scoobie

Just one clarification, if I may: pitch and roll are SAS (engaged together with the middle green button on the center pedestal and disengaged together with a red button on the cyclic), but heading and altitude channels are real "HOLD" autopilots. If you're interested in some peculiarities of Mi-8 autopilot in DCS - here's some I've learnt. Provided that there have been no changes introduced to Mi-8 autopilots in DCS, you may encounter altitude oscillations after engaging ALT HOLD. Sometimes it just works - you turn on ALT HOLD and it just "snaps". As expected. Some other times, however, you may see that she starts to oscillate in altitude, as on a rollercoaster. The longer you allow it, the bigger the oscillations get. It seems to be a clash of two autopilot channels - pitch (controlling your cyclic) and alt hold (contolling your collective). Sometimes they feel like having a little fight and work against each other. If it happens to you, here's what I do with it: 1. Don't engage ALT HOLD if your vertical velocity isn't small. If you trim her first, ALT HOLD seems to "snap" nicely more often. 2. If oscillations do occur - I counteract with the stick, looking at the ALT HOLD channel. When VVI goes up or down towards zero and I can see that silly ALT HOLD channel tries to ruin it ("overreact"), I counteract with the cyclic. After 1, 2 or 3 such counter actions, ALT HOLD should finally give up and settle down. Once oscillations stop, they seem to never reappear, so you don't need to worry (i.e. until you disangage and re-engage ALT HOLD again). 3. Another quite good option: don't use ALT HOLD if your cruise is not going to be long - she trims so well that you may simply trim her for straight and level. There seems to be few aircraft in DCS that trim so nicely (Huey is not one of them). Lastly: HDG hold is very attractive for cruise in windy conditions (or for long cruise), especially when you're navigating with the DISS system or you're homing on an NDB. If the drift gauge shows some drift, you may engage HDG hold and tune the heading very precisely. Then you observe that DISS navigation panel (or NDB bearing change tendency) - correct, check, correct, check and you will get home every time (in a more or less straight line, not a spiral ). Very handy! I have a separate (ON)-OFF-(ON) toggle switch for tuning HDG channel (well I have such switches for all autopilot channels, but I'm crazy). Two notes for HDG hold: Make sure you understand that touching pedals temporarily disengages HDG hold. Takes a bit of patience to get used to. During cruise it's great, but on approach/landing - less so, read below. If you moved your pedals off the center position (and temporarily disengaged HDG hold), you now cannot turn HDG HOLD off with the red button on the center pedestal! I suspect it may be a bug. First center your pedals, then turn off HDG hold, then fly. This may cause a lot of trouble if you have HDG HOLD on and you think it's OFF... and you approach LZ, at some point center the pedals (because you retrimmed her) and BANG - the big lady suddenly tries to rotate, e.g. 3 meters above ground. Not very funny, it's good to remember about it

Yeah, lighting is a mess, currently. I saw... on Youtube, I think, a version of Mi-8 in which those plafonds on the ceiling literally flooded the interior with light (it was a version prior to my purchase of Mi-8). I think someone thought it was too bright (on Youtube it actually did look artificial, overdone), so apparently they came and fixed this... and now the flood lights are way too dim My standard joke is that those plafonds give "short wave" light - a wave one or two feet short, then the light stops They do illuminate the overhead portion of the cockpit, but lower down you can't see a thing. Instrument backlight was brighter, too. (In Huey, flood lights are nice and bright - both the yellow and the green light. Instrument backlight and those lamps shining down from the top of the dashobard - they're all good, you can tune interior lights exactly as you want). So... for night flying I always use NVG, but it requires dimming the instruments, so that you can comfortably see both the ground/cockpit and the pointers/arrows/needles in instruments through NVG, more or less at least. NVG gives rather cr*ppy quality picture, but you can see more or less where the vertical velocity pointer, air speed pointer are - judging from the angle of the pointers. However, "hover gauge not working" light bulb cannot be dimmed and burns your eyes terribly in NVG. I've composed a whole "symphony" of settings in Joystick Gremlin so that I can tune ALL 6 backlight knobs with a single potentiometer, but still - it's just a workaround attempt. Moreover, NAV lights, depending on time of day/night (or perhaps weather, too, but I'm not sure) may flicker when set to dim or at least they used to flicker sometimes when I last checked that. When set to bright, they don't flicker, but bright is/was no brighter than dim. And sometimes dim NAV don't flicker. (No, I wasn't looking through the rotor, that's not why they flicker). The only better light as compared to Huey at least, is search lights. In Huey the search light is virtually non-existent (unless they've fixed it recently, haven't checked). This makes it impossible to play through a few missions in Argo campaign (those where you are forbidden to use NVG and have to use search light instead). Anyway, in Mi-8 you get two spots of yellow light on the ground that you can "steer" to wherever you want. If the spot from a single light is still too dim for somebody (it was for me), than - again - Joystick Gremlin works wonders, I use a button to "slave" left search light to the right one (or vice versa, whatever), so I can slew them together with a coolie hat. If you direct both lights at the same piece of ground below, you get a really bright light spot and you can actually search for something. Taxi light seems okay to me in Mi-8, does the job. Meh... it's a pitty, those lighting issues, because otherwise Mi-8 is a goddess. Oh, and weapon effectiveness quirks (cannons less effective than 12.7 mm guns against armor etc.). Othewise - truly a wonder of nature, both the module and the RL helicopter.

Hi! The "yellow flash" bug was reported separately in numerous places on the forums. ED know about it, but I guess it may be a hard nut to crack for them and perhaps someone there has already got a headache trying to pinpoint the nature of the bug. @[DBS]TH0R - would you mind re-posting the first picture from your post above in THIS topic? This one seems to be the "main" topic relating to this bug. What is interesting in your picture is that lots of people have this milky-white/yellow/red/black pattern (always in that order), but it never looks exactly the same, as if it was some kind of a bitmap "3D-transformed" to "fit the scene", so those shapes get distorted each time in a different way. And sometimes there is no white part (in your picture it seems to be missing EDIT: wait... or it is the stripe between the green scenery and yellow "sky" - that looks kind of milky white) or there's only the yellow part... as if only a part of that pattern was visible sometimes. Well, I don't get a clue. Maybe your picture could help ED, if only a little bit, to figure out what's going on?

You, Sir, are bloody right! I had like 2 hours in the Huey (my first DCS module and first chopper ever) and mindlessly jumped into "UN Pilot" campaign. I could hardly fly, so I failed time and again, had to go practice, then return and attempt a mission again, then after each successful mission, once I shut Huey down, I would press F2 and look at the rotor as it was spooling down until it completely stopped - the reward for the hard work P.S. Okay, okay... I'm still doing it - watching the rotor spooling down or waiting until the engine on a jet stops, but don't tell anyone.

Hi, same here, I've had this red exhaust since I bought her in... May (?) 2020.

Short answer: no. At least not at the moment. It's not so much about Mi-8 as a helo, but - as said above - it's about rocket damage. For example, you may fire a tonne of rockets a foot away from a heavy armor's track and it will do literally nothing. Only a direct hit may do any damage and... now I can't remember, but possibly you have to use those rockets optimized for anti-personnel, not armor! Go figure! In Mi-8 also damage from cannon pods (23 mm, iirc) is lesser against armor than from 12.7 mm GUV guns. So... Mi-8 rocks, it's one of the best modules in DCS, IMHO, but weapon effectiveness howls for attention from the devs, I think In DCS: Mi-8 you can carry up to 120 rockets! 120! (For pounding light armor or*) unarmored targets, those rockets and other weapons on Mi-8 are just fine). *) Nah, sorry - not sure about light armor, can't remember atm.

Thank you, that's a piece of valuable information, too! As for the MiG-15... (sigh) I mixed it all up. I bought the MiG and F-86 at the same time and I'm working on the files in both modules at the same time In MiG-15 ADF tuning crank actually IS a default_axis(), so no problem - you simply adjust gain to your liking, as you showed above. I was thinking about F-86 and not ADF tuning, but - as in example above - wing span adjustment on the gun sight (it's a bit too fast for me in numerous aircraft). I can see that in different modules the "fashion" in which these files are written varies. "File styles", let's call it. Especially old modules seem to be more "stiff", whereas newer ones - more flexible. On average, at least. I'm trying to make a kind of "solution catalogue" for these different "file styles". I don't want fish, I want a fishing rod. Anyway - back to the P-47 Spit (sorry) - for those of you who don't like trimming in P-47 (or any other controls, for that matter), all I can do is encourage you, people, to dive into it, modify those files, because quite often you'll be able to fine tune e.g. the axis response etc. and live happily ever after. LeCuvier showed how. You don't need to be a programming high priest, not at all! That's, I think, a more sober approach to the problem than waiting until ED come and tune every nook and cranny in all the modules... which is especially discouraging for them, I think, because the "tastes" may vary between different users, who - to make things even worse - use different controllers! At the end of the day it may turn out that it's impossible for ED to please everyone. So... it's easier and faster to do it yourself. Just make sure you backup EVERY file you are to modify, for if you sc**w it up too much, the module won't even run. Then it's not overly funny And you also need a tool to keep track of your changes, because each DCS update will RESTORE original files and thus you'll lose all your precious modifications. I'm using Git, but if you don't know what it is, I can't recommend it, instead try one of those easy to use mod managers etc., I hear they're really cool.

In this post @philstyle showed a video (thank you!) and I took a screenshot of it. Don't know if it helps, but these "flickers" are just a "madman's vision" of a scenery, they are pictures! (I thought they were geometrical shapes). The white blob at the top (it's fake), then yellow... sky? then red... distant scenery? blurred with air? the black part is obviously hell! The clouds on the black background are however real - they appear on "true" image as well. And then there's a clear line separating madman's vision from a true image below. Anyway, IT IS A PICTURE, a crazy render of some part of scenery. And this picture changes depending on where you are, maybe how much you roll etc. Only the "basic rules" for this picture seem to be the same - white-yellow-red-black. Sometimes red may be invisible etc. - but I think it depends on this exactly - where you currently are. EDIT: After a moment of reflection... it may well be something completely different - I admit, but it IS a picture and its position on the screen does vary depending at least on pitch/roll/something-like-that.

Hear, hear! That's how it's done, though it must be a "default_axis" or anything of this sort (above it's "cabin_axis_limited") - then you may tune gain. Do you, by any chance, know what to do when the design is somewhat different - like this one: In joystick file, there's this: {pressed = iCommandPlaneIncreaseBase_Distance, up = iCommandPlaneStopBase_Distance, name = _('A-4 Sight Wing Span Adjustment Knob - Wing Span Increase'), category = _('A-4 Sight')}, Looks hard-coded, so I looked at clickabledata.lua and saw this: elements["Wing_span_adjustment_knob"] = { class = {class_type.LEV}, hint = _("A-4 Sight Wing Span Adjustment Knob"), device = devices.A4_GUNSIGHT, action = {device_commands.Button_1}, arg = {716}, arg_value = {0.0215}, arg_lim = {{0,1}}, updatable = true, use_OBB = true, gain = {0.1}, cycle = false } That's all there is to wing span adjustment, no "default_axis", no nothing, just this. I tried to tweak arg_value and/or gain, but they seemed to do nothing (of course I was restarting DCS upon each change). Maybe it's because the lever is driven by those iCommandPlane... things and they are something separate, independent from that structure above? Or perhaps I just made some stupid mistake, I really don't know. Then I made a silly forced attempt like this: {pressed = device_commands.Button_1, cockpit_device_id = devices.A4_GUNSIGHT, value_pressed = 0.5, name = _('A-4 Sight Wing Span Adjustment Knob - Wing Span Increase EXPERIMENTAL'), category = _('A-4 Sight')}, but of course... it SETS the lever to a prescribed value (0.5 = the very middle of travel), instead of "moving" it by a specific increment/decrement from where it was an instant earlier I have no idea how to approach this kind of design.

It's not only an issue with trimmers. There's a multitude of examples, various planes, various controls. For instance, try and bind ADF (ARK-5?) tuning crank in MiG-15 and you'll have a lot of fun trying to tune to a specific NDB It's next to impossible. If, however, you use the mouse scroll wheel on the crank, it works in nice small increments and tuning is easy. I did work around it by digging up in clickabledata.lua and/or default.lua (IIRC the file names correctly), but with a limited success - the crank does move slower, but I'd like it even slower and further tuning down didn't seem to work. @LeCuvier - please do! Your controller related posts have helped many people even if some of them didn't reply on the forum. Myself included, so here's my "Thank you, Sir!" I've learned from you and can't imagine flying a plane without tweaking those files to suit my HOTAS, my button box etc. If one puts Joystick Gremlin or similar software on top of that - it works wonders

Same here. FWIW - how it works on my PC: I always see it in Normandy (I don't have the Channel and Syria, if it matters), never in Caucasus, haven't tried in PG and NTTR. It may not be related directly to a specific aircraft, since you're having those "flashbangs" in the Spit and I'm having them in 109. They never show up directly upon mission start, at least when it starts on the airfield. I always need to fly around for a while before they eventually start turning up and once they do, they're popping up in bursts - a few flashbangs within a few seconds, then a pause, then another burst. I don't remember if those bursts continue when I'm landing. Perhaps it's related to altitude? No idea. My "flashbangs" are composed of the part of exactly the same hue of pretty yellow as in the video above, the yellow part is kind of triangular (top left part of the screen in the video), but mine also have a narrow red stripe underneath the yellow part. Such pattern of colours pops on the screen in various places, sometimes lower, sometimes higher and at slightly varying angles, but always across - generally from left to right, never vertically. Obviously, apart from the coloured part we get a "general flash" on the screen, but it's so fast that I can't see exactly what it is - as if the whole screen was dimmed with something for a single frame or sth. I guess these details won't help anyways EDIT: I don't know how video editing software works (never used one), but if anybody of you have it then perhaps you could isolate a single frame in the video to see what it is exactly on the screen? Maybe such a screenshot ("frame-shot") could be meaningful to to somebody technical in ED?

As for the fuel - I don't know, but there's a solution for weapons. One good soul here on the forums found a way, but I don't know where exactly is his post. I can't reach my DCS PC now, so I'm saying this from memory. On the bomb panel there's a guarded switch... I THINK it says "BOMB RELEASE" in English cockpit (but I'm using the Russian one, so it's probably СБРОС БОМБ or something). 1. Unguard the switch and keep it unguarded so that you can "reload" weapons as many times as you wish later on. 2. When you're out of ammo, press... "U" (I think it's "U", but check it in "controler assignments") to "release bombs" and then your weapons should magically "replenish" ammo. I guess you may also just "grab" the switch with the mouse and flip it, instead of "U", but I didn't do it that way. Now... IIRC, there might have been a quirk that non-totally-empty rocket pods wouldn't "replenish", but I can't really remember, I may be wrong about it. If I am NOT wrong though, then you need to shoot all rockets from a specific pod first, and only then "U" will work. I can't remember - I was using unlimited ammo long time ago. Try it, worked for me You may ask "what could bomb release switch have to do with unlimited ammo?" - don't ask me, but it works

You might want to check the manual on p. 176, "Nose wheel steering system" - they describe it better than I could. Steering system is perhaps a little bit tricky on this plane.

Oh, damn... I WAS floating in clouds! Sorry. I don't know the answer. There must be some rationale, design decision, something, but I just don't know I was just trying to figure out how this contraption ("front assembly") works in terms of its mechanical design - what moves together with what etc., to make sense of what the manual (RL one) is saying.

Good point! Manual says this: "The bombing altimeter (...) consists of a standard cabin altimeter connected to the static air source and indicates airplane pressure altitude." (Doh, silly me... so I have the answer to my previous question - it IS a standard altimeter with that whizzbang assembly attached on top... I could've read the inscriptions!). My blind guess: How do you obtain your target's altitude? If you read it from a paper map, then such maps don't have QNH knobs built in. So... gee, I've just realized I never thought about it. Apparently maps are drawn with elevations scaled in pressure altitude (1013.25 or 29.92). What else could they do - print 50 maps for some typical QNH values? Sounds crazy. If so, this "spare" altimeter is also "fixed" at pressure altitude, so you compare apples to apples and thus get no error (in terms of when to release bombs). But I'm floating in the clouds now, I don't know if it makes any sense. Another reason for a separate altimeter is simple (this one is not a guess) - they wanted a pilot to look at the sight, keep the pipper on the target and at the same time, without any disturbances, be able to see release altitude. So they tried to put this instrument as close to the sight as possible.

Thank you, but... I've written a few times I know how to work around the issue (add two numbers). My claim is different: the instrument in DCS is CLEARLY BODGED and it's OBVIOUS, people. Come on. How could this have happened? I think I know it, too: a guy from Belsimtek didn't figure out how the instrument works (of course they are super bright guys, they must be - judging from how crazy difficult things they do for life). Maybe the guy was in a hurry, deadline for release was close etc. It happens, even to world champions, and that's okay. Sh*t happens. No worries. If anybody (especially from ED) cares, please bare with me. DISCLAIMER: It is NOT a rant. What I care about is how things really work and I think I figured it out. If - at any point in future - DCS: F-86F is to be "refreshed", I think ED might consider reworking the bombing altimeter. Just a kind proposal, OK? Why I find it important, even though everyone knows a workaround? Because it is the only true to life way of delivering bombs in F-86 (LABS is for nukes, and "normal" auto/manual release was supposedly forbidden), so it would be nice if the bombing altimeter was real, and not a fantasy creation. RL manual actually says how the instrument works, though the wording could be a bit clearer. If anybody cares, READ THE RL MANUAL, PLEASE, at the bottom of the front page in the copy I have it reads: "27 MAY 1960 CHANGE 10 - 30 APRIL 1971". Perhaps other versions of the manual could work as well, I don't know. Start with "MANUAL PIP CONTROL SYSTEM." on page 162 in PDF (which is page 4-36 in print), read the whole section (2 pages or so). Each single sentece, one by one, carefully - only then things "click" to form a coherent picture. I attached a crude picture. The instrument seems to be a (nearly) STANDARD altimeter with an additional assembly attached on top of its face. "Nearly" means there must be some way to attach that whole front assembly and hold it in place. I think it may be held by some kind of a metal ring outside of the altimeter's scale (normally covered by the front assembly), but it might be attached through the axis, too (the latter seems flimsy, but I don't know). The assembly comprises: 1. The outer ring with a toothed surface around its lower (closer to the underlying altimeter) part. Perhaps the teeth are on the outer surface, but I don't know. The ring is "driven" by the knob at the bottom left of the instrument - as the result the knob turns the whole assembly around. 2. The target altitude pointer, which is either a physical "needle" turning with the assembly or perhaps it is just a line painted on the glass - provided that the front glass is a part of the assembly (the glass may be attached to the underlying altimeter as well - so I don't know), 3. A part of the ring is a quarter-circle white scale for index altitude. 4. A "black arm" to set index altitude on the white scale, whereas the other half of the black arm (opposite to its axis of rotation) is the white pointer, which eventually gives the pilot a PROPER RELEASE ALTITUDE (that's the purpose behind this instrument, which RL manual also explicitly states). The black arm can be rotated around the ring, but remains where you leave it and then rotates together WITH the ring if you turn the knob (friction pad or whatever of this sort). PROCEDURE: * Obtain index altitude from MPC panel. * Set it on the white scale with a black arm. White painted arrows (one on the very arm, the other on the ring just above the white scale) tell you where you "count" thousands of feet of index altitude (this is why it says on the ring: "INDEX ALT. 1000'S FT" - to make it clear). * Turn the whole ring so that target altitude pointer is set correctly (so now, quote: "White pointer now indicates proper bomb release altitude for the particular target selected."). * Dive, drop, pull-out when the underlying's altimeter pointer meets the white pointer. Does the picture make it more clear for anybody? The bombing altimeter in DCS is just wrong, fake, fantasy. EDIT: At first I didn't look carefully how the whole assembly seems to be attached to the altimeter underneath it. This is my guess, but it looks as if the alitmeter is 100% standard, not "nearly standard" as I wrote. The whole "front assembly" looks as if it was just screwed on top of the altimeter. If so, then the body of the whole assembly is rectangular outside and is screwed on top of the altimeter. Perhaps the alitmeter is screwed to the dashboard by separate screws (flat heads), which are offset to the screws visible on the picture. Or perhaps you attach both the altimeter and the front assembly by one set of screws, like a "sandwich". I'm not sure. Anyways, if this is true, then it means this: * This assembly doesn't need its own glass as the altimeter has it. * Red pointer actually is a physical needle and probably it's just a piece of steel wire (painted red), simply wrapped around the center pivot (which, in turn, can be as simple as a screw on top and a nut underneath). It's okay to do it this way, because you read (set & read) target altitude on the scale, which is outside, far from the center. The important part is to attach the pointer to the ring (point-weld or hook in a cut out detent - something like this) precisely at a specific place on the outer ring. I assume so because if you look closely the part of the pointer that goes into the center, seems to be offset - disappears above the center pivot. I know it might be just parallax, but look - it's way above, so I guess it's just wrapped around and "pressed" with a screw-nut assembly (it never rotates around the center, so it's okay). Still... it doesn't matter that much, i.e. it doesn't influence how this assembly is operated by a pilot. I was just curious.

Yes! That's how you do it in DCS not to get killed. Trouble is - what you say is against DCS F-86 manual. Bigger trouble is - the DCS manual matches RL manual in this respect. So, either the RL procedure was meant to kill absent-minded pilots (a kind or euthanasia program to eliminate silly pilots or what?) or the instrument (the bombing altimeter) IRL works differently from the instrument in DCS F-86. The sentence in bold in my previous post is - IMHO - a clear explicit indication for the latter. Example on how to get killed following the manual: 8. On the MPC panel, determine the INDEX altitude. (Mind you: it says INDEX, not RELEASE). Let's say the panel tells me it's 3,700 ft, OK? 9. Set the obtained INDEX altitude on the bombing altimeter. OK, I have - the white pointer is now at 3,700 ft. 10. Set the target altitude above sea level (indicated by the red pointer) using the rotary knob on the left side. OK, my target is high - 4,000 ft. Have dialed 4,000 ft with the knob. I'm worried that the white pointer still reads 3,700 ft, though, but let's just go on. (...) 13. (...) When the bombing altimeter instrument pointer coincides with the white pointer on the index altitude arm, depress the bomb-rocket release button and start the pull-out. NEGATIVE! I'd have to plow 300 ft into the ground to drop the bombs and only then pull out... in the soil. Bad idea.

Hmm... it did happen to me once or twice (I bought the Sabre just a few days ago). I have a mission that starts in a hangar. Sometimes the hangar doors won't open, soon I realize DCS is all frozen (I can't leave the mission, Esc doesn't work, nothing works). I have to kill it and restart. Never happened to me in any other module, though I don't know if it's F-86 at fault or what. Just an observation. On the other hand I was never patient enough to wait and see if it eventually "thaws", so I don't know if it's a permanent freeze or DCS is just choked somehow and needs more time to get "unblocked".

Thanks for the clarification! I have just submitted my kind request to Elgato For now, I'm using those... "text alterations" (can't remember the term) for more than 2-way toggles, like: | BOMBS | | BOMBS | | OFF | | LEFT | and so on. A bit clumsy, but works.

I know I'm 6 years late to the party, but has this been discussed yet? Couldn't find anything. Thing is... the MPC "bombing altimeter" modelled in DCS seems to make little sense. The RL flight manual for F-86F "T.O. 1F-86F-1", dated 27 May 1960, says this (excerpt): (I added bold/red myself.) The last sentence MUST mean (or I'm terribly mistaken) that the "index altitude" arm/pointer is MOVED not only by your hand (first, in point 10, as given above), but also by turning target altitude knob as in point 11. In other words index arm is "friction clutched" (by means of a circular felt pad or anything similar) to the red pointer, so that turning the red pointer also "pushes" the white indexer pointer the same amount of feet. So... you start with the knob turned so that red pointer shows 0. THEN you dial in index altitude as read from this MPC box to the left of the sight. THEN you add target alt. by turning the knob and BOTH arrows are going up - the red one (until it's set to TGT alt.) AND the index alt, together. As a result, you get a "ready to use" bomb release altitude. Otherwise such contraption would make no sense IRL. Anyone (a pilot or myself) can add target alt. to the index alt. in the mind and dial the result as "index altitude", but SINCE somebody invented this red arrow for target alt. alone, they must have done it on purpose - apparently they wanted to make the job easier, I guess to reduce the likelihood of a pilot's error. Moving the red arrow freely/alone - as it is now in DCS - makes no sense (at least to me), and MCPMPC procedure, as given in DCS F-86F, makes no sense, either. I mean, the procedur does concur RL procedure, but it makes no sense when you use the bombing altimeter as currently modelled in DCS. Why would I turn the knob to move red pointer? It does nothing in DCS F-86. I may be totally wrong, though, e.g. I may be missing some important point, obvious to others. I've just started learing this vintage beauty. If so - can anyone give me a clue? For now, I'm just adding TGT ALT + IDX ALT and dial in the result, but it doesn't seem to be the proper way this instrument should be worked with. (I know it's not a big deal, I can do such simple mental arithmetic, but you know... it's the simulation, it's all about how things really work).

Super-awesome-plugin! Thanks a lot! Few issues/questions below. SABRE In case someone is using this with the Sabre and wants to have the toggle switch for bomb release auto/manual. There's a mistake in "F-86F Sabre.lua", line 284 or somewhere around: [639] = "", -- Demolition Bomb Release Selector Switch, AUTO RELEASE/MANUAL RELEASE {2,-2} Change this to: [639] = "%1d", -- Demolition Bomb Release Selector Switch, AUTO RELEASE/MANUAL RELEASE {2,-2} Values are -1 for manual release and 1 for auto release. MORE-WAY TOGGLES? Do you know if it's possible in this plugin to assign more than 2 "icons" to a specific SD button? For example, in F-86 you have the 4-way toggle switch for bomb selection - "DEMO BOMBS", it goes like this: ALL (up), OFF (center), LEFT (down left), RIGHT (down right). I'd like to have 4 icons which simply depict the switch position. Can this be done somehow? RECALCULATE NDB FREQ INTO kHz? I have no idea how to deal with it. For example, in F-86 the "frequency" in ADF receiver is shown as, say, a float from 0.0000 to 1.0000 or something of this sort (we're talking DCS Stream Deck plugin). Basically it's a RANGE o values between two extrema which work something like percentage of "full frequency sweep" in a particular band, but it's not a frequency in kHz/MHz/etc. How can I recalculate it into proper kHz, so I can then display value in kHz on a Stream Decks button? I mean, I'm not asking for a mathematical formula (can figure one out myself), but where should I put this formula? Do I need to write something additional in e.g. "F-86F Sabre.lua" or... I don't know. EDIT: Another mistake (or a change introduced in the module by ED) in "F-86F Sabre.lua", line 239 or so: [807] = "%.1f", -- AN/ARC-27 UHF Preset Channel Selector {0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8} Change to: [807] = "%.2f", -- AN/ARC-27 UHF Preset Channel Selector {0.00, 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04, 0.05, 0.06, 0.07, 0.08, 0.09, 0.10, 0.11, 0.12, 0.13, 0.14, 0.15, 0.16, 0.17, 0.18}

Best thing is that nowadays there's so much choice! I'd say that if someone wants to stick to fixed-wing aircraft only, then it doesn't matter that much if you get "steer with whole legs" or "heels on the floor" pedals. It may matter a bit, e.g. in warbirds without rudder trim, but other than that I'd just go for the pedals "overall best" in whatever departments you personally care about. However, if you're in for both stuck-wing and rotor-wing then I'd dare to say you shoudn't even consider "steer with whole legs exclusively" pedals. Narrow the selection for pedals that at least give you a comfortable option for "heels on the floor", then judge quality/price etc., as normally. I switched from my old CH Pro Pedals to TPR last year and boy... it DOES make hell of a difference. Steering Huey with whole legs was just so clumsy, trial and error forever. In fact, TPR seem to be the most precise bit of kit I currently have, better than TM Warthog joystick, or at least it feels like it. (Joystick w/o extension, mind you!). I can't comment on the durability of TPR, though. Mine still work, but they're 1 year old only. Time will tell. And obviously they ARE expensive (bought mine for approx. $500), nice/big/heavy, but expensive. Oh, and except for the lack of toe brakes there's one more difference I noticed between TPR and VKB T RUDDER (just watched the video - nice pedals!). The latter seem to only give you "heel on the floor" option. TPR's travel seems a bit bigger and is "more horizontal" and I use them basically in 3 "foot configurations": 1. Heels on the floor. Full precision, love my chopper, probably also good for neurosurgery 2. Heels lifted a bit off the floor, but pedals still "grabbed" by toes and pushed with whole legs. This is when you need more travel and don't need to brake. Don't worry, I'm not a chimp, it works just fine - you simply push pedals with that space between the toes and that "pillow" on your foot's sole. The pedal "wants" to stick to it, you don't need to be a circus artist to do it. 3. Feet on the pedals - if wheel braking is required. This is for taxiing until you take off and on short final until you park. Of course you can keep the feet on the pedals all day long if you want, but I don't, it just feels nicer with heels rested on firm floor. Last note: TPR have those ridiculous rubber feet that are just glued to the bottom plate. What a slap on the cheek from TM in such expensive gear, thanks a lot! You may easily "smear away" those feet from under that bottom plate. I did tha within a few days, just by normally operating the pedals. I'm sure there are better solutions to the problem, but I just stole a pencil from my kid, cut it, and pressed pencil pieces against holes in the bottom plate. The feet have such holes, too, so you align it and the pencil prevents feet from "smearing away" while the glue prevents them from just falling off. Couldn't they afford proper feet, screwed into the plate? Two bucks more in price perhaps? Jeez...

Hi. Played the campaign a few months ago and didn't review it then, but you've nailed most good and bad bits of it already here. I'm adding this just to note these are my thoughts, too. 1. Lots of love has been put in the campaign by CHPL and his people - and that's what counts most. I've played through all Huey campaigns, some twice, and "Worlds Apart" was (at its peaks) the most intense experience I've had in the Huey... at least as far as I can remember. Well, "Larkin Aviation" is intense, too, but it's a totally different creature, not a military campaign, very short missions etc. In terms of immersion, Worlds Apart is, IMHO, the best military campaign for Huey or at least one of the best. (Can't remember Argo so clearly now, I think it was very good, too). 2. The parts where you just fly and fly (or sometimes just wait), and nothing happens are NOT AT ALL a nuisance for me. Just like others have already said - in RL missions you do fly a lot, on average at least, or you just "hurry up and wait". I treat such moments as a reward of sorts, a relaxation time in between action-packed moments where I have to work hard. Besides, AFAICR the beginning of the Mission 1 is by far the longest wait in the whole campaign... and there are few of them, IIRC. You're gonna miss such nice leisure time later on in the campaign! 3. I may be alone in my opinion, but I don't even mind a "boring" mission thrown here and there in between intense missions. A mission of type "go from A to B, land, wait, return". It's okay for me, as long as there aren't too many of them. Have you noticed that "Oilfield Campaign" (for Mi-8) is highly acclaimed by people? This campaign is mostly A->B, land, B->C, land, C->A, land, shut her down, no shooting whatsoever... and people still like it a lot (I do, too)! How's that possible? I haven't a faintest idea, but it works. Perhaps it's about lively cockpit, crew talking, telling stories, telling jokes, the RL radio chatter in the background, the clear and coherent purpose behind the missions, where you know you do important things that people need, even though it's just A->B, B->C. I don't know how it works, but it does. 4. English. Proofreading. Oh, man... it is bad, but that's been said already, and you've said you've taken care of it for the next campaign already. Great! 5. Thanks a lot - John C Flett - for your comment. That's exactly what I think. Relative bearings just don't work, at least most of the times. In RARE situations where the author can be more or less certain about the player's heading, relative bearings WILL work, but these are rare. For example, the mission where you follow the flight lead on the way to the Navy group. If you don't follow the lead close enough, you are called to tighten formation. (Then he lands on the carrier, we land on the OHP and wait until he does his business on the carrier). Okay, so during such flight the mission author can be pretty sure my heading is exactly XYZ +-2 degrees perhaps, so saying "Look - 10 o'clock! What's going on there?" would be okay. In this mission it doesn't happen, but it's just an example. However, when the player is allowed to just fly around more or less freely, saying "the tower to the left", "the whatever 10 o'clock" (etc.) is asking for trouble. Example: "take the boys to the bridge in front of us"... while I was "reversed" (turned around 180 degrees) and the bridge was exactly behind me Why was I reversed? Well, nobody told me I couldn't turn around to land. Nobody told me the next voiceover I was going to hear would assume I hadn't turned around. Why didn't the author expect a player to turn around to land? Because he knows one may plunge in between the trees and follow the road a few feet above the ground to get to the landing spot. If the player does exactly that, he/she WON'T turn around because that would be just silly. But I had never been to that place in Caucasus before and did NOT notice that I could follow that road in between the trees. I tried to stay far away from the bad guys on the first bridge, was looking at the trees at an angle, didn't notice the clearing, and besides there was a lot of smoke, low frame rate, so I was generally worried I could crash. So... I found the landing spot, it occurred to me that it was going to be easier if I turned around to land vertically... and I did just that. Obviously, if the voiceover was something like "take the boys to the next bridge North-East" (or whatever it was), there would be no problem. In this particular case it was actually obvious the bridge ahead could NOT be the one to go to, but it's just an example. Another example I remember... "land by that lone tree on the hill", I think it's mission 5-1. Guess what happens if a specific player took no notice of that tree, previously (and judging from the forums there have been at least a few such people)? The player just gets stuck. For good. That's not a good design. If you somehow forced player to take notice of that tree beforehand, clearly, so that the player knows "this is an important tree, I must remember where it is", than reffering to it later on would be okay, I guess. But I can't remember you did that. It was like: "Remember this lone tree up the hill?", "No.", "So go exactly there!", "Okay, nice... another Youtube video to watch". I can't rembemer it now, but I did fly there, looking for the tree, but I wasn't sure where it was, the "top of the hill" is not a single specific place there, there were a few scattered trees (I think) and all this was happening during serious combat, the bullets were flying, our boys were dying down there. Not a good time for sight-seeing trips Another example is that... hmm... this "where there's U-turn of the road" (can't remember the wording now). The mission where there's some shooting going on around, first you land on the top of the mountain, "licking" the clouds, then you... I think you need to throw down smoke flares. And there's a reference to the shape of the road. No one told me I should learn by heart how the road was weaving between the trees in the valley. Why would I care? Then - boom! - a reference for a specific turn in the road. And if you roam around like a tourist, looking for the spot, the bad guys WILL shoot at you. "Ok, another Youtube video to watch". Other examples - see John C Flett's post. You take a lot of assumptions on the player's knowledge, but it's you, not the player, who knows exactly what's going on in the mission, you see everything in ME, you set up triggers etc., while the player knows NOTHING except for spoken instructions, kneeboard and briefing. I think it's very hard for mission creators to jump in the player's shoes. On the other hand, having played through the first half of "The Enemy Within" for A-10C, it seems doable - in this campaign I... at least I can't remember a single moment when I didn't know what I was expected to do. And there IS quite a lot of unexpected going on in The Enemy Within. First you think it's going to be a boring patrol, 15 minutes later all hell breaks loose. And somehow I know what to do. So it IS doable, but probably needs a lot of attention from the author to do right. I know it's easy to be a smart ass on the forum, but still... it's not a good way to "assume", it's better to "make sure". Player knows nothing. You are God, he's just a poor dude behind the controls. If you don't make sure he knows what you want him to do, he's likely to do something different at some point and get stuck. Please, don't get me wrong, CHPL. Your campaign is otherwise excellent (at least that's what I think) - that's the very reason behind the criticism above! The campaign is just too awesome to be flawed with bad English and those "WTF" moments. I'm sure your next campaign will be smashing and I can't wait to get my hands on it! Huey pilots need your campaigns!

I'm not a poet, but here's my BIG THANK YOU to ED, 3rd party devs and campaign authors! When I first opened the box called "DCS" in 2020, I didn't realize I was opening a treasure chest. Yeah, I know about some bugs here and there, stuff and all, but it definitely IS a treasure chest. Choppers - all so different from one another, it's as if each of them was a different "game". Warbirds - so different from modern day birds. A-10C (and now version II with that augmented reality HMCS whizzbang) so different from uhm... anything else. And I still haven't bought a single fighter jet, i.e. the things that most people seem to be here for! (That's still on my "TO DO" list). To me it all feels like a sandbox to a kid! I guess that must be high fidelity magic. Best wishes for all the hardworking, smart and creative people who make all this possible. Also all the best to you, sim nerds, who fuel that crazy undertaking with your hard-earned bucks and countless comments on the forums Cheers, boys and girls! I'm gonna have some good craft beer for your health. Looking forward to 2021 - the Hind, Mosquito, Kiowa... yummy!

Oh yeah, the VRS... But don't worry, it only takes two points to remember: 1. Don't think you're smarter than VRS, ever. You are not. 2. In Mi-8 "anti-VRS-duty" is a continuum, more "analog" thing, not a zero/one logic. You'll be just pulling the collective a few times as your speed (below ETL) is decreasing. If not - embrace the Earth It's perfectly doable once you notice this "analogness". EDIT: And once you notice it and get more or less proficient, you will ignore point 1 above (like me)