Sundowner.pl

It's Alphasim's - it's payware,and I don't recommend getting it, there are many bugs, like the upper left console missing.

It took me some time to not-find good AH-64 cockpit shots from simulators, so I run the FSX, and took two shots, one from VC (night), and one from 2D (day). So the 'IR image' is way off, the symbology is not exactly the same size as the original, and the font is wrong. Yet the resolution of that image is near correct. And this is with 40% transparency.

hehehe, I'm not worried, of course if you look (like move your eyeball, not your head) off the HDU colimation screen, you will see other things. But we don't simulate hose movements, because there's no way we acouly could. I'll run my Photoshop and try to emulate how this should look like (at least remotely), I just have to find few shots of apache cockpit form some sims.

Hehehe, If you won't find the "Wings of Apache", try "Fire Birds"

I have high hopes for the Alpha Apache also. I'm not really worrying about the flight model (just remember that the tail is also an AIRFOIL!) , nor the armament, or navigation systems, those are really nicely covered in several books, web pages, and the manuals are available to the public. What I'm really worrying about is that one particular system. Like I wrote, it was never done even remotely right, so there's a challenge. When I go back in my memory to all the games I played for last... 18 years... non of them had such complicated rendering needs. Of course, the rendering two images, for two different viewpoint were made pretty soon - almost all helicopter sim had this for the MFD image. But making both full screen with additional effects like blurring, transparency etc. It's going to be really ground breaking. Yellonet, no it shouldn't be made like you suggest. A simple test, look at the computer screen, an put your hand in front of your left eye, you'll see that you can't see both images, your brain have to choice which image it want to perceive, mainly because both need different depth adaptation of the eye. With IHADSS, the thermal image is collimated, set to infinity, and as long the second eye, also need that (looking faaaar away) you can perceive both images - yet the brighter still win. When inside the choppers cockpit, you have to set your depth perception to very close, to see the instruments, so this reacquire to make a choice - do you want to concentrate on the right eye image, or the left one? You can't have both - one must be dominant, and both have to become full screen in simulation with just different sets of transparency.

Yeah, got some more from few other places (those need a real helo-pilot like sense of humor though ;) ): The rotor is just a big fan on top of the helicopter designed to keep the pilot cool. When it stops, you can actually watch the pilot start sweating. Helicopters can't fly; they're just so ugly the earth repels them. I never liked riding in helicopters because there's a fair probability that the bottom part will get going around as fast as the top part.— Lt. Col. John Wittenborn, USAFR. Real planes use only a single stick to fly. This is why bulldozers & helicopters -- in that order -- need two. — Paul Slattery If helicopters are so safe, how come there are no vintage / classic helicopter fly-ins? — Anonymous Hovering is for pilots who love to fly but have no place to go. Helicopters don't fly . . . . they just beat the air into submission. Never let a helicopter take you somewhere your brain didn't get to five minutes earlier. Don't drop the helicopter in order to fly the microphone. A helicopter flies because of a principle discovered by Bernoulli, not Marconi. A helicopter is a collection of rotating parts going round and round and reciprocating parts going up and down - all of them trying to become random in motion. No matter what else happens, fly the helicopter. Forget all that stuff about thrust and drag, lift and gravity; a helicopter flies because of money. Helicopters are for the rich . . . or the enlisted. If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage, it's probably a helicopter . . . and therefore, unsafe. If something hasn't broken on your helicopter . . . it's about to. A 'good' landing is one from which you can walk away. A 'great' landing is one after which they can use the helicopter again Helicopter flight: A bunch of spare parts flying in close formation. Anything that screws its way into the sky flies according to unnatural principals. You never want to sneak up behind an old, high-time helicopter pilot and clap your hands. He will instantly dive for cover and most likely whimper...then get up and smack the crap out of you. There are no old helicopters laying around airports like you see old airplanes. There is a reason for this. Come to think of it, there are not many old, high-time helicopter pilots hanging around airports either so the first issue is problematic. You can always tell a helicopter pilot in anything moving: a train, an airplane, a car or a boat. They never smile, they are always listening to the machine and they always hear something they think is not right. Helicopter pilots fly in a mode of intensity, actually more like "spring loaded", while waiting for pieces of their ship to fall off. Flying a helicopter at any altitude over 500 feet is considered reckless and should be avoided. Flying a helicopter at any altitude or condition that precludes a landing in less than 20 seconds is considered outright foolhardy. Remember in a helicopter you have about 1 second to lower the collective in an engine failure before the craft becomes unrecoverable. Once you've failed this maneuver the machine flies about as well as a 20 case Coke machine. Even a perfectly executed autorotation only gives you a glide ratio slightly better than that of a brick. While hovering, if you start to sink a bit, you pull up on the collective while twisting the throttle, push with your left foot (more torque) and move the stick left (more translating tendency) to hold your spot. If you now need to stop rising, you do the opposite in that order. Sometimes in wind you do this many times each second. Don't you think that's a strange way to fly? For Helicopters: You never want to feel a sinking feeling in your gut (low "g" pushover) while flying a two bladed under slung teetering rotor system. You are about to do a snap-roll to the right and crash. For that matter, any remotely aerobatic maneuver should be avoided in a Huey. Don't push your luck. It will run out soon enough anyway. If everything is working fine on your helicopter consider yourself temporarily lucky. Something is about to break. Harry Reasoner once wrote the following about helicopter pilots: "The thing is, helicopters are different from planes. An airplane by its nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or by an incompetent pilot, it will fly. A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other. Having said all this, I must admit that flying in a helicopter is one of the most satisfying and exhilarating experiences I have ever enjoyed: skimming over the tops of trees at 100 knots is something we should all be able to do, at least once". And remember the fighter pilot's prayer: "Lord I pray for the eyes of an eagle, the heart of a lion and the courage of a combat helicopter pilot." Many years later, I know that it was sometimes anything but fun, but now it IS something to brag about for those of us who survived the experience. If helicopters are so safe, how come there are no vintage/classic helicopter fly-ins? (owning a helicopter gives me perspective on this one: it's too expensive to fly it there!) The Ten Commandments of flying helos : - He who hath inspecteth not his aircraft gives angels cause to concern him. - Thou shalt not become airborne without first ascertaining the level of thy propellant. - Let infinite discretion govern thy movement near the ground, for thy area of distruction is vast. - Thy rotor RPM is thy staff of life. Without it, thou shall surely perish. - Thou shalt not let thy confidence exceed thy ability, for broad is thy path of destruction. - He that doeth his approach and alloweth the wind to turn behind him shall surely make restitution. - Thou shalt maintain thy speed between ten and four hundred feet lest the earth rise up and smite thee. - Thou shalt not make a trial of thy centre of gravity lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. - He who allows his tail rotor to catch in the thorns, curseth his children and his children's children. - Thou shalt not fly unless thou first have a type rating for thy craft!

Well there is only one prototype of Ka-52, and it supose to be Digital Combat Simulator, not Digital Test-flight Simulator :smilewink:

@Allo, I'm not saying that Apache and Tiger fly the same. They do not, but they fight the same, use similar tactics etc. In game I would rather see a new approach to do things, than the same but in different machine (Tiger vs Mi-24 here).

1. The real life: When AH-64 Apache came to service, the biggest innovation of its design was not the hellfire weapon system, not the high agility, nor the exceptionally high survivability. It was the Integrated Helmet And Display Sighting System (IHADSS for short). Not many people know, that when Apache was born, other team at Lockheed Martin was working on similar system, for the highly successful light fighter - the F-16. Although the "Falcon Eye" system, was finished, tested, and amazed every test pilot, that flew with it, the IHADSS was the only helmet mounted sight system, that feed pilot with Infra Red Imagery of the world, and still is, although other systems with newer airplanes are entering service right now. Why Infra Red ? Why not less sophisticated Night Vision ? The answer is simple, IIR (Imaginary Infra Red) works all the time, round the clock, no mater if there is sun, moon, stars, or non of them. It sees the objects radiated energy, not the reflected one, and its more prone to be blinded. On battlefield, the lighting changes constantly, even though night vision technology is nearly 70 years old, it still have problems with being blinded by instantly changing lightning conditions. Yet IIR is still costly and heavy. 2. The simulation: Now let's take a look at ALL helicopters simulations, that were done till today. Did any one of them included realistic made IHADSS system ? No. Not even one. Why is that ? Is this lack of data ? No. Is it the complicity of the system alone ? Nope. The problem lays within the game engines. How many view points a human being have right now ? Two, the left, and right eye. Because we still use 2D monitors those two viewpoints are compressed into one, and projected into monitor screen. What IHADSS do is adding another view point, heck, now there's two too many ! That IHADSS view point is 2 meters ahead of pilot head, outside of cockpit, where PNVS or TADS cameras are located. What every up to date simulations did? Well made the whole world outside the cockpit green and bright. Is this what an Apache crew really see ? No, not at all. What do crew see is a cockpit, and world outside in their left eye, and really odd world in greenish colors, the brighter, the hotter objects are (until he changes the polarity that is), plus the generated symbology. 3. What have to be done ? So, what do simulation engine have to do, to represent this rather realistically? In two words: A lot! The game, have to generate an image, from the 'left eye', that’s nothing special, it does it all the time. Next it have to generate the IR image from the second viewpoint (PNVS or TADS). Then combine both images overlaying the IIR over natural vision, and making the IIR semi transparent. A heck load of calculations... and is it the end ? Hell no! The Helmet mounted display is, like all HUD sights - collimated image, set to infinity, so you really don't need to adjust depth with your eye. But the other eye is a problem. First: the dominance of the eye. Each one of us have one eye dominant, just like with hands... and legs (who's snowboarding knows that), now every Apache pilot have to be or become right eve dominant, that’s where all the important data is displayed etc. So the rendered image will be, somewhat 80/20 – 80% IHADSS, 20% normal (left eye) vision. Second thing is, if we’re actually not paying attention to what our other eye is seeing, when the other have different image – the image from not used one is blurred (everyone who’s shooting anything with a scope noticed that). So the natural view (the background) will have to be blurred. Third: we actually can chose, and switch dominance on conscious level. Shift between noticing what we see with each eye. With only one image, we have to have some control to be able to switch between those views, some sort of assignable axis, to gradually switch the dominant viewpoint between simulated pilot eyes, from left, to right, from 80/20, to 20/80, and blur/unblur left eye images. That’s a lot of things to take into account isn’t it ? Well guess what, it ain't over yet! Here comes the fun part. The IIR image in AH-64A Apache have rather low resolution, very similar to movies on youtube, enough to see everything, and quite natural if projected at the eye. Yet not really good if we want to project such thing at 19” 1280x1024 or bigger screen. The IIR image have to be made ‘soft’ – as it’s perceived by the real pilots, What that ‘soft’ will mean… well that’s something that have to be made by trial and error process, a blurred edges might be a good start. 4. How to do it? Really, I’m not the one paid to figure that out. I’m just showing the complexity of a problem. Yet I wish luck to those programmers who will have to crack it. But I’ll give you a hint, both views don’t have to be rendered on the same computer ;)

Should I care about the max take off weight ? Max speed, rate of climb ? Not really. What really mattes is what they do to get the job done. For instance. Flying an Mi-24 as tank killer you won't go hugging the ground, slaloming between trees etc. you'll go on high speed, shoot a cloud of rockets, and turn away preparing for the second pass. This is unique. Now the AH-64 do it like a lion stalking a gazelle, keeping low, slow, and silent. And Tiger, Rooivalk and Mongoose, do it exactly the same way. Only deference is, how much armament they can take, and how much punishment they can withstand.

Mainly from jollygreen.org: Helicopter Pilots are diferent too: http://www.jollygreen.org/Humor/Reasoner.jpg and the most important: Vietnam Army Helicopter Lessons EVERYTHING I EVER NEEDED TO KNOW IN LIFE I LEARNED AS A HELICOPTER CREW IN VIETNAM. Once you are in the fight, it is way too late to wonder if this is a good idea. It is a fact that helicopter tail rotors are instinctively drawn toward trees, stumps, rocks, etc. While it may be possible to ward off this natural event some of the time, it cannot, despite the best efforts of the crew, always be prevented. It's just what they do. NEVER get into a fight without more ammunition than the other guy. The engine RPM and the rotor RPM must BOTH be kept in the GREEN. Failure to heed this commandment can affect the morale of the crew. Cover your Buddy, so he can be around to cover for you. Decisions made by someone above you in the chain-of-command will seldom be in your best interest. The terms Protective Armor and Helicopter are mutually exclusive. Sometimes, being good and lucky still is not enough. "Chicken Plates" are not something you order in a restaurant. If everything is as clear as a bell, and everything is going exactly as planned, you're about to be surprised. Loud, sudden noises in a helicopter WILL get your undivided attention. The BSR (Bang Stare Red) Theory states that the louder the sudden bang in the helicopter, the quicker your eyes will be drawn to the gauges. The longer you stare at the gauges the less time it takes them to move from green to red. No matter what you do, the bullet with your name on it will get you. So, too, can the ones addressed "To Whom It May Concern". If the rear echelon troops are really happy, the front line troops probably do not have what they need. If you are wearing body armor, they will probably miss that part. Happiness is a belt-fed weapon. Having all your body parts intact and functioning at the end of the day beats the alternative. If you are allergic to lead, it is best to avoid a war zone. It is a bad thing to run out of airspeed, altitude, and ideas all at the same time. Hot garrison chow is better than hot C-rations which, in turn, are better than cold C-rations, which are better than no food at all. All of these, however, are preferable to cold rice balls, even if they do have the little pieces of fish in them. Everybody's a hero ... on the ground ... in the club ... after the fourth drink. A free fire zone has nothing to do with economics. The further you fly into the mountains, the louder the strange engine noises become. Medals are OK, but having your body and all your friends in one piece at the end of the day is better. Being shot hurts. "Pucker Factor" is the formal name of the equation that states the more hairy the situation is, the more of the seat cushion will be sucked up your asshole. It can be expressed in its mathematical formula of S (suction) + H (height) above ground) + I (interest in staying alive) + T (# of tracers coming your way) Thus the term 'SHIT!' can also be used to denote a situation where high Pucker Factor is being encountered. Thousands of Vietnam Veterans earned medals for bravery every day. A few were even awarded. Running out of pedal, fore or aft cyclic, or collective are all bad ideas. Any combination of these can be deadly. There is only one rule in war: When you win, you get to make up the rules. C-4 can make a dull day fun. There is no such thing as a fair fight-only ones where you win or lose. If you win the battle you are entitled to the spoils. If you lose you don't care. Nobody cares what you did yesterday or what you are going to do tomorrow. What is important is what you are doing-NOW-to solve our problem. Always make sure someone has a P-38. Uh, that's a can opener for those of you who aren't military. Prayer may not help . . . but it can't hurt. Flying is better than walking. Walking is better than running. Running is better than crawling. All of these, however, are better than extraction by a Med-Evac, even if it is, technically, a form of flying. If everyone does not come home, none of the rest of us can ever fully come home either. Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR. A grunt is the true reason for the existence of the helicopter. Every helicopter flying in Vietnam had one real purpose: To help the grunt. It is unfortunate that many helicopters never had the opportunity to fulfill their one true mission in life, simply because someone forgot this fact. If you have not been there and done that . . . you probably will not understand most of these.

Nope, actually Ka-26 :P http://www.airliners.net/photos/photos/4/8/0/0123084.jpg

I voted the OH-58D, because its extremely easy to make: - whole weapon system is similar to Apache - TM 1-1520-248-10 manual is publicly available - it uses many parts from civilian Bell 206, and the 407 have the Kiowas rotor, so finding any data is very easy I chose the easy one... because, I do believe, that this simulator should evolve by adding machines in pairs, First attack helicopters, than attack aircrafts, than multirole fighters, air superiority fighters, navy, then back to stage 1 and again adding helicopters. An easy helicopter could be done, somewhere between those others aircrafts, without disturbing the whole process. Yet there is a problem, if we want that, than one circle will mean 10 aircrafts... 9 months of work per each, it means... 7,5 years (!) of work. Seriously this is going to suck, because, when ED will get to stage one, they'll need to redone everything from scratch just to keep up with the market :cry:

Actually you could model it's kinematics quite accurately, just reverse engineering of what we already know. The only problem would be representation of avionics, the layout of info on screens, symbology etc.

Sorry, but... what ? What about the #32, #35, #36, and #37 of ininitial production run, and all those 67 that are going to be delivered before 2015 ?

And how low, you have to fly in open terrain for this actually to work ? Not even talking about desert environment. Those fuses are as smart as those parking sensors mounted in car bumpers, there's obstacle, there's signal - nothing more, nothing less. Those are very simple systems, because, the simple things work. Not really, the key to survival is information. If you know where SAMs and AAA are located, you know where not to fly. Everywhere else you fly at an altitude below radars LOS, and you will be fine. Just don't go into open terrain, there you have to hug the ground, and that's accident waiting to happen.

The interesting thing is how much did Americans spend time and effort during the LHX program for a2a combat. They thrown into air everything they had to fight each other, to see what works, and what do not in helo vs helo dogfight. They've seen it as very serious threat. And they still do, just take a look at the AH-1Z - very rigid main rotor, high power engines, and additional pylons specially for Sidewinders missiles.

Well chaff may help a little. First, a lot depends on amount of that tinfoil ejected into space, one cartridge will not cut it... 10 might ;) Second thing, a chaff may not only be used to trick missile to change course away from you. Almost all a2a and g2a missiles have proximity fuses, working by small radar, or laser range finders. When such missile fly through a cloud of metalic foil - its reflection may trigger the fuse. Anyway if you don't have something like AN/AAR-57, flying low and fast is your only option for survival.

Well it is terrible documented war, so take everything with a grain of salt, this is something I read some time ago, and I'm not sure if that story is true. Just like it is with the F-14 kill ratio, some say it is 161:1, others say its 65:0 (55 confirmed), and the confusing part is the Iran-Iraq war.

Well the whole Iran-Iraq war was actually a series of clashes, so it wasn't too dense, actually every time two flights of attack helo's meet - they fought. Kusch should have more info about those fights, but if I remember correctly, it was then for the first time a chopper (Mi-24) fired a2a missile (R-60) at another helicopter (AH-1S), probably that was the last thing Cobra crew expected as it crash landed.

Czechoslovakia-Germany border 1989 :music_whistling: For helo vs helo a2a combat, go to the Iran-Iraq war, between 1980, and 1987, 10 Cobras, and 6 Hinds were shot down - mainly using antitank wire-guided missiles

Mi-28, AH-64D, Mi-24, AH-1W, OH-58D, AH-1S, A129, Tiger, Roivalk - all of those would be really interesting to fly... yet, let's think about it a minute. What is the real difference between Mongoose, Tiger and Roivalk ? Actually none, avionics - very similar, performance - very close, armament - nearly the same. Seriously, what's the point of spending a lot of time, and money, to make, 3 different choppers, that fly, and kill things exactly, like the FCR-less AH-64D ? Seriously, what we need are things that are unique. Unique in their performance, unique in tactics they need to work, and unique in the thought, that was behind designing it. Unfortunately, all the Euro-choppers (all two of them ;) ) are copycats of American programs - similar goals , similar technology etc. Let's make things... but let them be unique: - Let's make AH-1W, a good attack helo, yet not really advanced, and having really downgraded performance. - Let's make the AH-64D Longbow Apache (and give the choice to strip its FCR) and have the most advanced gunship out there - Let's have the Mi-28N, the same as Lonbow, but made so differently - Let's have the "devil's chariot" Mi-24, a helicopter so distinct, so different in use, than any other fielded chopper in the world. - And as a last one, let's get the OH-58D, a small recon helicopter, just to spice things up. We don't really need more.

Well not really, if you're looking for a pare that was flying at the same time, than a Hind should be with AH-1s, they even fought against each other in the middle east. The AH-64A, is not really the best counterpart to the Ka-50 (#25 standard) neither, actually that should be the AH-64C. For those that do not know, what a Charlie Apache is: hose are the AH-64As that were modified to represent overall standard of the AH-64D, but didn't included the Lonbow FCR, and new power plant... of course the 'C' designation was dropped in 1993, and all are now known as AH-64Ds, but the difference is still there.

I don't see why are you so threaten? It's not like you'll be flying an Su-22, or MiG-23, without RWR against it - like the Iraqi, or Libians did. Flying a modern jet, having the knowledge of F-14 around, you can easily outmaneuver that heavy death-bringing (as you see it) missile, that was designed to take out bombers and cruise missiles. It's like: don't do any western plane, because, they all use AMRAAMs, Derbys and RF-MICAs, and the poor Su-27 have only SARH missiles. So what ? Do a Russian jets only sim? How long can you play MiG vs MiG scenarios ?

Well, I haven't seen AH-1s with AGM-65, but seen those hanging from SH-2s. it was meant to be an anti-ship missile, because, the harpoon was a bit to big for a helo, and there was nothing else at that time (before the Penguin came). Yet the SH-2 + Maverick combo was used couple of times during the Vietnam conflict to attack land targets.