of almost zero practical importance in this type of sim. Really, it would be of use to train ground engineers, thats it IMHO. I do it for a living, and believe me, you can only verify 115 VAC, 400 HZ, 28VDC (or whatever it should be) only so many times a day before it all becomes a bit dull. Of course, what is of importance, is knowing where systems get their power from (ie Gen 1 or 2), and if some kind of overload condition is occurring (unlikely). But actual volts and amps? Not in my opinion...

Your thumb is resting on the ALT key....just kidding, but it sounds like you have some kind of modifier inadvertently pressed (if the key commands aren't even working), possibly by a programmable joystick or something like that? I assume your keyboard is actually working. Try checking everything in notepad, or something more powerful along similar lines and see what is actually being sent by the keyboard and joystick. That was a pretty wild guess...