B1Helios

Thanks for the kudos PoleCat.. much appreciated. :thumbup:

Just thought I'd post a few photos of our recent multiplayer sessions over at Flight-Sim-Fanatics. We decided to take a break one day from blowin stuff up and practice some formation flying in the KA-50. Here you see four of us maintain formation. Flying lead is definitely the easiest. We're gearing up for the DCS A10C. As you can see in the next few photos a couple of us set out to practice cold & dark starts, then took off out of Batumi airbase to dispatch some targets using the AGMs'. We also dropped some CBU's and finished the remaining targets off with the GAU 30MM. This is a screenie I took watching the replay from my wingman's cockpit. Me on his right just after takeoff. For anyone interested in coming out, we typically hold sessions on Friday's, Sats, Sun, Mon and Tuesdays. We're also in the works of developing a ranked structure for our members. Essentially we're building missions we'll be using as checkrides to pass proficiencies per any particular checkride. As members pass each checkride, they receive a medal they can either add to their avatar or sig. Again, nothing too serious, but is fun to see everyone's expertise in both the BS and the A10 at a glance.

Thanks Fuzzy. ;) Per your first sentence, this is one of the reasons I've created my own group. We're not a squadron and we don't dictate any hard and fast rules, which by the way there is nothing wrong with. I'm just pointing out that we're more a group of casual flyers. My intention is to offer people a casual experience to fly with others, while having fun and learning/honing skills at the same time. People are more than welcome to come and go as they please as there are no commitments required for time and no, alarm clock', ops. Our decision to password protect our servers is actually left up to the person hosting, but generally speaking we usually have them pass-protected. But again, there are no rules stating that a member must protect it and in fact can set one up with no passwords whatsoever if they choose. In my plight of providing this to fellow simmers, when I host I typically pass-protect to ensure an atmosphere that we're all expecting, and get no surprises from the anonymous lone wolf with counterproductive intentions. In a sense, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't, ie keeping the riff raff out, but also closing yourself off to fellow pilots.

I haven't been around the Lockon/DCS sims for too long, but my one guess to less turn out now as apposed to, 'the old days', would be that we now have the DCS BS and DCS A10, so the, 'herd', has been thinned by additional sims. Just a guess, but I could be way off base. As for pass-protected servers, our group normally runs ops with protected servers, and generally speaking this creates an atmosphere for our members to be able to participate in without having to worry about or deal with the general riff raff. We definitely don't go to any means to turn away potential pilots, in fact the opposite for those who've shown an interest by joining our forum and participating both in forum and in game. I realize the frustration some may experience just trying to join a server to get in some gametime, but really, the only obvious solution is to take the next step and contact a few formed groups, join their TS, or form a group of your own, or get on the minority of servers that aren't password protected. It is what it is and largely due in part to many variables, but one of the biggest I believe is for groups to not have to deal with those who are disruptive. And as one poster perceptively pointed out, joining a group/TS server, takes away some of the anonymity. And for those who really don't like to talk much, it is not a requirement that you carry on full blown convo on our TS server. We use it more for purposes of getting everyone on the same page as far as communication goes. I'm like that too at times, sometimes I'm a jabber mouth and some days I just don't feel like saying much. BUT, having TS/Vent makes things so much easier as apposed to having either no communication, or having to take hands off the stick to chat in game.

Hellow Fellow DCS World pilots, Are you looking for a friendly & casual group of people to fly with? Want a fun environment that still promotes learning and honing your skills? Interested in flying in MP sessions any day during the week and weekends. The DCS series of sims including LockOn/Flaming cliffs has a tremendous amount of support from the flight sim community from the hardcore fan, to the casual weekend warriors. Athough now mostly known as DCS World. At http://www.flight-sim-fanatics.com we are of the latter. We fly the DCS Blackshark, FC2 & 3, the DCS A10 and P51 Mustang. Additionally we also fly other sims as well to include FSX and a few others. For more detailed information on other sims we fly, come check us out. We are geared towards being a casual group of friendly flyers. Our members span from the UK to the US. Although we are casual, we take the learning process seriously, but we make it fun. And what better to advance through the learning curve at a quicker pace learning with others! We have our own Teamspeak server. We do not require you to know militeristic lingo, or know the phonetic alphabet. We simply come together to have fun and to learn from one another. Our members come and go as they please, flying when they can and want to. We don't require any commitments of time. Our servers are generally password protected and not for reasons of closing ourselves off to potential pilots, but more to provide fun and friendly multi-player sessions for members. However, it is typically up to whomever is hosting the session if they want to password protect their server. We have no hard and fast rules dictating anything to our members. All we ask is a mature audience, both in game and on our TS server. If interested, please come check us out at http://www.flight-sim-fanatics.com. Please register so you have full access to our forum where you will find dates and times of upcoming sessions. You will also find a casual, knowledgeable and light humored group of individuals in which to fly with and discuss anything relating to flight sims or otherwise. I look forward to meeting you. If you have questions, please don't hesitate to ask. Cheers, B1helios

Welcome Starkey, reg approved. ;)

Fixed it for ya. ;)

LOL... $796.00??? Really? I'd better choose that one over the one thats only $500.00.

Hey all, Just wanted to let you all know we have a planned event for the Black Shark this Monday August 29th at 2200 gmt for the DCS Black Shark. Per my previous post on, 'Looking for others to fly with?'. We're not a hardcore group, just a few people who get together to learn and have fun. For details feel free to visit us at www.flight-sim-fanatics.com. Soon we'll also be focusing on adding FC2 into our regular sessions. For the most part, we're using Dragons Multiplayer missions, but we're also working on either modifying those (to include FC2) or creating our own. Hoping to see a few more BS pilots join in on the fun. :pilotfly: Cheers, B1

No worries Booger, it was a rather quick change and I should have posted the new URL a bit sooner on the site. Those guys at Lunarpages are quick even though they tell you things can take up to a few days. Anway the new site is at: Flight-Sim-Fanatics.com And I do apologize. I am not that forum literate and lost everything with the old forum. So I will get in tonight and re-create the sections, although admittedly we lost the posts and members will have to re-register. Again my sincerest apologies guys. :(

Agreed. And to be more specific our main focus right now centers around the BS. I'm am just getting into FC2 and learning the A10A and some of the other aircraft so we can combine FC2 with BS multiplayer sessions. I'd like to be able to fully support the A10C at some point. And I have gone through and learned some of it, but recently realized my time spent is better prioritized around the BS and FC2 at this time.

Hey Fury, Check out this post just a bit further down in this section of the forum. Looking for people to fly with? We're not a squad per se. We're just virtual BS pilots who fly together and our doors are open to anyone that wants to join us. We're fairly new to the BS as well and have learned quite alot over the past month we've been flying. We use TS to communicate. Cheers, B1

From an experienced BS pilot, I'll take this as a reminder to go slower through the procedures. Thanks for taking a look at the track. ;) Both LH and RH AC SYS GENs were on and the throttles were in auto (page up x2). I could be wrong, but I get the impression the bird needs to be in the air a few minutes before one can simply go into an auto-hover. I found that if I just didn't engage it right away and flew around a few minutes, the auto-hover was not turning off my AP functions. At the time I wasn't performing any agressive maneuvers or inputting alot of cyclic commands so I'm not sure either. I've since remapped a hat switch to my ap modes for the, 'just in case', which seems to help. Though as I mentioned, giving the heli some time once in the air all seems to be working as it should be.

Dejjvid, come by the forums and check things out. Send me your request for registration and I'll get you up and running asap. 112th - I don't think you'll be disapointed in purchasing the BS. Having others to fly with, especially starting out will get you into the air in no time! Looking forward to having you guys join us! ;) Cheers, Brandon

Hello fellow pilots, For those of you interested in flying the DCS Black Shark in the online environment, I am working on getting people together to fly with throughout the week. I am a nooby with the Shark. I've had it for a couple of weeks now. Another pilot and I have been flying online together recently learning the Shark in the shared multiplayer environment. Our motto is, the more the merrier. We get together and practice with the Shark, learning the basics like hovering, how to use the AP, how to trim, land, and weapons usage among other things. We're not a hardcore group, we just like flying together b/c we believe the learning process can be alot more fun having others to share it with. We help each other out where confusing or frustrating situations present themselves during the learning process, but most importantly we have fun. Our doors are open to virtual pilots of any level. To be clear, we are not a, 'school/training server', just a few BS pilots who fly together and learn from one another while having fun at the same time. I have a TS server we use for communications and highly recommend using it while flying with us. If interested, please contact us at: Flight-Sim-Fanatics.com. I'm usually available Mondays and Tuesdays and some Sundays. My partner, Vio (or better known as Booger on this forum) is available throughout the week. He's a fun guy to fly with, and very knowledgeable given his time with the Black Shark. If you're looking for a more casual group of flyers to learn and fly with, we look forward to having you join us. Fly safe! I hope you'll join us! Brandon (B1Helios) **UPDATE** As of recently we've also been using FC2 (Flaming Cliffs 2) as it is compatible with the Black Shark in the online environment.

Well, true yes. I see the validity in having problems when rushing through things when flying with your buddies. But in this case while we were both trying to ascertain the cause of the problem, there was certainly no implied hurriedness going through the start up procedures and waiting for the INU to align. There were actually quite a few times, after we'd both started our choppers where we were talking over TS for about 5 minutes before taking off. Thanks for providing the links as well. I did find the one on the INU so I'll do some reading on the others.

This is correct. Oddly enough I could not replicate the issue last night while trying to create a track for the rudder input issue. However, I seemed to have problems with this throughout the day as Booger and I flew, but, could not replicate it later in the evening. The AH disengaging AP issue is still ongoing. I was inclined to say it was something I was missing or doing out of order during the start up procedure, but Booger and I went over the procedures pretty extensively, comparing tracks, going through it over TS etc. The reason I suspect the start up sequence is b/c I do not seem to have this problem when I start in the heli warm. The track I provided for the AH issue goes through my start up procedure, so maybe one of you fine gents can find something that we continue to miss. :D

Thanks for the explanation Booger! Although I'd like to make a minor correction in the explanation. In a hover with good trim, in real mode, without the auto-hover engaged and with only the autopilot bank and pitch modes engaged, (no heading hold), I can turn either direction 45 degrees via the twist of the stick upon which, at 45 degrees, the chopper begins to fight the turn and I cannot continually turn the aircraft. (remember I'm in a hover, and the indicated airspeed is 0). Once I let go of the stick (hands free) the helicopter turns back to its original heading, ie the point I started from before engaging any rudder inputs. I find this odd since since I do not have the heading hold engaged on the autopilot. I've other issues with autopilot Booger and I have extensively tested where once I turn on the auto-hover and then turn it off, it disengages my AP bank, pitch, and heading hold buttons. I have to manually turn them back on. If I engage the auto-hover again and then turn it off, it will not disengage those modes a 2nd time around. Seems only the first time it does this in which I have to go through this process each and every time just to get the auto-hover to work correctly. Even after trimming the aircraft and then going into an auto-hover - about 50% of the time it seems as though it loses control. Hands free, the chopper will just start moving uncontrollably. I'm inclined at this point to just forgoe even using the auto-hover since I can establish a decent hover without it. I'd also have no qualms not using heading hold mode either, but it seems, in this case it doesn't matter whether I have it engaged or not, the chopper fights wanting to do a complete turn in a hover, using only rudder inputs. I'll also check out the link provided to see if I can glean anything that can help solve this. And provide a track to help clear up any confusion. The autohover4.trk shows the auto-hover disengaging the ap's bank, pitch and heading modes. I'll have to get another trk up for the rudder issue as I lost the heli in the first track. Well interestingly enough, I can't reproduce the issue with the rudder. If I turn off the ap heading hold, the rudder works as it should allowing me full rotation in either direction. With the mode engaged, I can continually turn, but once I release the stick the heli will auto turn back to its original heading as it should. Earlier today I, for the life of me, could not get the heli to respond as it should. FYI - on the auto-hover disengaging the ap modes - it does this after I perform a cold and dark, not when starting a mission with the heli warm. We brainstormed my cold & dark procedures, but cannot find what could be causing this. Autohover4.trk

Hey all, Another question regarding the BS. In real mode and in game mode I have my rudder controls set to Joy RZ which is actually the twisting motion, Left and Right, on my Saitek X-65. In game mode, when I command rudder inputs left and right the chopper responds positively, by turning exactly in the direction of the input. However in sim mode I'm really fighting to get the chopper to turn. I've gone as far as disabling heading hold mode on the autopilot and it seems to help some. When I have the FCS (Red Box) up, I can plainly see the rudder line moving in the direction of the twist, yet the chopper appears to be fighting the command. If I twist too hard, it seems the blades cross and down I go. I realize real mode is supposed to be more difficult than game mode, but it seems I'm fighting the heli more than I should be. Is this simply the nature of the beast or is there something I missing? Access tune shows no null zone, ie 0, X and Y saturation are at 100%. Cheers, Brandon

Thanks EagleEye. We ended up having to connect via the public IP. The downside was I could connect to his public IP, but he couldn't connect to mine. So I'm wondering if I'm missing a setting in my router.

Hey guys, Quick question about setting up the DSC BS server that I've yet to find an answer to scouring the web. The GUI seems pretty straightfoward. I'm hosting, so I click on Server. I enter the name of the server, set to internet, 5 players and my correct computers IP address shows as the interface. On my router I've configured port 10308 both TCP and UDP for my computers IP address to be port forwarded. For options (there are only 2), but my connection is set to ADSL. I've also verified the correct IP address of my computer through my command prompt and it matches what the game tells me via the interface box in server. I'm temporarily not running any background apps that would interfere with my connection to the internet, ie, mcafee, norton etc. Even the default windows firewall has been temporarily disabled. A friend of mine is having difficulty seeing me in the server list, but he can see all the other servers that are out there. Any ideas as to what we could possibly be missing? Cheers, Brandon

Great Vid! Laughed the entire way through.. lol It appeared you were starting to learn a few things throughout the vid..good on ya! :) I've flown FSX for about a year now and I can honestly say the DCS A10 is probably the most indepth sim I've come across to date. Going through and reading the 600+ page manual is a no go for me as we well, but is invaluable as a reference and has really helped me in areas I just couldn't get around in some of the in game tutorials. I was going to suggest the Saitek X-65, but, you've already got the TM Warthog.. Congrats! Cheers, Brandon

Hey Slazi, welcome to the forums and to Black Shark! I'm fairly new as well with BS, about a week now. I haven't experienced any of the issues you mention. Maybe uninstalling/reinstalling might do the trick? Can you do that through steam? It could be possible you have some corrupt files through the download process. Cheers, Brandon

Hey Jona, no worries man. This is probably something I'll integrate into weekly sessions as I do with flights in FSX as well.

Awesome! Good to see others are interested! :D What I'll probably do than is set up a server on either Monday or Tuesday in the afternoon. I'll have to see what my time looks like for both days, it'll probably be around 3pm MDT that I set up the server, (2100 GMT). I'll post dates and times over at fsx-multiplayer-meetandgreet.com over the next few days. (don't let the name full you, I'm also a big FSX diehard.) :) You'll also find my TS server info as well. Again, the intention here is for something relaxed and fun and for noobs like me/you/us to learn more about the Blackshark. I'm looking forward to flying with anyone who can make it out. Thanks guys, Brandon