Remco

Fair enough, no I have indeed not experienced the A model. I have however experienced the frustration of sitting hot on a FARP in Afghanistan getting delayed rearming because the side loader jammed. I also am the one sitting high and dry and not the one banging my head or crawling through the mud, so I may have some bias

For what its worth the side loader is an unreliable piece of trash, you didn't miss much.

In our squadron we put the rockets on the outboard stations because on the inboard stations the rocket exhaust during a bigger ripple could flameout the engines. I'm sure the risk is small and there's different philosophies in other units, but that's our reasoning.

Oh don't get me wrong, I totally agree, more pilot animation the better. Hell I'd love hand tracking even more. I was just correcting the false notion that the backseater see's the frontseater's movements by any significant degree.

IZLID A later addition that won't be in the DCS pre 2010 era model

That's not actually true. Unlike for example the F-14, the crew stations of the apache are two physically separated cockpits. That's the opposite of what Panda said. Due to the fact that, again unlike something like an F-14, there's height separation between the crew members. You don't see any more than the top of the front seaters helmet unless you had x-ray vision able to see through your console. HOWEVER we do have a small mirror in the front left of the CPG station that allows us to see each others face when we're talking to each other.

afaik its Japan and South-Korea that operated ATAS, not sure about Singapore. And I can supply info on ATAS and the SK export variant but is that a rabbit hole we want to go down in? If we can choose between CMWS and ATAS why not also AMASE? Why not HIDAS? Theres no end in sight. American version is being made and what were getting.

It is physically impossible for US AH64D block II's to carry ATAS. Its not a doctrinal decision. Block II upgrade came with the removal of the required connectors/wiring and put CMWS in its place. And for the argument about DCS multiplayer being full of air threats, therefore requiring ATAS, remember you have to choose either CMWS OR ATAS, you can't have both. If I were send to a battlespace with lots of hostile air, I would pick CMWS over ATAS for my survivability every single time.

"Just behind letting go of the controls" what do you think you have to do to use the MPD pushbuttons? Though I jest, you are correct, we prefer to MPD pushbuttons because we can press them practically blindly, the problem with the cursor is you take your attention away from outside and to the MPD to reference the cursor which is a big problem in NOE. That said you really shouldn't be fiddling with the MPD's in NOE flight anyway, you have someone else to do that for you. Don't get me wrong of course having the physical MPD's is still going to be nice but it is a lot less necessary for the Longbow than it is for other DCS jets, even ones designed to be hotas like the F16.

Alternatively, unlike the DCS jets you are used to now, the Longbow has a cursor that is controlled from the Collective and TEDAC that can be used to select any option on the MPD. In real life we don't use it much since we still prefer the MPD pushbuttons, at least in my squadron, however in DCS I'm going to see myself preferring the build in cursor to stay hands on over switching my hand to the mouse to click the MPD's. I imagine most DCS players getting used to using the cursor and staying hands on collective. That said for the enthusiastic sim pit builders it will of course be nice to have accurate MPD's, but it certainly won't be necessary to get a "realistic" experience, using the cursor on your collective is totally valid.

As much as I would love AMASE myself for obvious reasons, it is not as easy to implement as you think. AMASE aren't just bolt on pods, the system requires modifications to the cockpit in the form of an additional panel (specifically an ALQ-213 EWMS panel, the same you see in the A-10C) and a modification to the cyclic to replace the FLARE thumb button with a CMS switch. So it would be some work on ED's part beyond just a loadout option as it'd require separate pilot station cockpit models depending on whether you are using AMASE or CMWS.

The real answer is "it depends" You can expect roughly 2 to 2 1/2 hours of flight time with a full load. Add ~30 minutes if loaded with a robbie tank instead of gun ammunition.