cow_art

If Petrovich can spot / call out targets that would be great. But other than that, I really don't think we need a lot of fancy pseudo-AI functionality in the Hind. I think a streamlined UI that gives us simplified control of the other cockpit functions will do just fine.

^This and a quick patch to address rocket damage (perhaps just add a second, larger blast radius for non/lightly armored targets?) and I think I'd be a happy camper.

With new modules I usually begin with a hot start and just play around with my new toy for a while. With the Hind I'll just practice hovering / landing / low speed handling for the first few hours. Sort out my joystick axes and the most important HOTAS buttons. When I am somewhat comfortable with flying, I usually create a simple mission (a few trucks or whatever) and practice attack runs with various weapons. Long term I am in a similar boat with a few of the previous posters. With the current state of DCS ground AI I don't believe the Hind will do very well, which is a shame. But I personally enjoy flying whirlybirds and the Hind will be a blast, even if it will probably only work well in very specific, custom-made missions. So I'll stick to that and hope that with all the new choppers on the horizon, perhaps we'll get better ground unit behavior and updated rocket damage modelling some day (pretty please ED!)

Disclaimer: I am a gamer and have never piloted a real helicopter. I have absolutely no opinion on the realism of VRS in DCS. I just wanted to say that I find this discussion and your opinion as an expert extremely interesting. I started playing whirlybird games with Gunship back in the 1990s, and it never ceases to amaze me what a long way simulator games have come. I mean, back in the day I was happy to control an aircraft that "somehow" behaved like a helicopter (although in retrospect it absolutely didn't ). And now we are at a stage where real pilots discuss if some subtlety of flight dynamics are slightly over- or under-modeled compared to the real thing. For me as a gamer and aviation-nerd that's just amazing I have to admit the argument "if it was this easy to kill yourself with the Mi-8 there probably would be more cautionary tales" does have a lot of merit. Hell, there is an audio warning if one of the (redundant) generators fails for a second. Wouldn't there also be some sort of warning if we are close to the part of the flight envelope that spells "certain death"?

Something that got me in the beginning: the interaction between generators and autpilot: The generators fail, when rotor RPM drops too low (this happens quite often when you pull collective too fast). The autopilot also turns off completely when the generators fail (not just heading/alt hold, also the stabilizer channel. It makes the Mi-8 quite a bit harder to control) Luckily, the generators come back online automatically when RPM is back to normal The autopilot does however NOT come back on together with the generators. You need to manually push the button to get it back. For this reason I always turn on one of the fans at startup. The fan stops spinning when the generators have failed and it resumes spinning when they are back. That way I know when I can re-enable the autopilot after a generator fail

I second this. For me, the HMCS is perfectly positioned when I am playing in VR. But when I play with TrackIR it is too low (I need to look up at an awkward angle to place the HMCS where I want it to be). It would be great if we had the option to adjust the HMCS position (or a keybind to recenter it). Thanks!