shadowborn

Here's some more Eurofighter pics from "Day of the Armed Forces" at Jagel, State of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It's a bit of everything: action shots, detail shots, scenic shots. But hey, I figured, more Eurofighter media = gooder, eh?

Amazing Eurofighter 360° simulator video: The audio is German, but this thing is not your grand dad's simulator. Not articulated though. The shots of a guy kinda hanging on to the outside of the cockpit are kinda surreal. The guy flying is a commercial Airbus pilot. TIL the FBW likes being flown "one input at a time". The HUD has arrows that show the maximum rate of climb without slowing down, and the thing won't let you stall; they show how the thing refuses to keep stalling and puts the nose down. I wonder what software this is? One thing I notice, the world is VERY round in this sim, either this is a property of the projection dome or the Germans are actively working on debunking flat earth edit: apparently, there even is English AI voice over now by Youtube, automatically, depending on your browser language settings. Who knew ...

Hey @Lord Vader Okay, it's not the replay of that flight, but I managed to replicate the issue in air. See "ch47_gain_alt_with_engine_off.trk". Short flight where I tried to loop the ch-47. This led to a power cut-out (generator overload? no idea). I then cut the fuel pumps and engine levers to "off". Notice how I can keep flying for some minutes and gain altitude (from roughly 7080ft to 7740ft) at some point, minutes into the engine shut-down and could keep flying indefinetly. The helicoper only starts to fall as I eventually reduce my throttle/collective from full to idle, but even then behaving very strange for my gut feel. I also notice that after shutting down the engine after other flights, on the ground, the rotors take wildly different amounts of time to spin down. Sometimes it goes fast, sometimes it takes way longer (as also reported here). They seem to be affected by wind in general, but wind does not serve as an explaination why sometimes it takes minutes for them to stop, and in one instance, they never did (sorry, don't have a track file of that one). As for wind effect on the rotor blades in general, I have seen one instance of them spinning the "wrong way round" at a setting of 30kts wind in the mission editor; not sure if the gearbox on the real thing would even allow for that. I have a feeling that the modeling of air through a falling helicopter makes the rotors spin, and they spin so fast that the heli gains altitude and can fly seeming indefinetly with engine powered down. This is just a gut feeling of what may be happening in the replay. Which just can't be realistic, as that would be a perpetual motion machine I also attach "ch47_20kft_engine_cutout_weird.trk", if you want to take a look at that. Maybe you can explain to me what's happening here. It's just another flight that seems odd to me. I took the ch-47 to 20k feet (service ceiling according to google). Shortly beyond 20k feet, I lost engines (altitude cut-out? I don't think I ran out of fuel ...). Initially, all displays cut out except one without master caution lamp. Then they came back, cut out again, this time with master caution lamp. The co-pilot's display stayed on all the time. Then, the helicopter falls almost gentle like a leaf, I was able to do a soft landing from a fall from 20k feet despite the rotors being near standstill at various times. Helicopters with engine out (as per the display) and nearly no energy in the rotor system, tumbling over at some point, should not recover to falling soft and gently at only a few feet per second in my mind. Plus, again, the rotors behave weird. It spun up when I reduced throttle, and down (i.e. braked) when I increased throttle, almost as if the rotors are wind milling, but giving it thrust reduces that windmilling effect. Cheers! ch47_20kft_engine_cutout_weird.trk ch47_gain_alt_with_engine_off.trk

Hey @Lord Vader, wish I had one. I will fully agree that this was a stupid thing to do, but I didn't save a replay that night and started the next flight. So unless there is anything else but the last replay in %userprofile%\AppsData\Local\Temp\DCS, it's gone. Sorry .

Necroing a thread for a good reason: 14 years later, and I have had the same exact problem. SU-33, the virtual stick in the plane on screen would move like molasses, leading to extremely sluggish controls and massive over-corrections. I checked for any conflicting controls - none. No curves, everything 100% range, no deadzones. I cleared and rebound my axis controls multiple times. Eventually, one last try of clearing the category and setting everything up again AND then exiting the mission, and restarting it, solved it. edit: FC SU-27 has the same problem, can still replicate it with it. Also, the stick on screen only moves on the pitch OR roll axis, whichever input is greater on the physical stick. It never moves "diagonally". Looks like there is some weird controls config artefact for FC3 planes lingering somewhere.

Bought the CH-47 today. Flew around a bit. Landed. Cut the engine levers to "stop", cut all generators, battery. The rotors would go down to idle, but still spin at idle for several minutes. I even started pulling a bunch of circuit breakers. While I was doing that, the helicopter took flight (with everything still powered down), which is when I started recording the video. It rose to 7.500 feet when FINALLY the idle noise and the rotor blades stopped. Even then, during free fall, it ganied RPM and very briefly even gained a few feet of altitude (at 4630 ft in the video). Guys? This is ... wrong, no? I'm not going crazy, am I?

Hey. Unless I had a stroke of improved flying ability over night (unlikely ), the Apache is much improved by the latest patch. I can finally transition between flight and hover reliably with urgency, without either rising over the horizon like a buffoon, or with occasional funky things happening and then crash. So yeah - thanks, ED! Happy new year!

Revisiting this topic some weeks later, I agree: Winwing needs to get their act together. There is a new version of SimappPro, but it still wants me to disconnect the grip. I, too, had issues with the connector, with bent pins, and the cable is really short. It's a major hassle to take apart and I'd rather not. Here's hoping that someone from Winwing stumbles over this and reacts.

Meanwhile in 2024, after the big patch landed I set up two F-4 to fly a route across northern Israel and land back at Haifa, because I wanted to check out the map update while leaning back and relaxing. They landed in perfect formation, which I found kinda anti-climactic and somewhat reckless

Do you mean 1.8.22? I can not find any SimAppPro 1.82. It seems like a very high version number. I updated today and it gave me 1.14.6 beta. It has the same issue where it wants me to disconnect the stick from the base. Which I don't want to do, cause it's very fiddly to get the PS2 connector connected again with the too short cable inside the grip and the pins will eventually wear out. Fwiw, I tried downgrading to 1.9.29 (an old version I still had in my downloads folder). However, since 1.14.6 doesn't uninstall cleanly when installed over 1.9.29, I had to use Revo Uninstaller to wipe all traces of Simappro, then install 1.9.29. Pro Tip: DO NOT LET SIMAPPPRO UPDATE ITSELF, it will leave traces of the old version in the registry and mess things up. UNINSTALL the old version using "Add Remove Programs" in Windows, then install the new one. However, 1.9.29 has the exact same issue as 1.14.6 and wants me to disconnect the grip in order to update the base. I guess I'll wait for Winwing to get their act together in a new version then. Oh, and another pro tip: My Winwing stick and throttle work superbly on an USB hub. However, SimAppPro will NOT recognize them through the hub for the "Device" tab. Cost me another hour to figure that out. Quite a mess, this software ...

Today's patch change log for the AH-64D says: "Game Flight Mode disabled." Anyone know what this means? Was it an optional arcade mode that's been removed? If so ... why? Or is it just some pun on making the sim flight model harder?

Thanks! Not the answer I was hoping for lol, but good things take time.

Hey. I like to hop onto multiplayer servers for some "PvE" helicopter training. Any servers I tried, I can only select AH-64D without FCR. Do the server operators need to change something, or can I enable it? I read somewhere that it supposedly comes with the rearm and refuel-dialog, but I can't see an option there to mount the FCR ...? Thanks!

Photo Credit: Author (original post).

That's great news! I'm in Germany, too. Wrote to them about six months ago inquiring about shipping from inside EU, but they pretty much only responded "no we don't". So it's good to see they made that decision after all.

Oh, quite on the contrary: Since he also bundled two desk clamps and an MFD, he included way too many hex keys. Suspect there might possibly be even extra ones from the odd IKEA furniture item. "Too many" presented the same issues with proper hex key identification as "too few" though

Wow - thank you all so much!! You must be psychic or something I truly believed it was engaging, but it was the wrong hex key indeed. Tried a slightly bigger one, took some poking around but I can now perfectly adjust the tension. Also very glad to hear about the speed brake switch, this makes sense. I'm very happy now that the purchase does not have any defect - thanks!

Hey everyone. I sourced myself a (very lightly used) Winwing Orion 2 throttle with F/A-18 grip, and a joystick base with F16 grip (with shake kit and extra button attachment). Price was okay, but more importantly, it was already in the country - I really wished Winwing would ship from inside Europe, then I'd have bought from them directly. The devices feel great, the stick is precise and all is hefty, marked improvement over my Titanwolf and Thrustmaster 16000 combo. Just two issues. Maybe someone can advise. The throttle grip seemingly has a three-position, thumb-operated mode switch. It arrests in the forward position, but not in the backward position. The backward position just snaps back to the middle. This isn't intended, I assume? Does anyone have experience with such issues and Winwing, is there support? The unit is still in warranty according to the seller, was purchased in 2023. Even more significant to me, the tension adjustment does nothing. I get the hex wrench to engage with the two screws (one for left throttle, one for right). Alas, these screws seem to spin entirely freely. There is no tension change, the screws seem to "wobble" a bit in the holes, and I can turn the screws both into either direction for many, many turns with no resistance whatsoever. I would have assumed they "bite" into something and eventually tighten? I find the tension on the throttle too high, would like to have it move more lightly, especially for helicopter use. Has anyone opened up an Orion 2 throttle base to take a look inside, or even has insight into this specific issue? Is it reasonably safe to open up the throttle base, or will I be showered with small bits and springs that require the simultaneous action of nine hands to put back together? Thanks!!

Oh, also this: VR is AMAZING. Before you try VR, you THINK you know how it will be. It's so much more. I sat in the cockpit of my F14 / F18 / AH-64 etc. for (taken all together) hours gawking at the incredible graphics. The texture of a radar screen that now for a first time looked like actual glass, complete with layers of smear or fingerprints. I almost fell of my chair, awkwardly twisted while reading the label on the side of a headrest of an ejection seat. And by that point I wasn't even flying yet. VR is pretty epic

Hi. This is a quick "war story", maybe it can help someone. I ran DCS about a year ago with a HP Reverb G2 Rev. 2. DCS crashed a lot. At the time this had two reasons, which made diagnosis cumbersome: One, the cable shipped with the G2 (even the Rev. 2 purchased directly from HP) was still faulty. HP shipped me a new one, this resolved my issues with OTHER games in VR. Not with DCS. The DCS crashes only subsided when created a Windows page file (I had initially operated under the assumption that "32 GB ought to be enough for everyone" (miss-quoting a certain MS founder here), and that no swap would be needed. My DCS demanded an extra 10-20 GB of swap or so. Then it ran, in VR, mostly fine. Some days ago the crashes came back. What had changed? I had begun to fly in VR and multi-player. It would appear (my) DCS demanded more than 50 GB of total virtual memory to be the sole, single player on a Nevada map with a handful of AI assets. Madness? I ordered another 32GB of RAM (more RAM to the airplane gods!). Alas, in between the order and the shipment arriving, I solved the problem. I had custom graphics settings set initially for the PC screen and my RTX3080. These were set not THAT high. Alas, when I switched to VR, I left them in place as is. Before the RAM arrived, I did one thing: Reset my graphics settings to the "VR" preset. That solved my problems, the multiplayer Nevada mission now runs fine on 32G plus some swap (and possibly doesn't even need swap, I haven't checked). What changed? Good question. Unfortunately I haven't logged the old settings. I think terrain textures went down one step. My preload range was already set pretty low, I reduced it and the tree cover a bit more. That is all I can identify. Alas, if you have crashes in VR, or excessive RAM usage, the lesson here is to reset the FX settings to the preset, not leave them on "seemed reasonable for flat screen" settings - even if that gave more than 90 frames/sec even in VR. Over and out.

Yeah ... being an IT Administrator by trade, that discussion is probably as old as man, no matter the platform. I don't subscribe to the "double the RAM" in 2023 (and in fact, not anymore for many years). There's the school of thought that says we can abandon that altogether with sufficient physical RAM (I subscribe to that one), and the school that says "make a small paging file nonetheless to please the paging algorithm because that works better". I don't really want a paging file. I have only SSD, and while a paging file is not as SSD-murdering as some make it out to be, it's not great, especially with consumer level SSD and the reduced writing life cycles of triple and quad level cells. I will nevertheless happily check if a 64GB paging file makes any difference and report back. However, I do believe that technically, the remainder of 32 GB of RAM, about 25 GB or whatever after the OS had it's share, should be sufficient for DCS, no?

> What's your page file setup like? Initially none, recently tried 1GB (initial) to 2GB (max) on the M2 SSD. Didn't help. Machine has 32 GB, so no to small page file should be fine.

Hey. Okay, I can now say with confidence after some Skyrim VR, The Forest etc. that the new cable (from HP) fixed all my VR problems except the memory leak with DCS. I don't believe the beach house is causing that, but yes, I was running the bare-bones "space platform" that Microsoft offers as well. But no way does the beach house (or the space platform) consume that much excess RAM.

> Moved to win 11 recently and havent noticed it. Thanks for the input! I am however on Windows 11 already Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.22621.963] Plus, that seems to happen with Intel HD Graphics. I have an Nvidia 3080 though.

Nah. It's not just beta AH-64. I tried the MI-24, got a crash during loading, and this: "The Windows Error Reporting Service service terminated with the following error: The paging file is too small for this operation to complete." I tried the KA-50 V3 again and this time: Windows successfully diagnosed a low virtual memory condition. The following programs consumed the most virtual memory: DCS.exe (12232) consumed 15559917568 bytes, dwm.exe (18200) consumed 2276089856 bytes, and WUDFHost.exe (5680) consumed 571375616 bytes. Further evidence of a memory leak in VR? It would seem so to me. The KA-50 V2 worked once (but crashed on ending the flight). Another, minor finding that can be worked around for now: The mouse (with "mouse enabled" in settings) works about 50% of the time inside VR, i.e. I can move the "little white ball". The other 50% I can use the mouse to make menu selections on my screen when I take the headset off. It appears "wear detection" has to report that I am not wearing the headset for the mouse to work on screen in those cases, if I wear the headset, the mouse cursor won't move even a single pixel ...