Sulman

When I came to BS from LockonFC, the first thing I had to learn and practice was patience. BS missions take, far, far longer for me to accomplish. Jets, even the slowest in FC (A-10 and SU25) have agility and speed to get out of most problems. You can aggressively overcontrol and turn'n'burn away from many ground threats. This just doesn't work well in the KA52. It is difficult to maneuver aggressively without risking control departure, and you'll usually rely on flares anyway, so you have to play constantly to the helo's strengths. I don't think there's anything wrong with your approach; as others have said, you're basically doing two different thing: Shooting, or trying not to be shot. I've managed (while flying slowly, correctly trimmed at about 130kph) to catch targets 'on the go' before but I'm not comfortable with this - it is a worryingly high workload and if anything goes wrong - like incoming sams - you can get into trouble fast. 'Gauntlet' is a mission I play loads. It's pretty hard (I usually die at some point), takes a long time, but has a large mix of threats. You need to be patient because the mission objective require you to pass within 500m of the threat zone centres. That means alot of edging forward and LOTS of Shkval scanning. Typically, I move carefully (no more than about 150-180kph) at treetop height, to battlepoints (BP's) I've already thought about on the Abris. These are locations that in theory allow observation and standoff. Hills and towns are good choices*. Hills are best. Treelines in theory would be super, but the AI sees and shoots through these, which is a shame but something we have to live with - if they occluded threats it would make the KA52 pilots life much, much easier. Once I reach the BP and hover, I go through a series of simple drills. The first is a popup observation drill. I move up gently and scan 3-4 k's ahead; essentially I'm watching mainly for threats. Behind a hill this is very simple, and SAM avoidance is as easy as gently lowering collective. If all is clear, I go to 'standoff observation' (my term). This is much higher, and riskier. Dependant on how high the hill is, it may only be a matter of cresting it. This is a slow rise to 90-100 metres. This gives you about 7-8km coverage via the Shkval, and if nothing has engaged you during the ascent, chances are nothing will. This will give you superb coverage of the proposed target area, and you'll usually be able to engage without harm. In the event of incoming threats, I have a 'descending 180 with flares' drill. I bang the nose down about 15 degrees, trim on about 20 degrees bank dispensing flares and accelerating to avoid ring-state problems. Trim out back to treetop level, turn around 180, slow down, back off, and try a different approach. These are just my methods. I'm not that good at maneuvering the helicopter aggressively, so I break the movements down to simple drills I can get right under pressure. Of course, radar sams make the above very difficult, and can 'pin' you, bu that's a different story. The AI is actually a great maneuver fighter in the Helos, they twist and turn like Shakira, but note that it doesn't actually help them. I think there's a lesson there. *Office building and tall industrial buildings are great for threat osbtruction. If you know where a sam is, place an office block between you and it. It's not as hard as it sounds. Crawl up to the building and slowly popup and engage. The BS world is full of cool little things you can hide behind. Even static trains.

Excellent AAR. I love that IR display on the monitor. I would kill for that in KA50.

Absolutely. When I started to properly 'fight' in Black Shark, my best experience was from Steel Beasts. Battle position to battle position. Scoot'n'shoot. Most interestingly, the KA-50 feels quite vulnerable. If you get to a position where you can employ weapons, it's devastating, but getting to that is the hard part. The battlefield is full of stuff that wants to kill you. It's funny. I played lomac for so long, flying well above the sort of threats that give you such a hard time in the Shark.It's a different world at the treetops. To answer the question, buy it. You can see why - after a while - ED chose the KA50. She's a strange bird. Yet it is the single-pilot operation that makes it such a perfect choice for a desktop sim. Everything about the aircraft is designed to reduce your workload. The upside of this is once you have mastered basic control principles, you can let the aircraft do the hard stuff, get your head down in the Shkval and start sending rounds downrange. A wonderful, unique experience. Worth every penny, and more.

Hmm, doesn't seem to help. Enables the mouse pointer (crosshair) but the outside view is still not responding to mouse input. It's odd; I've tried it on aircraft I have no controller profile for (in case I accidentally did something to the profile) and it does the same thing. It's not a huge problem (happy to use numpad / hat) but I'm curious what's caused it. Edit: Gone. Seemed to be some sort of glitch cured by cycling the numlock or backslash (not sure which.) V. Strange.

Matt, Thanks - I'll give this a try at home later. James

FC 2.0: Not sure what I've done. The mouse control over the external camera has stopped working. Numpad and Hatswitch are okay. Any ideas?

That's actually a Beta tester that upset ED, eternally trapped on that beach waiting for a T-34 to turn up, but it never comes.

There you go. I believe it expects to see all three in the same directory.

Have you downloaded all three files? There's the setup, the 300ish mb one, and the 1.8GB one.

Similarly, my ineptitude at downing a UAV with the MiG-29 was almost comical. 1 R-27, 2 x R-73. The R-27 registered a hit according to the AAR (I observed the explosion), as did the last R-73, but the small target seemed avoid the extent of the blasts. I am fascinated by the survivability of the KA-50. In the hands of a good pilot, I suspect it may be quite difficult to kill.

Lomac FC2 is a delight. I'd unreservedly recommend it. Personally, I think it has just the right systems immersion - you can concentrate on flying the aircraft and managing weapons employment without the overhead of having to learn systems & subsystems. LOMAC remains a platform where I can go away for six months, spend an hour coming back, and be back in the groove. Easy to learn, difficult to master. Perfect in my eyes.

Thoroughly enjoying FC2 so far. Tried some cannon engagements with the '29A. Good grief. What a sound! I almost jumped out of the chair! It may be psychological, but it seems very powerful too. Ripped up a C-17 with a very short burst. Well done ED. A very polished effort.

I have a feeling that it will do very well. Fast jets, an almost perfect difficulty level (you can strap on a LOMAC jet very quickly; but difficult to master) and I think they'll do a lot of sales.

Terrific photographs of the F-22. Wish they'd taken the dust spots of the top one! Superhornet at Farnborough: Riccardo Traven at Fairford: Slovak '29 AS, standardised to NATO spec by MiG, along with an avionics upgrade, and digital camo: Typhoon at Farnborough:

Some items I've dug out recently. Fairford, July 2005: Fairford, July 2006: Fairford, July 2007:

That's pretty normal by t-shirt standards. The material cost is fractional. If he attempts any kind of volume, there's time, logistics, administration etc.

The first couple of frames appear to show what's left of the canopy frame.

At least the safety rules and flight were conducted properly. RIP guys.

Hehe, I was worried you'd say that! :P Please PM what you want with an email address and I'll send you them. I'd rather not post hi res originals on the forum for obvious reasons.

Yep, no probs - which ones?

Krakow Aviation Museum From a recent visit. Thought I'd try something a bit different.

Some images from the Royal International Air Tattoo at Fairford, from last Saturday. A fabulous show, as usual! Rafale: Finnish Bug: Merlin: Tristar (thanks, sun!) :cool: Reds cross Swiss Bug Black Cat Breitlings She flies, and she howls like a banshee too... Magnificent display by the RNZAF. If this is what they do with transports, lord knows what their fighter aircraft would do! Tiffie Wokka Wokka Cheers James

The ascending beeps when you power the throttle up to auto during startup instantly reminded me of Buford T. Justis' wristwatch in 'Smokey and the bandit 2'. Now whenever I hear it I chuckle and go "ooooohmmmm...oooohmmmmm"

Thanks for posting these. Most interesting. Very little of the original spec remains; the modernised SU's seem retain more of the standby instrumentation.

You've probably got some rudder trimmed in; it's easily done and can give these effects. Ctrl-T if in doubt. A lot of these problems will be helped by the proper heading hold logic in the patch.