MrNelz

T-Shirt arrived yesterday (UK). Thanks Heatblur team!

Day 1 Pre-Order here, no T-shirt received yet (UK)

Gonna burst a couple of bubbles on this one. The RTM322 fitted to the UK AH-64D was a conglomerate design between Rolls Royce (UK) and Turbomeca (France) (hence RTM), Rolls Royce pulled out of the joint venture and the engines are now owned, operated and maintained by SAFRAN who are..........wait for it.........French. The RTM322 came with it's own headaches, as the transmission wasn't uprated, the possibility for overtorque conditions (particularly at sea level in temperate climes) was greater. These RTMs were significantly derated from their original designs that power the Merlin (x3 of the things at their full output!!) and the NH90. Loved working on the RTM322 a real beauty of a motor and yes it really proved it's worth in the hot and high environment of Afghan......we still needed that runway at Bastion though to get off with a full load on the hot days....those poor yanks must've had scars in their armpits from the amount of collective they were pulling on those days! Different motors to the ones in the D and more powerful.

@kgillers3That's awesome thanks for popping in the time to have a look at this. So at the moment at minimum pitch this is exactly what happens to me I just run out out of cyclic pitch authority first and roll gets really sloppy even though NR is maintained above 100%, eventually this decays into an approx 90 degree nose down unrecoverable attitude. The aircraft remains stable in roll but with no control authority in that axis at all. I'll try again with a bit of pitch added to see if I can maintain some control authority. At present I'd be snagging the MF700 as "rogue aircraft in autoration phase" The reason I thought hyds was the decay in control authority with more inputs felt like when you're using up the accumulator pressure in a total loss of hyds, each control movement resulting in less authority until accumulator pressure is too low to power the MRAs. Good to hear that this is WIP and NR decay is being worked on, obviously I don't want to keep the NR too high as strap packs are a pain to replace!

I'm really struggling to get this thing to autorotate, seems I keep loosing hydraulics and therefore controllability. Test conditions Alt: 1500-1800 ft agl IAS: 70-80 Kts Pull power levers to idle, lower collective and raise nose to maintain 103-105% NR Even at this nominal NR I seem to lose control response almost as if the hyd pumps are connected to the engines rather than the front of the MGB. Any of the SMEs want to chime in here and give some tips? @kgillers3@Raptor9

6900XT user here. Try setting a custom profile under performance/tuning tab in the adrenalin software. Use a max clock speed of whatever the rated max boost for your card is (2509mhz in my case) and then set a minimum either 100 or 200mhz less than that, I set my mine to 2400mhz Also pop your power to 115%, the 6900XT and 6800XT are crazy efficient and won't pull much over 250W which is roughly the same as a 1080 draws. I also slightly undervolt mine to 1125mV and run the memory at 2150 with fast timings but I'd leave those for now. Save the profile with a handy name for future reference. If the profile is unstable the card will just revert back to default so no harm done. The default adrenalin driver profiles are rubbish and if the GPU is not loaded to 100% gpu clock speeds can fluctuate between 800mhz and whatever the max rated boost hence the choppy experience and unstable frame rates you're experiencing. I had this issue both in DCS and XP11 until setting a custom profile. It's quite a different driver setup compared to nVidia (which seems to have much more stable frequencies from lower GPU usage %) and takes some getting used to. I went from a 2080ti to the 6900XT and it's significantly quicker across the board once tuned properly. Hope that helps.

Just to add to this, some here have said about minimal wear on the engine when running in a minimal torque setting. Starting a gas turbine is a rather stressful event for various components as follows: 1. During startup the engine accessories gearbox receives higher loading as it is have to drive the entire gas generator (GG) rather than being driven by GG. The intial rotation puts quite a torque loading on the accessory drive shaft and drivetrain to the starter. All while lubricants are at sub optimal temps and pressures ...see point 2. 2. Oil system becomes quite loaded as well as the oil is at sub optimal temperature, this creates high pressures while warming up and stresses the pumps and delivery system. The oil system is also (briefly) bypassing the cooler and filters at these pressures to prevent damage to the narrow oilways in these components. You can see these pressure spikes on the ENG page during startup. 3. Bearings, a gas turbine has numerous sets of ball, roller and taper roller type bearings along the main shafts of the GG and Free Power Turbine shaft , these require lubrication, at sub optimal Ts and Ps these bearings wear a lot faster also a lot of the time these bearings are sealed by labyrinth seals where air ducted from the compressor seals (and cools) the bearing. Again at intial startup this oil is just flashing past the bearings back to scavenge as there is very little sealing air until the rpm increases. 4. Combustion chamber and turbines. Due to the low levels of mass flow at startup the combustion chamer and turbines receive a spike in temperature at light off. This is why you'll often see a Turbine Inlet Temperature limit that is higher for start than the limit for normal continuous operation. Exacerbating this is that the free power turbine is static through these high transient temperatres (until you see the blades start to turn) which creates uneven temperature distribution on the blades. In summary this is why engine lifing is far more complicated than just hours run. Components have lives based on starts, GG cycles, FPT cycles, hours run, autorotations, One Engine Inoperative time etc etc. During engine replacements we'd quite often try and make sure to even things out by giving engines that had been number 1 a bit or a rest by popping them in the number 2 position (if only it was as easy as "popping" them in!!) Hope that helps and gives some insight. Former Apache, Gazelle, Wildcat Mechanical Engineer.

@NineLinenope that is unchecked. I use a custom mapping for all controls, peripherals are as follows. Warthog Stick TPR pedals VIRPIL TCS base plus with KA50 grip System: Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero AMD 5900X ASUS TUF 6900XT 32GB 3600 CL14 G.Skill Neo DDR4 Sabrent Rocket 4 PCI-E Gen 4 2TB NvME partitioned for OS and DCS Windows 10 lastest version fully updated. Latest stable AMD Adrenalin drivers Processor is on a PBO profile and boosts to 5.1ghz single core 6900XT is on a manual OC with minimum freq 2400mhz max 2508mhz 1100mV, memory at 2100mhz with fast timing, power limit set to max (+15%) hope that helps.

@BIGNEWYHello again. Just done some more testing and it is now repeatable. Activate AutoStart or AutoStop from F1 view = Successful operation Activate AutoStart or AutoStop from F2 view = Unuccessful operation Here's the tracks......minus the Mods this time! AutoStop failure Custom mission F2 view.trk AutoStop success Custom mission F1 view.trk AutoStart failure custom mission F2 view.trk AutoStart success Custom mission F1 view.trk

That's correct. I'll try and reproduce when I redo the tracks tomorrow.

Whoops. I'll clean out the MODS folder and run it again tomorrow and post the tracks. Sorry totally forgot about that!

@BIGNEWY Ok I've run it a few times now in a custom built mission and in Instant Action Cold and Dark. It's not consistent behaviour and I was unable to reproduce it on demand. I've attached 4 x tracks showing 1 failure in the AutoStart sequence in the Instant Action Cold Dark mission and 1 successful. 1 Successful AutoStart in a custom made mission and a failed AutoStop. For reference the failed AutoStart happened immediately after the failed AutoStop. Hope this helps. AutoStart failure Instant Action Cold Start.trk AutoStart success Custom mission.trk AutoStart Success Instant Action Cold and Dark.trk AutoStop failure Custom mission.trk

Sods law, for the first time when I flashed it up this evening it worked. Will try and reproduce and then post the track. Give me an hour.

Would you like me to keep this other start up issue here or start a new thread?

I have this issue as well when using auto start. Game mode is disable and collective is bottomed. When the auto start sequence gets to APU start it starts the APU, the APU ready light on the switch comes on and then it says "APU light must be on within 20 seconds, auto start sequence stopped". I timed the light and it's roughly 12 seconds each time so a potential bug. Will post a track this evening. As said though this bird is super easy to start.

Isn't that what the collective anticipators are supposed to prevent? Not sure if they were fitted to the Apache modelled here but we had them on the UK D variant and on every other FADEC controlled heli I've worked on.

Hello ED, First off thanks for the beast that is "Ugly" Now I can actually get the thing airborne and am semi competent at the "blatblat, pewpew" elements how do I go about mission planning the TSD icons in the ME and is this possible? Having watched Wags' video on how to drop points using the TSD I was wondering if this can be done in the planning phase using the ME/Mission planner and uploaded via the DTU eg, known threats, preplanned targets etc.

Indeed, but it is a highly technical process that requires specialist calibrated tools to remove the leading edge blade pin.......ie a bloody big mallet

We sure do! Yep, added flotation gear (still wouldn't want to ditch in one these even with flot!). The UK variant had more powerful RTM322 (from the Merlin) engines (great for over torquing the transmission at sea level in a temperate climate) and the CRV7 has a higher velocity than Hydra so some extra kinetic energy to add to the bangy stuff. Otherwise it was just a licence built Block II D model with extra funky bits. I was a bit late to the Apache party and never got to operate these off of HMS Ocean as I'd moved onto Wildcat after only 18 months.

Try telling the British that.......

Please tell me this is a Desert Strike reference!! Gotta love those amiga sound effects days. To ED, I've been with you guys since the original Black Shark days and very well remember the carnage that ensued on here over the NTTR/A-10 debacle. Yep delays happen, yes sometimes communication could be better but and it's a massive, mahoosive but.....When ED delivers it is a truly sublime experience. Nowhere on a desktop PC can you get the level of fidelity that DCS gives. For those stressing about release dates, take some time out from the forum and go and take your favourite module and try something different with it. Go and explore the whole of all the maps you own. Learn how to build missions in the editor and how to code in lua. There is so much to keep you occupied that the time until release will zip by. Keep up the great work ED team. Rich A former Apache Mechanical Technician and aviation nerd!

Hello ED, Quick question, will the movement of the ADS probes be modelled? Noticed in the introduction video that they are static. Really looking to getting hands on with "Ugly" again....this time without a torque wrench in hand! Keep up the great work!

Well hopefully the BUCS system is modelled so you'll have some FBW. You'll just have to wait until your control rods are shot away . Fo ultra realism they could also model that if you get in the cockpit a bit clumsily and whack the stick with your foot you end up breaking out the ARDDS and have to call maintenance to come and reset them!

A little addition to how it works on the AH-64 the "throttles" have 3 modes OFF, GND and FLY. At FLY the FADEC (4x ECUs, 2 per engine, one in control, one as a backup and checking the primary) attempt to keep the NP (Power Turbine speed) and thus the NR (Rotor speed) at the nominal RPM (eg 100%). Also there are "Collective anticipators" that detect demands on the collective and ramp up torque so that the NP and thus NR doesn't "Droop" when hauling the handle to your armpit because some muppet has put up a new mobile phone mast and neglected to pop it on a chart. Listen to an old Lynx maneuvering and you'll hear the slight changes in NR (Droop) as the old FCU (analogue Fuel Control Unit and no collective anticipators) fights to maintain demand. These flying egg beaters sure have come a long way these days! Rotor over speeds quite often happen when you dump collective quickly or when in autorotation. This doesn't have a huge impact on the drive train as there is minimal torque but stresses the strap packs (AH-64 equivalent of tie bars that absord centrifugal loads). Drive train damage can occur when pulling too much torque. Particularly at sea level, in temperate climes and especially when you have a couple of engines meant for a Merlin! (Silly brits do love dropping overpowered engines into foreign airframes, Tucano, cough, cough)

The HIDAS system is still in use on many current UK platforms so no chance any useful data will be available. It'd be nice to have the RTM322 motors as for hot and high ops it gives much greater flexibility in loadouts. It'd be nice to have the option for RCEFS and IAFS for some extended loiter time.