Rogue Trooper

+1 in 2.whatever. It needs an incredibly slow increase in altitude to gently take the slack and lift the load successfully. Even at 100 KPh I cannot deliver an 500kg load without the rope breaking. Really excellent training for lifting the load mind, got me a 4000Kg load airbourne the other day..... real tight, real slow... every dark cloud as they say.

The only book I read so far is Gunship ace, The wars of Neall Ellis. This guy seemed to use Russian kit through his entire mercenary helicopter life. As a single pilot he took off and engaged insurgents in a hind, flew some old dog MI-8s and just generally got the job done with minimal fuss right up to Afganistan. not a true first person right up but not bad.

For me it is a case of knowing your wind direction, like a plane, I fly the MI-8 into the wind. I set the auto pilots heading, trim her level on the wings and the ball should remain "roughly" centred with the directional AP engaged... but I am flying here with the nose offset into wind to ensure true direction. If the wind is from the rear then I try to trim her every which way but loose and still she may not be right. In this case, yeah, a bit of crab is on the menu today. I simply shrug my shoulders and live with a ball half way into the centre..... I have accepted much much worse in truly terrible weather. If however, the weather is good then you need to do much more work to stabilise the MI-8. you have probably heard it a thousand times but trim, trim, trim. Take pride in the amount you press the trim button, even through maneuverers. I believe the trim on the real MI-8 is "press-hold-manoeuvre-release".... but I do not do this as there is no hydraulic pressure on my warthog. If you have self centring pedals then the rudder trim will cause a massive exponential workload to understand where you put the pedals 20 minutes ago when the outside world and all its aggressors are offering a gigantic workload ..... this situation will always come quickly and sharply into reality, I guarantee this! Even under a leisurely landing situation. Understanding your "trimmed" pedal position and its relation to your real life centred pedal position is simply a recipe for disaster due to the thought process and delay required. It is only when you add this to the self centring joystick's virtual trimmed position with its 2 axis positions (I can handle these) and then add a third axis in the pedals then you truly create a massive weakness in our standardized controllers.... the weakness is us. Rudder trim off for me... always! perhaps when I can afford a proper chopper pedal then things may be different. If you think you gotta hold the rudder for efficiency of flight and the error can't be trimmed out, then yeah..... its time to take a real hard one for the lads.

No but I am most impatient when it comes to hearing reviews of this dual axis metal measurement device!..! I am real impatient!

looks like my time for the Huey grows closer.... the Belsimtek modules just keep giving! Cash well spent me says!

Come on lads, base unit reviews required urgently!

By the By, the Gazelles agility, cornering ability and agile ability to manoeuvre within confined space begins its entrance to hallowed ground in my book. At last a light weight precision attack chopper! In my wildest dreams was such a machine reality. As stated before and something I agree on, surely there should be feed back between the 3 main controllers and the way they affect each other.... these are not weakness.... they are strengths that would enhance the machines capabilities.

There was a trade off that Belsimtek made regarding the heading AP and the pedals. In the real MI-8 the pedals had micro switches that detected when your feet were on the pedals. These micro switches prepared the heading AP for pilot correction (pedal movement) and once corrected (with the pedals staying in place and foot removed from micro switches) the AP now adjusts around the new physical pedal setting. For Belsimtek there were 2 problems, firstly none of us have micro switches in our gaming pedals. Secondly most of us have self centring pedals which is not true in the real MI-8. These are major problems for Belsimtek to simulate correctly and once a compromise was decided upon, then us simmers must know and understand why and how this compromise was made and how it effects us simmers in game play and how we must adapt and overcome this fundamental but unavoidable comprimise. You must understand and adapt to our weakness of not owning MI-8 pedals! Only switch on the heading AP once you are happy with the old girls attitude and level wing flight. Switch off when its time to adjust flight path or massive amounts of collective. YOU MUST CONTROL THESE RUSSIAN BIRDS, KA-50 or MI-8, the APS are primary HOTAS stick activators for each and every AP and must also include a single and complete de-activator. (NOT including the MI-8 PITCH AP.. this is a critical AP). Yes I see that too with the altitude AP, it works perfectly until I manually change altitude and then it switches off! When I reach my desired altitude I switch it back on and it holds that altitude just top notch...All this sounds about right for me... real good.

There is a very good article by Helen Krasner regarding the Gazelle in her amazon download only (Flying Historic Helicopters, Book 3). She describes the climb ability of this machine and how it affects landing and the possible dangers whilst bringing this creature in to land or hover and the massive workload required, it is clear from most reviews I have read that this machines ability to climb offers the pilot a hand full of work....this is clear. She describes nothing like this in all her other machines reviews/books. Trim the Gazelle through the bleep trim or fine adjust trim.

Can you imagine an FC3 F-16 instead of a full blown study sim! Can you imagine the community crying blood for a full blown fully modelled F-16 and to be abated with a reply of "you got an FC3 falcon for now".... that will do for the next few years! NO NO NO this will not do! Choose a hunk a junk airframe that no one wants to be available on FC3! NO chopper will be FC3 in DCS! Surely this statement is trooth! Oh baby Jesus give me strength!

The Devrim blue is superb, it just opens up that tight closed in and dark oppressive work space in the KA-50! It creates a feeling of well being and oneness when comparing the contrasts of the operating work place and ones environmental surroundings. It simply allows a relaxed and speedy prosecution of death whilst promoting a sense of well being and achievement in the pilots mind. What is not to like!

Agreed, this will be a different machine once the Engines are factored in correctly. I am sure the current model helps the Huey's popularity but for sure there will be a lot of popped engines after Huey 2.0 rides into town. 2.0 will be a nice work load intensive machine to drive.

An FC3 AH-64 Apache would be blasphemy, a true offence to what we hold sacred! I even had to go out side and flail myself with a chain of iron for putting the mighty Ah-64 in the same sentence as F*3!

As FragBum mentions, ground effect is there but is nothing like the Huey's 2 blades..... the efficiency of the Huey's blades are superb. By the time the Huey's second blade occupies the space of the first, almost all turbulence and vortices created by the first blade are pretty much gone. The second blade fundamentally bites clean air on arrival. Once you depart the two bladed design then purity is lost, but oh my...... the rewards gained! As stated on release, use the bleeper trim or fine trim for this chopper, initially the magnetic trim was meant for the boys with cyclic sticks us underlings dream off. A decision they regret no doubt!

I think the Gazelle's blades allow a bit more authority in the corner and a lot more in the pitch plane when it comes to controlling the airframe. Probably due to the Hub. But for sure the two blade rotor of the Huey is superbly efficient.

The MI-8 is as good as it gets when it comes to chopper sims right now. For me there is no discussion here. Once Huey 2.0 arrives, then and only then will her limitations be known.... borrowed time is what the Huey pilot lives on. The Gazelle gets fast, down and dirty in amongst the collidables in NTTR, she stops on a dime and delivers precision munitions well within the targets kill zone! FM ain't quite right but she is a true machine of war and behaves as such... lovely. KA-50 is a sweet ride... perhaps close to the best.

+ 1001. Looking forward to resolving this and getting the Choppers out of development and into my hangar..... really looking forward to a rigid/hingeless rotor head! Crisp reaction to input mmmmm.... crisp.

It would be great to see this chopper released.

Roll and Pitch AP is the only true friend you need at all times... Roll and pitch love you long time..... they are the best things you will know in your MI-8 career.... they see you around... they love you long time. All that other AP crap is computer algorithm hell that is only useful when man tells it is useful.

So put in simple terms: Reach the desired altitude and stabilise. Gently move the collective up and down and find the centre point between where she climbs slightly and descends slightly. Set that centre point and engage the altitude AP.

Indeed, there is very little that stands in the way of this chopper's need to prosecute its target. Once this machine is truly understood, then and only then can one can truly understands the term "use of weapon"! Work is required... collective dropped in the corner, massive and fast pedal work rolling out of the climb...it does not come automatically but all axis must be controlled to perfection!

The vibration is a very handy reminder that you are about to enter a very critical stage of the flight and a quick and constant split second referencing of the Doppler speed gauge and VVI are required.... it becomes second nature after a while, zoom out to a wide field of view so you can gather information and flight direction with the flick of the eye. One hint is to only activate the directional AP once the airframe is trimmed proper for your given speed and altitude. Blade stall is right and she requires a left trim in forward flight, level the Artificial horizon and don't fight the pedals when applying massive amounts of collective and trying to align your intended direction. Level her, set collective for level flight once you reach the required altitude and with close to no pedal input the ball should be centred, then engage the directional AP. Always disengage the heading AP before large collective work is required! She is a superbly designed machine and is absolutely fit for purpose.

I Agree with this and have seen it often, as long as the collective is set to a good value for the attitude being flown then the Altitude AP adjusts up and down. Too low a collective and the AP only goes down only, this is my observation.

Rockwell OV-10 Bronco would do it for my wish list. but yeah the A-37 don't look bad.