Sulman

I though it worked okay? I once flew into one of those open hangars, and ejected just for a laugh. I didn't realise collision detection is off for the little pilot chappy, and rocketed straight through the ceiling, hehe.

I've had this. "Are you alright?" After a particularly difficult and frustrating scenario. Why in God's name a flight sim should make me angry I don't know, but they do.

Precisely. I can hold a hover no problem. But when I get into operating systems, I find the pilot aids invaluable.

Yes and no. ED and Kamov say you shouldn't trim this way; the actual method being set attitude (hold the control force) then dab the trim, and if you're using a mechanically sprung stick, let it go back to centre. however, the technique you're using does work. Flight director switches off stability augmentation, provides cues on the HUD, and provides basic damping. It feels smoother because you're not having to override the stability - any change in attitude with stab on means you have to override the FCS authority (20%), hence it appearing harder work. Flight director will not hold an attitude for you. You can save yourself a lot of bother by making sure the aircraft is coordinated and settled before trimming, otherwise you 'trim in' crap to the FCS solution. Full stab is a unique way to fly for most people, but works once you get used to it. Drove me nuts at first. Bear in mind the BS is a single-pilot ship, and all these tools come in very handy when it comes to deploying weapons and getting your synapses working outside keeping the thing in the air. I'm looking forward to the patch, I still have trouble with centreing quickly enough before BS reads the control position.

Both pilot and autopilot follow the flight director cues. That's how it works in most aircraft, except in the Kamov you don't see the cues with the stab modes engaged. FD mode in the KA-50 leaves damping switched on. The pilot has a lot of control authority otherwise.

Around the time of a planned outage? Strange.

Hi all, Using a saitek Cyborg Evo and everything is working well, but I'm struggling with pitch trim. I'm setting attitude and dabbing the trim switch, and letting the stick centre, but more often than not I'm getting a pronounced nod or rubber-band effect. Roll seems to be okay, but roll inputs tend to be of a smaller magnitude anyway. E.g. setting attitude to increase speed, aircraft stabilises 5 degrees nose down, and I'm putting on some forward force to keep it there. I dab the trim switch, centre stick, and I get a pronounced pitch down, which i then have to correct. It doesn't do this all the time, but enough for it to be a handful. I'm positive the stick is centreing okay; there's no spikes and I have the deadzones tweaked (pretty used to the DCS methods from Lomac). Any clues as to what could be going wrong? Is it worth increasing the centre time? Is this easy to do?

Nate, I think in the hover regime, assuming a pilot's inputs are typical for that regime of flight (i.e. of a very small magnitude), and the fact that the helicopter will be balanced, the removal of stability control (on a platform that is already dynamically stable) may not be felt much at all.

Attitude controls speed / acceleration, collective controls height. Drill this into yourself, repeat it. Try flying rectangular circuits of an airfield, maintaining 100km/h and 250-300metres. Observe the relationship with attitude and the effect on your target airspeed; see how the cab behaves in and out of turns; it's quite dramatic. The transitions are where it becomes tricky, especially below 50km/h. Just be very smooth and it'll come with practice. You need to be able to do it second nature before attempting any ex-flying tasks, like combat!

3 stores here in central Southampton, and none have it. I've bought it from DCS anyway, but was a bit miffed none of the retailers stocked it; I'm sure they'd sell if they were there.

Yes, absolutely. I understand they're getting very sophisticated, in terms of failure prediction, and the amount of data (and parts tracking) they can work with. I know there's been a lot of work with helicopters (gearboxes etc) in trying to understand the various problems that affect them. I don't know how much an FBW could hide from a pilot, should there be a control problem.

Ordered last night; looking forward to exploring the DCS world lower and slower. Of course, it was ready just in time for me to go to work this morning! Very impressed with the UI, and just had time to watch a demo. Was weird seeing a clickable 'pit in the Lomac world. Can't wait to try it all out! I'd got better performance than I was expecting; Can run Lomac/FC maxed (apart from visibility range due to cities slowing things up) and am pretty pleased. Rotary craft are terrifying in X-Plane, so I'm hoping the twin-rotor arrangement makes this one a bit kinder!

I wonder if modern fighter aircraft have an equivalent of HUMS on rotary craft, even if it's integrated into the FCS; for instance checking trends over time on control surface movement, and flagging anything that is unusual that could suggest a problem.

Perhaps it was just a very high-speed ejection, or like Kara Hultgreen, the chap got on the wrong side of fate in the ejection timings. Terrible shame.

Often just fixing the loadouts is enough for it work properly. It's the same with a couple of old SU-27 missions, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with them, apart from missing stores (which can mean AI mission objectives failing).

Wonderful. Thanks ED.

'Hot Wind' is a huge improvement, campaign wise. It's seems a lot more balanced, for want of a better word. I wish I'd tried it first. The SARH's seem to work very well indeed at closer ranges <8km. Tacview showed a 27R defeating an F-5 rear aspect at that pulled a 7.5g turn toward it, changing course by about 90 degrees. It appears to be chaff that defeats them most of the time.

If they're pushing - remember military flying can be inherently high risk - then it is understandable that accidents will occur. Training kills a lot of people. Back in the 50's and early 60's, when supersonic, swept-wing aircraft became commonplace, casualties were eye-watering.

That and perfect SA from the AI means that turning away from the enemy or getting WVR can be dangerous. I've been splashed a few times by simply losing sight of F16's / F5's and not decisively seperating, instead trying to spot them (never works, they always shoot me down). It's a habit I struggle to shake. I do like playing this way though, with no labels / no padlock. It mirrors what I've read about losing tally very easily. The LOD transition remains a nuisance.

People would complain about the Brick's turn radius, and the fact it's undermodelled. Evidence would be provided, including theoretical papers from MIT proving that bricks have a superior climb rate to the KA50, especially at low altitude. ED would inevitably be forced to produce a brick modelled on popular American types. GGTharos will write 5000 words on why it is too fast.

Indeed. Opportunistic targeting utilising known exploits.

Tacview changes the game, doesn't it? What a wonderful tool. I spend as much time in it as the cockpit, and it teaches you loads. I've devoured just about every post here on missile effectiveness, and - with the caveat I don't play online (yet) - while it has problems, it is very unlikely it will be fixed, I really don't mind it, and I certainly prefer it to the Flanker 2.0 standard of incredibly potent SAMS, SARH's and ARH. Anybody remember all the training material and forum posts devoted to defeating the AIM-7 and R-33? If you play realistically and don't 'game' the Amraams with last-ditch pulls etc, they're still pretty scary, albeit slower than their real life counterparts. The biggest bugbear I have is the AI ESP, with regard to close range heaters. Chaff is effective, but sometimes you just can't have enough of it. There is also another consideration; and that is the sandbox factor. Virtual pilots can put many hours into replaying the same scenarios repeatedly, an advantage real world pilots may not have; being perfectly prepared and being able to predict missile engagement outcomes - because you've done it 100 times before - is going to present performance that can be seen as flawed; the PK debate for example.

I tried the pincer move, and it does work. Another good tactic is to get in, evade missiles using beam / reversals and let the wingie take out the shooters - this seems to work very well. The main issue the stock campaign has is balance; often you're outnumbered, which is not quite my understanding of how things should be. I'm persisting just because it's fun to try different things, but am realistic at the challenges inherent in trying to take on 4 F-16s. The other problem with the AI is, you can't run away. They'll pursue relentlessly, however I have noticed an odd tendency for them to lose you (occasionally) once you get WVR, leading to inadvertent seperation. The SPO goes quiet (leading you think they're dead) and they've actually turned away.

It is impressive. The ease of use is something one reads about consistently with Russian equipment; although there's much written about the ergonomic and human interface shortcomings compared to something like an F-16. The differing philosophy - effectively assuming the pilot can and will get himself into a dangerous part of the envelope in stressful situations - interested me. Although commonplace, MiG's still interest me. I saw a '29 (OVT) for the first time in 2006, and an 'A' mark only last year. Still haven't seen a Kosher SU-27, only the MKI.

Or 'Hotshots' Admiral Benson - "American planes will always be superior as long as there are wonderful men like you in the cockpit. And German parts. "