aaronwhite

As MAXsenna mentioned, you'll need to get an app to help integrate, and then that app can be setup to hit the "keys" for you in the game when you talk. Often you can find pre-set configurations to do things, or you can make your own. Here's one that's up on DCS User Files: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3321355/

Thanks, @Floyd1212! I'll definitely keep an eye out for the changes from ED. There's a lot of really cool features to add in the TSD, but manually entering those all in the ME sounds like a nightmare. I'm looking forward to the news of the DTC coming to some modules.

While I appreciate it at times, with the cockpit not always blocking the sunlight correctly, and without the ability to angle your body to help block glare, it would be nice to have the option to disable or turn down display glare, since we lack certain abilities we have in real life to help mitigate the issue.

Annnnnnnnd, another update. I like to try and customize the pilots when possible, just for fun. I'm working on getting the Persian skin tone, which is a bit of work playing around on top of the default Russian pilot texture, but it's progress. I also am working on swapping the desert tan flight suit for the olive drab that the Iranian helicopter pilots appear to be wearing. And, I've also made some progress with the markings. Now it'll mostly be finishing up the pilot and hitting the small detail spots and glaring issues like tan seam lines in the model.

You might be on to something there, with the hilly terrain. When I'm playing my offline mission, I've got it setup in the Caucasus map, flying in the relatively flat Georgian plains, behind trees and open fields. I've used him a bit in some hilly terrain, but I don' think it was as steep as I was over on the Syria map on rotorheads. I guess I'm glad my VRS just resulted in some superbounce that shattered the helicopter but didn't kill me. I figured for sure the 3rd one would have done it. I'll have to jump online tonight and try it out.

Update from someone who spent way too much time on their lunch break lining up pixels of black paint...

I think they're obviously going to fix it, as it's not finished, and George randomly crashing isn't something that they would want in a final product. I do wonder if fuel state is an issue as well. I generally fly offline, and I'm usually around 50-65% fuel load, with Rockets/Hellfires. The other night I was online for the first time with the Apache, took off with 100% fuel just in case, but a pretty light load of 4 Hellfires, with 2 on each wing. I got into a hover behind some trees without too much trouble myself, and then switched into the front seat to try and find some targets, and had George move forward a bit, and then once I got close to some trees, had him lower a bit to keep from being too exposed. He seemed to enter into VRS or settling with power, whichever it would be, and bounced us hard off the ground. It broke off the tail (though my tail rotor did stay floating in the air, apparently working) and I was able to continue flying without an issue. Trying to move around again with George flying lead to 2 more bounces, before I decided to head back to base and repair, though I was still able to fly without issue. Anyhow, not meant as a complaint, just wanted to add a little more of my personal experience, as George offline never did seem to have much of an issue for me, but I also fly with less fuel, though I do usually have a heavier weapons loadout.

Georgians out looking for tanks in the early morning light.

The Apache's TSD obviously has a lot of great features to help you with knowing where you are on the battlefield, and where other stuff is, but I was curious if there is a way to add these things in the Mission Editor, instead of manually inputting everything in via the TSD in the helicopter itself. It would be nice to be able to add the threats, but scrolling through Chuck's Guide, I wasn't seeing anything about doing it in the Mission Editor, and thought maybe I just missed some general ME knowledge about how to set those things up. Thanks!

I think the hat is the biggest issue. The LMC I believe is normally controlled by the force sensitive stick on the TEDAC grip, where you have a range of input, like you do for your joystick. I feel like using a hat switch is the equivalent of trying to fly in the sim with the keyboard arrows. Sure, you technically could, but it's not going to be fun or precise. Generally, when I use the LMC, I'll lase the target, hit my LMC button, and that's generally enough to steady the image if my helicopter is in a near-steady hover. If you're moving, you'll need to use slight pressure on your stick to get the image to hold steady, which is probably tough to do with the 0-to-100% input of a hat switch. Nice! Another Apache channel to follow. The LMC is definitely an odd thing to wrap your head around at first. But after some practice, it's pretty fun to use. I've been messing around with it trying to track moving tanks, and it's a fun challenge keeping up with them moving through the terrain.

Not to pump my own tires, but I did create a Ukrainian skin based on the default Hind so they match up a bit in game: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3329214/ If you're flying online, one thing you can do to get other skins available is to edit your skin file to allow it to be used by whatever country the server has. Often it's USA for Blue and Russia for Red, so you can just open the descrption.lua file in the skin's folder and then go to the line with countries and modify it to include USA. For example, this is what the line looks like on my Ka-50 that I'm making for Iran, so it shows up for Iran and the US: countries = {"IRN","USA"} If you modify your skin's description file with that, you'll be able to select it online if they have USA as the only Blue country.

Early stages of another WIP skin based on a real life example (This one's an AH-1F from the Iranian Army). One of four I've got planned. null

I believe it's been significantly improved in the handoff phase in recent patches. I know initially, I struggled to switch back to the pilot's seat, but George definitely does better at holding it steady, and I haven't really had any trouble at all recently switching, as long as I'm not hovering in a tiny box with no space. But I'm generally hovering around tree-top height when I switch from the front to the back seat, and I've never really had trouble getting on the controls and flying off somewhere else.

I had the issue myself, and aside from just getting used to adding a big of left (might be remembering that wrong, since I just go off of muscle memory) cyclic on top of the rudder, that helped with the drift. But I think the biggest issue was being too gentle with the cyclic and focusing too much on trying to get light on the wheels. This would get me into this spot where I had enough collective to lift it slightly, and dump it to the right, but not enough to get off the ground. What I've done to avoid it is just working on a smooth collective increase until I start moving up, at which point I can stop pulling on the collective and either enter a hover check or continue adding more to transition into lifting off the pad. It was definitely something I had happen a ton when I was starting out, and it still happens once in a blue moon when I'm not paying attention, but it's not too frequent.

That's awesome! I've been using an overloaded Xbox controller, but always dream of getting something like that setup someday.

I knew I forgot something! I was actually flying in game and trying to remember what that special option was, but couldn't get to it from the in-flight menu. Thanks!

You'll want to map "Weapon Action Switch - G/Up" to your joystick, and then you will be able to set the gun to your helmet sight. You'll also need to make sure you either have Weapon Trigger Guard Open/Close mapped, otherwise the trigger guard will keep you from firing. On top of that, you will need to arm the helicopter as well. Check out Chuck's Guide to help with controls and knowing what to map.

Not anything super crazy, but I thought it would be fun to throw together a little "What If" skin for some Georgian Apaches, in a world where the US provided them a bit of extra support on patrolling their borders. Hopefully it will be uploaded tonight.

Ha, wish I'd found that one sooner! I remembered my...less than convenient way yesterday. I copied the default roughmet files, made a copy of each, saved the Green layer of the roughmet texture file in the texture after adding the roundels/markings to the text layer as a DDS file and then copied that entire DDS file and pasted it over the green layer of the copied roughmet texture which applied it to the roughmet file with the proper markings showing on the fuselage. Far from the most efficient workflow, but I guess considering about a year ago, I didn't even know to use the model viewer and was opening DCS to check every little change...it's progress! Thanks for the help, both of you!

Glad to see this has been noticed. I can stop pulling my hair out trying to get rid of the things now!

I do this pretty much exclusively when I fly, but usually what I'll do is make sure I've got enough altitude to work with. There's always going to be a bit of a problem, since your controls aren't where George's will be when you're going from the front seat to the back, but as long as you've got enough altitude, you should be okay. The thing I've realized helps with switching to the front seat for me (and is just good practice in general) is to get as close to a "hands off" hover as you can in the back seat before switching to the front. It takes some time to get comfortable with the ALT/ATT holds, but I've been practicing getting into a hover with them, and it's made it a lot easier to switch seats. Generally, I'll fly myself to the location I want to attack from, get behind cover and get my airspeed below 5 and steady my collective to hold altitude, and then I'll engage the altitude and attitude hold and give the helicopter a few moments to steady itself. Once that happens, I can switch to the front seat, and there's usually a little movement, and I often have to bring up the George menu to get him to point the helicopter back where I had it facing, but after that, it's pretty solid. Once I'm done, I'll switch back to the rear seat, at which point I usually start to instantly bring the collective up and add some rudder to start turning and gain airspeed again.

I was going to suggest something similar. One thing I noticed isn't that you need to be super aggressive with the Apache collective, but I did seem to run into issues where I was trying too much to get it to just barely go light on the wheels, and it would tip a lot in that moment. I finally just started making a pretty steady collective increase through to going off wheels, and then I could lower it a bit to kill the lift right off the ground. I had the problem of tipping over a ton like OP, but since being a bit more constant with increasing the collective on takeoff, I haven't had it happen in a few weeks now.

From the Template. I think on my Mi-24 I did previously, I just modified an existing roughmet, but I was hoping to finally figure out how to actually produce the things myself this time around.

I've got it changed, but it's only showing up as the black/white image. If I remember right, before, it was a mostly bright green image, but I could be wrong. I suppose I could go open one in Photoshop. I wasn't sure how to save it after making the roughmet changes. Do I just turn off every other layer except the roughmet?

Hey everyone, Figured I would make a post and get some help on it. I've done it before, but clearly, it's been so long that I have forgotten what I did. I'm working on a pretty standard olive drab skin for the Apache (A Georgian "What If" skin) and I'm needing to create a new roughmet file so the font doesn't look so out of place, and to replace the UNITED STATES ARMY that would appear if I just copied over the roughmet from one of the default Apaches. I just for the life of me can't remember what I do with the layers in the template to save the roughmet file as it is needed in game.