ericinexile

A helicopter with VNAV--that's like a Hyundai with spoilers.

An airborn object does not "feel" the movement of the airmass that surrounds it. The exception is the localized shear that you feel as turbulence. Right now you are sitting (presumably) in front of a computer but moving thousands of miles an hour through the solar system. You don't feel that movement because you are part of it--riding through space on a blue and green rock. Almost the instant your skids, wheels, or floats, leave the surface of the earth, wind ceases to have anything to do with your airspeed*. Smokin' Hole *But what about windshear you say. Well yes, all objects have mass and therefore inertia and are unable to react instantly to changes in air velocity. The more the mass the more this holds true which is why large airliners suffer from airspeed loss and gain in windshear and smaller aircraft do not. But it is simpler (and usually truer) to just picture yourself as part of the airmass.

Negative GhostRider, The PVI uses an INS which means that, once the alignment process begins, it accounts for every acceleration experienced by the aircraft. Once airborn, it can calculate windspeed and direction based on known performance data, air-data, and groundspeed. This calculation is simply not possible on the ground. I think the right answer is that the PVI indications are primatively scripted under DCS and not all logic is realistic. Smokin' Hole

AP channels OFF isn't wrong. But combining it with the FD ON is. The FD is doing nothing but providing nuisance HUD guidance in this configuration. AP channels are a personal preference but I think he would find his flying to be more precise with AP ON and FD ON.

Here's a question: How does the PVI-800 provide a wind velocity data on the ground? Smokin' Hole

I think she should say: "Thirty minutes with me and you'll think we're married." Smokin' Hole

Sure...perfect sense. There is nothing built in to the Mission or Campaign editors that are automatic. Death, progress, victory, defeat, and SCORE are all programmed by the mission designer by way of Mission Goals and Rules. The writer of the Oil War Campaigns thought your death should take 51 points off your score which results almost automatically in your stepping back a stage (a score of 50 stays in a stage, >50 advances to the next stage, <50 steps you back). That's his business of course but fortunately ED made all missions fully editable (is that a word?). Read the GUI manual if you haven't already, then find a campaign mission and really look into all the nuts and bolts of that mission, including triggers and hidden units. It's not super user-friendly but its easy once you understand the logic. The Campaigns are also editable (that word still doesn't look right). All you will probably want to do is change which stage the campaign will start with after defeat or reset.

Yeah, I always open the door and let it close on its own. Something similar to this happens with Flaming Cliffs as well--afterburner noise at engine start. I recall from the LOMAC forum that it is a Vista issue.

Well sure its possible. Its purely up to the campaign designer. Unless I'm missing something, a player's death will only set you back in the campaign if the designer wrote in a score reduction based on that death. And even that isn't a setback so long as you make your own edits before launching.

Maintenance gets done after a period of time with engines shut down, IIRC. It's been awhile since I've needed it so I forget the exact criteria or necessary elapsed time. Didn't know you could change steeds.

In the mission editor scroll through the mission goals (third icon from the top under "Mis") and edit either the Goals or the Rules. It soundls like cheating and it is--at least from the perspective of the mission writer, but it is your game and your playing experience and you obviously don't think your death should lose the war. I think that's very big of you :D. If you want to take cheating a step further, you can edit the campaign so that it starts at any stage you want. So, if you were killed in mission 8.2 but otherwise accomplished all that was asked of you and disagree with being knocked back to 7.1, you can edit the campaign to start at stage 8 or 9 depending on how big of a cheat you are--I'd personally go with 9. Smokin' Hole

Don't worry about ED. They survived Yeltsin, Clinton, Putin, Bush, Chechnya, Georgia, Microsoft 95, 98, ME, XP (sp 1, 2, and 3), Vista (sp win 7), Falcon 4, IL2, NATO expansion, EU expansion, Bush (did I already mention that one?), 9/11, Afganistan (ours), Ama...Ama...dina...jah...Ama (ah what the hell is that guy's name!?), Turkey dissing the Ka50, Iraq 2, three years of anxious Black Shark anticipators, Cheney, Blair, Chirac, Ubisoft, Starforce, and us.

I edit every mission in the campaign before I play it. The only thing I ever change is the "Player Dead=Score -51" rule. I do this because I know of few wars where the death of a single two-bit warrior results in the loss of that war. Smokin' Hole

A trim system that doesn't limit full cyclic or rudder authority. Smokin' Hole

Didn't intend to offend. But I have encountered this argument alot ("Real pilots don't do it") and frankly I find it silly. We are "flying" a high fidelity simulation of a real helicopter--but it is FAR from a real helicopter. Real Ka50 pilots don't have their control authority limited by their trim system--WE DO! Real Ka50 pilots wouldn't get near the thing if it had the control systems that we all use to manipulate electrons on our displays. I don't mean this as a slap at ED as they have done an amazing job with DCS. But you must make allowances. I fly for a living and I also fly some of airplanes I've flown profiessionally on FSX and X-plane. Both simulations do a very good job but I still greatly adjust the way I "virtually fly" to make allowances for the fact that I'm not in the real thing. Smokin' Hole

The ability to get in pit at a point in time earlier than mission start. For instance, let's say mission time is 12:00. At that moment the triggers begin, random units are generated, and bad guys start flying. Having a "T-minus" feature allows a pilot to set up the ABRIS, Modified TPs, Datalink Points and make other preparations as he sees fit before all the mission generated metal starts flying. Smokin' Hole

The other, and I believe bigger, load that Vista distributes among processors is DirectX. Thus the reason changing affinity noticeably improves BS under Vista.

I haven't read this whole thread so sorry if this is a repeat. I had (rather my mac had) Realtek codecs for on-board Intel sound. After I installed a SB soundcard I initially forgot to disable Realtek. Unless you really know your system its not a bad idea to check your Device Manager to make sure only you soundcard is dealing with audio. Made a big difference on my Mac. Smokin' Hole

1) Make sure brake is off 2) Follow advice in posts above also remembering to get aligned with zero side-slip. Do this by: a) Use yaw to keep longitudinal axis PARALLEL with runway or desired LZ. b) Use bank to control left/right position over the runway. (ignore the ball) 3) Trim (FD on for me) 4) Flare moderately at 40-50m (this not only kills speed and descent rate but also stores energy (RPM) into the rotor system which erodes rapidly when...) 5) As soon as helo begins to sink, simultaneously feed plenty of collective and apply cyclic so that attitude is level just prior to touchdown. Save that last 20 percent of collective for a hard pull at the last meter. The Ka50 (as simulated) just might have the worse autorotation characteristics of any helicopter flying. Small rotor diameter perhaps? Smokin' Hole Autorotation.trk

Well I've heard that Real Ka50 pilots almost never fly with a Saitek.

uhhhhh...nevermind:book:

Re: ABRIS... "Prepare Mission". Got it.

Excellent mission. Well done! How did you get drawn lines uplinked to the ABRIS. Also, your ceiling is set at 400m but I encounter it at 125m (roughly 400 ft). Just curious if there might be some sort of metric/imperial bug in the editor. Smokin' Hole

Turn the FD on and leave the channels on. FD will disable the autopilot channels while still providing a small amount of stability augmentation in each axis. I was about to put BS back into its virtual box and stick with LOMAC before I learned about the Flight Director. Smokin' Hole

Finally a little humor. There's enough BS on this forum the game should be called DCS:BS (oh wait...it is). yes, I've contributed my share.:pilotfly: Rep points incoming (can be refunded at Starbucks for a fee Latte--just pay the $4.25 Hot Liquid Handling Fee). Smokin' Hole