Fishbreath

I encountered a crash in the Mi-8 without using CTLD, just using a trigger zone transmitting a looping sound over the radio. There may be a bug in the transmission code in DCS. I'm going to see if I can reproduce it, then submit a bug to ED.

Ooh, good idea. Unfortunately, the other half of my idea is problematic—doesn't look like landing lights illuminate the casino buildings.

Got it on my second try—although I should point out that the mission, as distributed, has 15 m/s winds, not 15kt winds. 15 m/s is about 30kt, and that's well above my capabilities. I set it to 15kt for my second try, and had a better go at it, although pickup #4 was still a huge pain.

Is there a way to have AI helicopters use spotlights, or to fake it? I have a Mi-8 mission in mind (picking up a SWAT team from McCarran and landing it on top of a casino at night), and it would be delightfully atmospheric if I could have another helicopter or two buzzing overhead and pointing lights at the building.

For modern scenarios, I feel like you'd want to extend the map to the west a little more, so you could fit Aviano in, but I'd like a Balkans map for sure!

It's obvious in hindsight, but I didn't realize until I gave this mission a try that you can end up in a vortex ring state at the same speed as the prevailing wind. :P [ame=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1btSsDsM8I]Full mission video[/ame] [ame=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVStVsA3LA8]How it ended.[/ame]

As for hovering, I usually cheat a bit and leave the NADIR in ground speed mode. That gets me close, and I watch the sideslip string to zero in. Once we get center position trimmer mode and rudder trim, I'll be in hog heaven. (I know I'm an oddball that way, but I prefer to have everything trimmed.) In the other helos, I trim for very close to a hover, and use some tips I heard: look out into the distance, not at the ground right in front of you, and don't deflect the cyclic to correct: bump it to make the correction, and return it to center. Can't quite do that yet here, but I'm looking forward to when I can. (I suppose I could use the trim hat, but I'm still getting used to the idea that I actually have that in a helo!) Certainly, I'm with you on the last point. Great job, Polychop. Coming to grips with a new helo is probably my favorite part of DCS, given how I don't usually have the time to do multiplayer.

I had my first good flight last night—put two HOTs on the winglets, took off, flew around, hovered to fire the missiles, continued flying around, played with some autopilot modes, hovered, and landed on my chosen point. Controls saturation to 70% seems to have helped a lot. I can't picture any scenarios where full controls deflection would be required—the Gazelle has agility to spare even as is.

I set two buttons on my hat to AP mode switch up and AP mode switch down. Mode up gets me to altitude AP, 2x mode down gets me to speed AP, one tap away from either position goes back to neutral.

Just remember you don't have quite the same field of fire as an Apache. The Ka-50's semi-rigid mount is great for shooting at IFVs at 3.5 or 4km, but not so great for hitting things to your left. :P

There is no track to the first waypoint--the airfield is an airfield point, not a waypoint, so the K-041 can't calculate a path between the airfield and the first point on the route. Same when going from the last waypoint to the airfield.

The Gazelle is a pilot's helo, and the Ka-50 is a fighting helo. Even with its touchy controls, the Gazelle is an easier beast to come to terms with as your first helicopter, because it behaves largely how a helicopter ought to. The Ka-50, although its autopilots are sophisticated enough so that when I'm flying combat missions, I'm usually touching the stick less than half the time, does not behave altogether like you expect a helicopter to behave. The Gazelle has the edge on my Principle of Least Surprise test. At the risk of sounding all self-promoting, I'd encourage you to take a look at the trim and flight sections in the Ka-50 guide linked in my signature, when you're ready to dive into Ka-50 piloting. A lot of the explanations out there overcomplicate things, or (IMO) make them harder than they need to be. Now, of course, back to the Gazelle, and it delightful handling. I don't think I'm going to have much time this week, what with the recent release of Stellaris, but I'm excited to continue to figure the Gazelle out when I have the chance.

I haven't quite 'turned the corner' like you have—I'm not good enough with the Gazelle yet—but I doubt I'll get the same feeling when I have. The Ka-50's stability and autopilot systems are so much more advanced. Flown correctly, it's far and away the safest whirlybird in DCS, in my opinion.

I haven't flown the Huey since 1.2.x (x < 10) was the state of the art, so I could certainly be remembering wrong. :P

It was a joke. Probably some sort of shadow rendering issue.

I've noticed that the Huey seems a little lighter now, too—I had to add some antitorque when I spun the engine/rotor up to normal RPM the other day. I don't remember ever having to do that before.

Must be the border with California. :P

I second Rowan and gospadin: I'd love to see a rudder trim option a la the Ka-50 and Huey, and for that matter, a central position trim option, too. Big help for those of us with spring-loaded controls.

Thanks for writing this up—I keep handwritten checklists in a folder by my desk, but you've cleared up/compiled everything I needed to know that wasn't in the first training mission.

Are there any plans to add the ED/Belsimtek-style trim options (center position mode and trimmed rudder)? I fly with the same kit for fixed-wing and rotary-wing, and can't afford another set of pedals to turn into helo-only pedals. Center-position trimmer and trimmed rudder are important to me, especially for helicopters with autopilots, and since they're input abstractions, it doesn't make for any loss of realism to include them.

The manual doesn't really describe what the SAS does. Do you have a link to somewhere I could read up on it some?

It's possible that they've broken it in the move to 1.5/2.0. I've been looking for a reason to hop into the Ka-50 for a bit of fun lately; maybe I'll give it a try tonight.

We're still at square one, as far as I know.

If you make a NAV TGT point with the Shkval and PVI-800, it shows up on the ABRIS correctly, so St3v3f is correct—there is some interconnection. It's just purely one-way. Nothing in the K-041 nav/targeting complex is drawn from the ABRIS, but the ABRIS does draw some information of various types from the K-041 system. (It's misleading to think of 'the datalink' and 'the PVI-800' as different pieces—they're both components in the overall Rubikon system.) (There's also the occasional debate about whether the GLONASS in the ABRIS is linked to the PVI for INS updates; whether or not it's actually true, I like to claim it is, since we don't have INS drift. :P) You are generally correct, though, that making an ABRIS flight plan will not drive the navigation systems, and outside of manual copying, there's no way to move an ABRIS flight plan into the K-041 system.

I've spent the hours on hours, and the ABRIS section in my employment guide is eventually going to be the longest one, I think. It's extremely useful if I've landed at a FARP and want to deviate from my briefed mission, and for planning approaches and such, but 95% of its uses in a given, prebriefed mission are outside of the EDIT tab, and drawing lines isn't that hard to remember. Certainly in-depth knowledge of the planning functions of the ABRIS is not at all necessary to be combat ready. They're very useful for more advanced pilots, but I don't think newcomers need to worry about it all that much.