Reticuli

Improved? What was wrong with the original software?

Translational lift is your friend. And be respectful of helo pilots ferrying people up to Everest base camp.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=36364 Automatic Trim Management

I don't think the autopilot cares how much extra control was required for that particular orientation when trim and the hold channels were still on. It seems to use the orientation for the new AP attitude hold. Now, the trim part is different, but the AP will compensate, I think, when the hold channels are all on. I could be wrong, but I would guess your problem is usually having yaw input when hitting trim rather than the pitch and bank being too much. When pitch and bank *are* a problem, it's usually because you're changing collective at the same time or handling the controls too quickly and your orientation hasn't settled sufficiently. Aircraft do not respond immediately and there's always some delay. And if you're changing collective, the pitch & bank will need to be altered slightly. Ivan's recommendation will also help if you can't release pedal/twist habitually.

This is in response to Zika's pm, but I think it might be useful here, too: Manual trim is the same as Blackshark usually has. You tap trim once to trim and (when not in flight director) reset the autopilot attitude hold. Standard Dynamic Trim is for getting autotrimming attitude command/attitude hold in normal flight, and allows hovering and other functions. If you're not in flight director mode and you want automatic trimming, this is the mode to use. Note, you'll still be wanting to reset the heading bug manually or putting the auto-turn to target on when hovering and killing tanks. There is a separate yaw trim available on the rotary dial of the X52 in this script that is very nice for tweaking your alignment for the launch, or for when heading hold is off. The Flight Director one is ACAH trim updating but tailored to that Kamov mode's lack of wings-leveling autopilot. When you're not in flight director, the shark holds your orientation based on where the aircraft was when you tapped the trim key. So normally, dynamic auto-trimming requires more authority to work in order to hold pitch/banks properly. Since flight director mode in the shark turns the hold channels to just rate dampening (to reduce drift), less authority and deflection of the trim management system is required to hold, say, a left bank or a full pitch down. If I don't need the autopilot to hover for me, this is the mode I usually use. You have to turn FD on yourself, by the way. With dynamic trim, you should be able to fly in a natural, but gentle way, without having to worry about the helo trimming in a continuous loop or roll. This is standard fly-by-wire "flight law" design theory at work for modern helos that use conventional sidestick joysticks. A crude implimentation, but effective.

This "new trim" is an automatic dynamic trim management or trim update system with the GlovePIE script. It trims itself based on what you're doing with your non-forcefeedback stick. The script will hold at least part of your bank or pitch when you let go, depending on your stick motions, the amount of time deflected, and the finesse you use. It is also known as attitude command/attitude hold (ACAH). Any modern helo that uses a recentering joystick (usually a sidestick) has this as its primary AFCS fly-by-wire mode. So I came up with this method for using conventional joysticks in helo flight sims that have either wings leveling or manual trim, or both in the case of Blackshark. Originally I did this in EECH using bands in an X52 profile. GlovePIE, however, allows you to do a lot more and allows the script to be used with any joystick.

Wings leveling (or attitude hold) in an autopilot is where you set the pitch/wings orientation, you hit your button, and the aircraft's autopilot stays there. In the shark, when not in flight director (or Route following) you have the trim system and the autopilot working together doing essentially wings-leveling/attitude-hold...which isn't necessarily going to level you with the horizon, by the way. When you hit the trim in the standard flight mode of the shark, you get the trim being reset to a new point and the autopilot hold channels resetting to a new WL/AH orientation and heading hold point. If you go into flight director, in contrast, you are getting only rate-dampening on the hold channels...which is what I tend to use, with or without GlovePIE. Just so I'm complete about all this, Attitude Command-Attitude Hold, or dynamic trim management, or trim update (different names, same thing), are fly-by-wire AFCS/SAS systems that are used by helos that have recentering sidestick joysticks instead of conventional pole cyclics. In that case, you "command" the AH orientation dynamically with the joystick.

They are almost exactly the same trim system. EECH certainly doesn't fly like Gunship! or Longbow Anthology...actually you can choose an ACAH system for the former in the flight model options by turning the leveling # to zero and LBA is only ACAH, but that's besides the point. In Enemy Engaged, you pitch forward, you tap the trim button, it holds. You bank, you tap the trim button, and it holds. I'm not bashing either sim, but the only difference between the trim system seems to be the shark's pitch up/right ground trim state, the heading hold, and flight director. Otherwise, it works the same way on my computer.

Not having stuff to blow up is definitely a difference in X-Plane, but you're not actually blowing up things in your real Blackhawk, are you? The Blackhawks from v7 work fine in v8 and v9. The panels look pretty close to pics of the real birds, and most of what you need can be put on them in Planemaker if they're not to your liking. Very easy to do. About the most complicated thing with Planemaker is arranging the layers so certain things like the ADI don't disappear behind the panel. The hawks package does not currently have a 3d pit like the Chinook, Comanche, Apache, and most of the others. We need a 3d modeler who knows what it should look like to give it a go...hint, hint. On EECH v. Blackshark trim: assuming you're not in flight director mode in BS, both sims trim pretty much exactly the same way. Flight director in the shark, of course, is not wings-leveling but just the SAS channels dampening rates. Can you trim a continuous roll or loop in the Blackhawk with its limiting SAS? Or does it prevent you from doing that and the most you get is holding a bank or pitch angle?

No, are you? Have you ever used EECH? It uses wings leveling autopilot mode and the way you trim the aircraft is almost identical to Blackshark's normal flight mode. And in both you can trim a loop or a continuous roll. I get the strong impression that most of the people bashing other helo sims have not actually used them, especially when people start saying Blackshark's wings leveling and trim are revolutionary. Hell, it's almost exactly the same. The only difference is the ground trim state and the heading hold always being on until you switch on flight director, which switches to a pure rate-dampening FCS. How many of you actually even have Enemy Engaged on your computer? I'm not bashing Blackshark. It's a great sim, but geez, dudes. The first time I booted up Blackshark I was swearing going "Don't tell me Kamov's standard flight mode has %$#@! wings-leveling and heading hold on all the time; damn it." Because I don't like that, but then I was introduced to flight director mode :-)

Crudely mimics attitude-command/attitude hold (ACAH) systems of fly-by-wire helos that use recentering side joysticks rather than a pole cyclic. As such, I feel it is more realistic and more natural than attempting to pretend your nonforcefeedback joystick is a pole cyclic and the manual trim & delay is an appropriate work around. Because that's not a work around you would find in any rotary aircraft in the entire world that has a recentering joystick in it. GlovePIE is just a utility you run that does not install anything on your computer. You run it as is, wherever you want. The scripts you open inside of it and hit Run. They can be easily modified as needed. You do need to have PPJoy installed with a properly configured virtual joystick running. GlovePIE reads your HOTAS axis inputs and sends modified versions of them to PPJoy. In this case, with auto-trimming keeping the virtual stick in place after you let go. There are three modes you can choose from now by double clicking pinkie. One that does nothing and is fully manual. The next is tailored for standard flight mode and has auto-trimming for when you need to hover. The third is for flight director and is the one I use most. I also have the attitude capture rates and the trim ranges in GlovePIE tailored for a curve of 15 in Blackshark. There are two LUA configuration files you can use, one for the PPJoy and the other for the X52, otherwise you need to at least ensure the PPJoy axiis are selected and with that curve. As a result, they match up so the dynamic trim system will not trim in a continuous roll or loop. If you are using another stick, the Joysick1.button6 (pinkie/trim on mine) instances in the PIE script can be changed to whatever you want to use.

I'm on XP, so can't be of much help on that.

Never found any choppers you wanted to fly in X-Plane? Comanches, Apaches, Chinooks, Blackhawks, Werewolf, Eurocopters, 109s, 430s, and on and on. I have like a dozen modded ones, too. The trim function is barely any different than EECH's. Are you camparing flight director mode & trim to the real Blackhawks? Or does the UH-60 also have autopilot wings-leveling on by default? I'm wondering if maybe ED could get ahold of the public GenHel Ames Research Lab Blackhawk flight model. Penn State adapted that pretty easily to Flight Gear, and they didn't even have to rewrite it in C.

The real helo doesn't use delays or a recentering stick, though. All fly-by-wire helos that have recentering joysticks use an auto-trimming system like this as their primary flight mode, though obviously not as crude. If you don't have an FF stick, that is similar to you at home. So in my view, it's more realistic this way. Also known as attitude command-attitude hold, trim management, trim update, or dynamic trim...depending on the AFCS and helo. I hate the manual trim/delay system. I fly much more naturally like this and it performs more like X-Plane with more heft. Everything is just much easier for me this way. Landing. Strafing. Taking off. Aerobatics. Very natural. Oh, and I've been successful with getting the EECH idea implimented. No need for Arneh to do it. Overcontrol and you get warning sounds. Go too far beyond that, and the engines shut down with a voice warning you about exceeding the control tolerances. Very cool. Forces you to be gentle and Blacksharky. Unfortunately Enemy Engaged seems practically too glitchy to play anymore. Maybe it's just me? Oh well. I'll probably upload them and the slightly revised Blackshark GlovePIE with v12 of the pack.

Oh, forgot to mention...The LUAs do indeed work. At the very least you should use the PPJoy one, but you also need to load the X52 one if you aren't using your own outside profile. Wasn't sure exactly how that worked, but I'm glad I made both. Otherwise, you need to manually set your x, y, and twist axis to the PPJoy and put their curves at 15 to get the capture to work out correctly.

I also last night found some interesting ways of tweaking the EECH scripts that actually works very nicely with Arneh's Hind flight model (lovely cockpit, by the way). They never really worked well before now. The other choppers need a slight varient of the limits and still don't quite work as well as the Hind, but pretty nice. Comanche flies like a dream, now...very little bobbing or wobble as with the trim bands on the old X52 profiles I made. True honest to goodness attitude command-attitude hold by stick. EECH is very unstable on my system though. Never was like that before. Probably just so many mods coexisting. Had to take the ATI 3850 out and put in an old 9250 just to play it for a few minutes at a time. Still runs faster than Blackshark with the faster card, though. Heh heh. You really feel like you're playing an arcade game at times with Longbow 2 and EECH, in comparison to Blackshark's flight model. Goodness, we were sooo spoiled with forgiving performance. I keep expecting the blades to rip off at any moment...missing it, in fact. Maybe there's some way Arneh can work something in like you deflect more than 1.5 (out of 2 from -1 to +1) in under 2 seconds and your helo rips apart in EECH, with maybe buffeting at a sudden deflection of 1. Helo sims will never be the same after DCS.

I never had any troubles with the original SST that produces dats. The newer one is supposedly frought with issues and once you install, you can never go back. I've never used the Cougar, but my X52 plus GlovePIE for auto-trimming works great.

Eeeks! I wouldn't recommend it even if you could. Ever seen even EECH's flight model code? Without the explainations for what everything does and the detailed relationships...yowzers. One tweak and it goes from a very good flight model (that may seem a little too unforgiving at times to us laymen) to total chaos. Know when to be content with near perfection. The house of cards is stacked and looking pretty good. That 6 of clubs doesn't want you touching it way down there at the bottom.

While it's not needed or necessarily wise to be trimming in speeds over 250, for my own purposes I have today upped the negative pitch ranges to -0.900 for mode1 and -0.775 for mode2, the var.p values in each section within the script. They are currently at -0.850 and -0.7, respectively. I find this more convenient when cruising, though overspeed and rotor bumping is far more likely. Simply changing modes and clearing trim from -.900 to zero in a turn could be catastrophic. Do this at your own risk or adjust them to whatever you want in between ;-)

If you're not using a forcefeedback stick, check out my glovePIE profile in the link below. There's also a thread I started in the mod section. The bobbing and wobbling you're experiencing is usually caused by one of two things: either the delay and recenter requirement not being fully taken advantage of when manually trimming when using a non-FFB stick, or because of the slightly overzealous modeling of instantaneous pitch/yaw verses continuous pitch/yaw stability. The two capabilities of any aircraft are never exactly the same, so there's always supposed to be some bounce or wobble when you exceed a simulated aircraft's continous pitch/yaw rate into a high instantaneous pitch or yaw, which quickly can't be sustained and forces you back to a lower rate...hence the bobbing or wobble effect. I think it's probably a bit excessive in Blackshark, but at least it's there, right? It's kind of like the vortex ring modeling: it happens too easily at too high of speeds, but at least it's in there. Ditto with rotor bumping. ED seems to have erred slightly on the too much rather than on the not enough end of the flight model. Always a delicate balance to get it right in any sim, and it's not like we haven't had the opposite for long enough in combat helo sims. Just be a little more gentle and gradual, which is always a good flying habit.

I changed these in the graphics config file, but couldn't see much difference afterwards. I had them at 1 before, but I'm not sure if they're tied to anything directly in the options menu. If I put them at 1 again, they do not change when I alter the textures/terrain option in the sim. Just leave them at 1?

Are you using a FFB stick?

You mean a heading hold diamond? It's always present doing something when you're not in Route flying or Flight Director or have Auto Turn to Targets on or have the Head Hold channel off, but you won't see it unless the DH/DT switch is in the middle. That's why I've been telling people if you're not in FD or Route Flying and Head Hold is on, put the switch in the middle so you can see where it's set. Trim or hitting Head Hold off/on quickly will reset the diamond to a new spot, by the way. When you're in Flight Director mode, all three hold channels become nothing more than dampening channels, rather than heading/attitude hold channels.

As I said in the second paragraph, this script does not care which stick you use. I included the X52 dat only to be complete about the whole thing...there is only one key on it: the rotary button which is not recognized by programs. All the rest of the key assignments are done inside Blackshark. Make an X52 pro profile, or assign them within the sim. Doesn't matter. I'm not sure if the LUA's will work from the X52, but you can try them. Again, not critical, except that the axis curves for pitch, roll, and yaw need to all be put at 15 to match with what I intended. Just know that the pinkie is currently assigned as the trim and script trim mode changer (doubleclick it) within the GlovePIE script. You can change that, as well, to whatever you want. Just change the Joystick1.button6 instances in the script to whatever button you want it to be. Download the package below and follow the instructions. I just flew a mission, navigated, completed, navigated back, and landed without a single hitch. And I'm barely getting 20fps most of the time! Seriously, this is the way to fly Blackshark if you have a recentering non-forcefeedback stick. The above stuff looks a lot more complicated at first than it is. I even included a calibration script, pictures for matching up PPJoy...everything you need. To quote Arnold, "Do it, do it now!"

Newest: ------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION: v.12 package - Slightly more trim authority added. v.13 package - corrected instructions. v.14 package - more tweaks. Smoothing and padlocking on BS. Latest and greatest update for adding dynamic trim update to DCS:Blackshark to give a more natural experience when using a recentering, non-forcefeedback joystick like the Saitek X52. This crudely mimics fly-by-wire AFCS & side-stick controllers as used in ADOCS, HACT, Comanche, Dauphine Experimental, and the Block III Enhanced Apache. There are now three modes, identified by your computer voice as you cycle through them: Manual Trim, Standard Dynamic Trim, and Flight Director Dynamic Trim. A calibration profile is also included, along with more detailed instructions. ------------------------------------------- MODDING FOR NON-X52 STICKS: Go for it. The X52 Pro should work fine with it as-is and you don't really need the dat. GlovePIE and PPJoy don't care which stick you use, but I can't guarantee the LUA files will show the correct key assignments in Blackshark. They might need some slight changing, but keep it minimal. Anyone without an X52, make sure your x, y, and zrotation (yaw) PPJoy axis assignments are correct and put their curves at 15. I'm using a rotary on my throttle to suppliment yaw trim, so if you want that you need to match up either the script to yours, or your PPJoy settings to the script to give you this. You also may need to go through and change which button the trim/mode switching is on inside the GlovePIE script, which is Joystick1.Button6 (the pinkie) on my non-pro X52. ------------------------------------------- WHAT YOU NEED TO INSTALL: -DCS: Blackshark -PPJoy -Carl Kenner's GlovePIE For PPJoy and GlovePIE, you can either download my larger AVsim uploads that already include them, or go to their respective sites. ------------------------------------------- FILE PLACEMENT: Put the Blackshark 1 dat in your saitek software folder. Not necessary, but I included it. You can leave the PIE scripts where they're at and open them from GlovePIE manually, as it's only a directory away. Both LUA files go in your internal DCS profiles directory, which is somewhere inside of C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50\BlackShark. At the very least, you need the PPJoy one loaded up to get the axis curves of 15 for the proper trim capture rates and response. If you want the button assignments within Blackshark for the X52, use the other one, as well. For anyone with an X52, I recommend you at least try both just to see what it's intended to be like and to make sure you don't miss any steps. ------------------------------------------- PPJoy: After you have installed it, open Configure Joysticks and ADD a new Virtual Analog Joystick with 7 axis. See the next section for matching to mine. From time to time you may need to go back in there after booting up your computer to reinitialize it by selecting this virtual joystick, clicking on Mapping, and going through the modifying wizard. Don't actually change anything, just hit next repeatedly, and then finish for Windows to recognize it again if it's not. ------------------------------------------- CALIBRATION REQUIRED: There is a custom GlovePIE script for the Windows calibration process required. Open it in GlovePIE and hit "Run". Go calibrate your PPJoy virtual joystick in the Windows Control Panel - Game Controllers. Select it and then Properties. The script must be running first. PPJoy1.Analog0 = Joystick1.x PPJoy1.Analog1 = Joystick1.y PPJoy1.Analog2 = Joystick1.z PPJoy1.Analog3 = Joystick1.xrot //side PPJoy1.Analog4 = Joystick1.yrot //top PPJoy1.Analog5 = Joystick1.zrot //twist PPJoy1.Analog6 = Joystick1.slider Double check all the red bars afterwards that are onscreen. ------------------------------------------- BLACKSHARK DTU MULTI: Once you have everything up and ready, "Run" this in GlovePie. There are three control modes cycled through by doubleclicking joystick1.button6 (pinkie on X52): -Manual Trim -Standard Dynamic Trim -Flight Director Dynamic Trim You will hear GlovePIE saying in your computer's voice which one you've switched to. ------------------------------------------- OTHER ASSIGNMENTS: I currently have the y.rot (top of throttle) on the x52 as a 50% authority trim range, which is nice to supplement the twist axis or pedals (if you have them). In Blackshark's options, the three keys under the x52 MFD are the channel hold buttons. Reset is the all important Heading Hold. The middle is pitch. The left most is bank (wrong in the other readme). Switch the Desired Heading/Desired Track switch to the middle when Route Flying, Flight Director, and Weapons are ALL NOT selected to see where the FCS is trying to realign you slowly to (limited to 20% authority) when the Head Hold channel is on. In Flight Director, you get yaw dampening only. Yeah! Be aware that in Manual Trim mode when the GlovePIE script is running, you are trimming yaw along with the other two channels. So either don't apply any when trimming, or correct this after you've trimmed yaw accidentally by counter-yawing and trimming again. Yes the X52/DCS profiles are simple, but I've been mostly just using the keyboard and cockpit clicking for other commands. Not sure how much I want to program. You're not dreaming, I only have one key in the x52 dat profile...for the unseen rotary button. ------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT NOTE: GO INTO BLACKSHARK'S OPTIONS TO SEE THE BUTTON ASSIGNMENTS (CLICK ON EACH X52 BUTTON OR HAT) BUT DON'T CHANGE THEM IF YOU CAN HELP IT. ESPECIALLY DO NOT CHANGE THE AXIS CURVES. THE RESPONSE OF THE DYNAMIC TRIM UPDATE CAPTURE RATE, TRIM RANGE, AND THESE CURVES HAVE BEEN TAILORED TO WORK IN A SPECIFIC WAY TOGETHER. Trim is already on Joystick1.Button6 within GlovePIE, so if you use this without modding, do not apply the trim function to the stick or change this keyboard setting within Blackshark's options. AGAIN... TRIM IS ALREADY ON JOYSTICK1.BUTTON6 WITHIN GLOVEPIE, SO IF YOU USE THIS WITHOUT MODDING, DO NOT APPLY TRIM FUNCTION TO THE STICK OR CHANGE ITS KEYBOARD SETTING WITHIN BLACKSHARK'S OPTIONS! ------------------------------------------- SHAMELESS PLUG ON STEREOSCOPICS: I'd also like to plug, for a moment, the first commercially available stereoscopic driver set which actually works. Go to www.iz3d.com to download it. Yes, it works with Blackshark, and several of the modes are free. Please support this company if you have an interest in true 3D...especially if you have an ATI card. ------------------------------------------- (IMPORTANT!!!! copied here for posterity. download the package to use it. don't just copy this into glovepie and expect it to work) PRIMARY SCRIPT: if pressed(joystick1.button31) then { press(numpaddel) press(o) }end if released(joystick1.button31) then { release (numpaddel) release(o) press(enter) release(enter) press(numlock) release(numlock) }end var.0 = PPJoy1.Analog0 var.1 = PPJoy1.Analog1 var.2 = PPJoy1.Analog2 var.3 = PPJoy1.Analog3 var.4 = PPJoy1.Analog4 var.5 = PPJoy1.Analog5 var.6 = PPJoy1.Analog6 PPJoy1.Analog2 = Joystick1.z PPJoy1.Analog3 = Smooth(Joystick1.xrot, 2, .03) PPJoy1.Analog4 = Joystick1.yrot PPJoy1.Analog5 = Joystick1.zrot + (Joystick1.yrot * .5) PPJoy1.Analog6 = Smooth(Joystick1.slider, 2, .03) if doubleclicked(joystick1.button6) then begin { var.m = var.m + 1 if var.m = 1 then begin { say("Standard Dynamic Trim") press(leftctrl) press(t) release(t) release(leftctrl) } end if var.m = 2 then begin { say("Flight Director Dynamic Trim") press(leftctrl) press(t) release(t) release(leftctrl) } end if var.m > 2 then var.m = 0 if var.m = 0 then begin { say("Manual Trim") } end } end if var.m = 0 then begin { t = joystick1.button6 PPJoy1.Analog0 = Joystick1.x PPJoy1.Analog1 = Joystick1.y var.y = 0 var.x = 0 var.c = 0 var.l = 0 var.r = 0 var.p = 0 var.s = 0 } end if var.m = 1 then begin { var.c = 45 var.l = -0.575 var.r = 0.275 var.p = -0.900 var.s = 0.0 var.y = EnsureRange(Joystick1.y / var.c + var.y, var.p, var.s) PPJoy1.Analog1 = var.y + Joystick1.y var.x = EnsureRange(Joystick1.x / var.c + var.x, var.l, var.r) PPJoy1.Analog0 = var.x + Joystick1.x } end if var.m = 2 then begin { var.c = 70 var.l = -0.50 var.r = 0.0020 var.p = -0.775 var.s = 0.0 var.y = EnsureRange(Joystick1.y / var.c + var.y, var.p, var.s) PPJoy1.Analog1 = var.y + Joystick1.y var.x = EnsureRange(Joystick1.x / var.c + var.x, var.l, var.r) PPJoy1.Analog0 = var.x + Joystick1.x } end