ericinexile

I had an FO recently who was formerly a Blackhawk pilot. One of his more interesting experiences was: Once, after the co-pilot had landed, he for some wacky reason pulled hard on the collective when he intended to set the parking brake. "WTF, sirs!" all around.

Well the result is a little different. FD requires less trimming and, more importantly, when you do trim with the FD (with a non-FFB stick) the helo doesn't overcompensate like it does sometimes at low speed with the FD off. Maybe bad technique on my part but after 10,000 trim activations with every combo of long-hold, quick press and release, large null-zone, no-null zone, I think I've pretty much got it and know what works best for my setup. I just wish some would quit calling the use of the FD a sign of "lack of mastery."

Fours years flight instructing (the worst four years of my life) and I never saw anyone tilt their head after the second flight. It's a behavior that is far from natural and you will NEVER see it done by an experienced fixed-wing pilot. Can't speak for rotor-heads... Smokin' Hole

Actually I did mean Autohover. The "combat" I was envisioning was one whereby the pilot was employing ATGMs from a safe position. Other than that situation (one which calls for stability over maneuverability) I tend to keep the FD on. Smokin' Hole

That's where FD comes off, stabilized and trimmed at 10kph or less, and Autohover is engaged. Then you can concentrate on accurate delivery and leave the flying to the AP. It all works very well.

Wags' videos are flown with the FD off. But his flights aren't very impressive from a wrapping-the-helo-around-it's-envelope standpoint. The one really impressive "airshow" style video I've seen was flown with FD symbology on the HUD. So it really comes down to how you prefer to fly. Pretty much anything within a realistic combat environment can likely be flown just as well with the FD off. But the fun "video game" stuff like head-2-head helos are probably easier with the FD on. To me, DCS is a piece of entertainment software, not a Kamov training device. Therefore I fly it in a way that most entertains me. Should Kamov ever invite me to Russia for a recurrent sim ride, I'll be sure to keep the FD off. Smokin' Hole

I use FD until I need Auto-hover or have a long enroute leg. Basically any time the automation is a help and not a hinderance will be when I disengage the Flight Director. Smokin' Hole

As mentioned elsewhere on the forum: a) Other rotor designs do not have rotor blades intersecting...that trait alone scares the hell out of me. The prospect of blade collisions aside, coaxials tend to be taller and harder to store/transport. b) Other designs don't potentially reverse yaw control during autorotation, admittedly corrected somehow by Kamov. c) Other twin rotor designs do not place one of the rotor disks in an effective continuous climb state as is the case with the bottom rotor on a coaxial. (Again admittedly, losing the tail rotor more that offsets for this deficiency) I think the overall answer is that the coaxial may be, after all sums are added, a more efficient design. But military philosophy (at least in the west) has determined that having the fastest, most maneuverable helo on the battlefield isn't as important as other traits, perhaps to include simplicity. Smokin' Hole

It's awkward for everyone. My best efforts happen when I scan visually through the left side-door (preferably open). I never find bad guys with the Skhval. Smokin' Hole Oh yeah, I also find it helpful to cheat by having the map display friendlies only and use F10 to ensure I'm not targeting red units. I justify this by assuming this gives me something akin to FAC/Field Commander input on a real battlefield.

The FD disables the stab channels while keeping the dampening functions active (and still requires copious trim). A few players (notice I don't say "pilots") like me prefer the FD function as it gives the player the sense that HE is flying the HELO not the other way around. Typically in combat, I bring the helo into a stable hover, disengage the FD, and engage the auto-hover when I want a stable platform from which to search and destroy. When that's done the FD comes back on and we're off to the races. Smokin' Hole ps-The Flight Director gets it's name from the secondary function of placing command bars on the HUD which direct the pilot to do what the Autopilot would be doing with the FD off.

I don't base my rudder input on speed. I base it on achieving 90 ANU pitch. If by clean you mean zero speed and a perfect turn-about-the-rotor-hub to a 90 degree nose-down pitch attitude then I am completely unable to do it. But, in my instance, no HUD info will make me perform any better. And btw, ALL airspeed indicators are inaccurate at low speeds--it is just a fact of life. The two speeds available on the HUD are equally useless to you: One is just a repeater of your ASI--the other is based on a dopplar reflection bounced off ground or water below. Don't worry about it--just fly!

If you want to execute an extreme maneuver then the important time to note speed, altitude, attitude, acceleration is at the BEGINNING of the maneuver not in the middle of it. Once you start you just must have the experience, practice and SA to execute and complete the maneuver without constant reference to instrumentation. A pilot flying on the edge is NEVER staring at his HUD...Never! The HUD is a device for pointing weapons. There is a reason that Eurocopters, Sokois, Extras, and all other civilian aerobatic and airshow demonstrators lack HUDs--because they provide useless information...much akin to having a GPS display on a NASCAR racer.

The HUD is for killing people and breaking things...not for flying. For aerobatics, you look out whichever window is providing the best view of the horizon and make quick glances at the ASI, accelerometer and altimeter as needed. 25 years of combat sims and the fixed HUD view have raised a generation of virtual pilots who think that's where they are supposed to look. Smokin' Hole

I read elsewhere on this thread that cheap cards such as mine (8800GT) should be avoided. While that might be good advice for graphically intensive FPS type games, it is overkill for DCS. Black Shark runs as smoothly as a springtime stream on my rig, with all settings (but water) high, not because of my inferior GPU but because I have 8 cores doing the math. Now admittedly my setup will bog down if there are 2 dozen MRLS launching in front of me but until the guys with the $1000 liquid cooled GPUs tell me that nothing will pull them out of 60 frames per second, I'm sticking with cheap and recommend that the non-uberrich do the same. Smokin' Hole

Vortex, There is debate about String Theory and Supersymmetry and the number of dimensions in the Universe. There is no debate about the forces involved in creating lift. The old "air molecules must travel faster over the top of the wing...." nonsense was an invention of Flight Instructors (like myself) to explain lift quickly and simply so we could move on to stuff we ourselves understood--like flying. As to creating positive lift with a negative angle of attack--it's just not possible. I fly sailplanes too and what looks like a negative angle of attack from the perspective of the pilot is still positive from the perspective of the wing's cord line. Remember also that, despite what we instructors say, the relative wind is not EXACTLY perpendicular to the flight path since air changes velocity and vector as the airfoil approaches.

But the Russian Almaz ('bitchin' betty') sounds much better. That's why I replaced just the almaz file from the Russian version. Smokin' Hole

Sikorsky demonstrated a Coaxial design back in the eighties. It looked very cool and fast but for whatever reason didn't make it to production.

Because... Other rotor systems don't generally run the risk of blade intersection and death during excessive blade flap. Because... Other rotor systems don't run the risk of reverse anti-torque control during autorotation (although apparently not an issue with the Ka50). Because... The constant climb state of the bottom rotor disk counteracts SOME of the efficiencies gained by not having a tailrotor. Smokin' Hole

The part about lift...you know where two air molecules separate at the leading edge and race to the trailing edge but the top mol....yadayadayada...it's complete baloney! Lift is not generated because air must travel faster over the top of the airfoil--the increase in velocity is just a byproduct of the decrease in pressure. Lift is generated by the downwash resulting from the airmass returning to equilibrium after being constricted by the wing and the airmass above. The equal and opposite reaction to this downwash is LIFT. Any suction on the top of the airfoil amounts to just a fraction of one percent of the total lift generated.

Well of course that did it. Thanks! And thanks also to Wombat and Jesse for the earlier work/advice. All of you helped make DCS worth playing with Vista. Regards, Smokin' Hole

I've only tried 1.2a twice but it seems to work fine. Thanks for making this affinity thing a little easier. However... I have two DCS installs, one English and one Russian. DCSMax defaults to the RU version which I don't want to use. I am able to point it to the EN install but on the next run it again resets to the RU version.

Both occured while zooming tightly during a mission on the "Ka50" MP server. Thanks, Smokin' Hole

I get: "Error: Variable used without being declared!" as well. This also happens with "Jesse's" Affinity tool so it must be a problem with my two seperate physical quad-core processors. Smokin' Hole

The Quick Start Manual is focused primarily on the minutia of protection, activation, and deactivation. That's the best place to go to learn more.

Well you'd have thought that the working sound but locking GUI would have been an obvious clue...and it was eventually. Downloaded the latest from Nvidia and works like a charm. Flying again. Yeah!