Socket7

I stole the trigger arguments for landings from the MI-8 campaign. ;) Specifically, Unit inside zone: Alt lower than: unit speed lower than: unit vertical speed lower than: X:Cockpit argument in range: Argument:36 (rotor pitch), Min:0 Max:0.3 In my screenshot, when the landing triggers are satisfied, flag 2 gets set, then 10 seconds after flag 2 is set, it loads the cargo. This is all well and good for single player, but I don't know what would happen in multi. Because you can't tell the ME to specify what unit to add the weight too, I'm assuming its added to whatever unit initiated the trigger?

Reminds me of the mad men that load christmas trees onto trucks with helicopters. Ever get the feeling someone is being paid by the piece, not the hour?

The triggers menu doesn't seem to have any method of telling what helicopter should get the cargo weight. If there is a way to do it, I'm not clever enough to figure it out (I'm not very clever). I looked for a cockpit argument that might be assignable to a specific unit, but came up empty handed.

Thank you Imp. Thats exactly what I read at some point and then completely mis-remembered.

Only in icing conditions. I've never gotten an icing warning with the temperature above 0c. The copilot has a little thermometer on his cockpit window you can watch. Keep in mind that higher altitudes mean lower temperatures. Just because its 5c at your FARP doesn't mean its 5c at 10,000 feet while you're flying over a mountain pass. You get an audio/visual alert when you start having icing. It gives you plenty of time to turn the system on. De-icing will function automatically once the left engines de-icing switch is set to manual mode. The system does not function with all the switches in automatic. I think this is to prevent ice ingestion on the engines, and possible engines failures. Someone else who knows more should correct me and elaborate though.

From the MI-8 manual. The vertical rate of climb near the ground is 9 m/sec with normal takeoff weight (anti-icing system switched off) and 7 m/sec with maximum takeoff weight without the external weapons stations fitted. Activation of the anti-icing system reduces rate of climb by 1m/sec. The operational ceiling with normal takeoff weight without external station racks is 5000 m (anti-icing system off), 4900 (anti-icing system on). With maximum takeoff weight it is 3900 m (anti-icing system off) and 3600 m (anti-icing system on). Activation of the PZU particle separator system reduces the rate of climb by 0.6 m/sec. Fitting of exhaust gas suppression (EGS) devices reduces the operational ceiling by 150 – 200 m and the rate of climb by 0.5 – 1 m/sec. --- With anti-icing and particle separator system engaged, fuel consumption rates indicated in the tables below increase as follows: – engine anti-icing: 3% – main and tail rotor anti-icing: 2% With the PZU particle separator system engaged, fuel consumption rates per hour provided in Табл. 9.4 increase by 3%. --- You keep anti-icing off to lower fuel consumption and increase climb rate. As far as weapons go, personally, I set them up on the ground and then just use the master arm switch to safe them until combat.

There is a box on the rear wall behind the navigator that controls the 5.5v lights. Twist the knob and the lights will come on.

The grid isn't on the kneeboard along with your flight plan. I think it should be overlayed on the kneeboard. When I get a grid reference over the radio as part of the campaign, I don't want to pause the game, look at the F10 map or entirely out of game documents. I should just be able to use the kneeboard, mark my current position on it, then refer to the grid and decide which direction to fly in from that.

eek! Don't use TrackIR for the zoom axis. It should only control head movement. I handle zoom with the CMS fore and aft buttons on my joystick. Other Warthog users stick with the throttle friction slider on the warthog throttle. You could try assigning zoom to the slider on the X-52 throttle, but I seem to remember them being very jittery, and no good for zoom.

The throttle friction slider on every TM warthog I have ever used (3 of them) have all had jittery pots on them. No matter how you play with the LED's it doesn't go away entirely. I mapped slow zoom in/out to CMS fore and aft, and made the actual CMS require use of an alt key (I use the mic switch on the throttle). My hands never leave the controls to adjust zoom, there is no jitter at all, and it's all very precise.

Turn the saturation way down on helicopter cyclics, I use 60%. This means I have to trim to move my cyclic from one extreme to the other, but you should never be handling the the cyclic so roughly as to run into that being a problem. When you turn the saturation down instead of using a curve, you give yourself the same fine control you get in the center of the stick with a curve, but you get it all the way through the sticks range of movement. You use curves in the A-10, and other airplanes because you always want to be able to reach maximum controls deflection with maximum stick deflection. To keep that ability, you use a curve to make movement around the center of the stick to be more precise, while greater movement of the stick becomes less precise. As for the collective, I know there is a custom curve that people are using for the huey, but I don't have it easily accessible. Search around and you should find one on the forums that has a sort of shelf built in to let you use more of the throttle axis for useful collective control. I think I remember some people having good luck with setting the collective to a slider axis, but I could be wrong on that. For what it's worth, it took many hours of practice for me to manage a really good hover. It's never easy, but it will eventually become second nature, and will at least be simple.

Digikey.com I used NKK S300 series switches, and found them to be a bit larger then the switches on a thrustmaster warthog. I'll be finding some with a smaller diameter on the toggle base in the future. Cheaper too, hopefully. The warthog switches are 17.5mm tall and have a base diameter of I guess, 8 to 10mm. You're looking for SPST and SPDT switches of the ON-OFF, ON-OFF-ON, and ON-OFF-(ON) variety. They can be any brand or voltage or shape you like really, so it's down to personal preference. There are engineering diagrams of the switches in their data sheets, so you can get an idea of their size and shape. You CAN get military spec switches, like ones you'd really find in an aircraft, but you'll be paying at least $40 for a switch, possibly much more. Have some photos of my terrible handywork. The guts of the toggles are actually so large the arduino doesn't fit in the project box. :doh: http://imgur.com/a/qFHcJ

You'll probably want to mirror all the buttons that are on the actual A-10 hotas. On the A-10's stick you've got Trim, TMS, DMS, gun trigger, bomb release, Master Mode button, CMS, and nosewheel steering. On the A-10's throttle, you've got the coolie switch, slew control, Speedbrakes, china hat, boat switch, and mic switch. These are pretty much the most important buttons to get assigned to your joystick, as you will be using all of them during missions. Flaps, landing gear, and autopilot controls are all in the nice to have category, but not critical to have handy at all times.

The X-52 is a huge step up from the Logitech Extreme 3d. Buy from an authorized retailer, and keep your receipt though. You'll probably need to RMA it at some point. The Logitech Extreme 3d, for all it's terribleness, poor centering, and dead zones, is the single most durable joystick I've ever used. You can abuse the hell out of it. In contrast, both the X-52's I had, and the TM warthog I have, have required RMAs.

I briefly owned an X-52, and then an X-52 pro, and both were returned due to build quality issues. One had firmware issues that caused horrific system slow downs and BSODs when you gave a button a name that was over 16 characters, and the other had bad solder joints in the connector between the throttle and stick. I wasn't impressed with the tactile feel of X-52's either. Everything you wanted to have a nice tight click had a feeling of mushy vagueness instead, and the sliders and rotaries seemed jittery. The stick and throttle were accurate enough. They had no dead zones and no slop, A significant step up from a Logitech Extreme 3d. I'm happy now with my Thrustmaster Warthog. Even though I had to RMA it too, for a bad coolie switch. They mailed me a replacement switch and let me install it before that though, which I liked. They also paid for shipping when I asked, which I liked a hell of a lot more because the damn thing weighs 12 pounds. My biggest complaint with the Warthog is the spring force on the stick is quite strong, and does a number on my poor arthritic wrist. You get what you pay for. If you go under 100 bucks, you've got slop and dead zones. Above, you get good control, but poor tactile feel. Spend 300+, You get the control, and the tactile feel. No matter what you spend though, you're just as likely to encounter some kind of build quality problem requiring an RMA. :joystick:

I did a quick google image search, and found an MI-8 with the wheel arch lights. They seem to be pretty rare though, most of the other photos I found not only don't have the lights, they don't even have the fairing the lights are mounted to. They've just got the bare wheel struts.

T.A.R.G.E.T. is one of those programs you have to learn pretty thoroughly before you'll be able to use it effectively. Here's the problem, DirectX only supports so many buttons on any particular USB device such as a joystick throttle, or pedals. The reason the Thrustmaster Warthog has 2 USB connections is because of this button limitation. By splitting the unit into two devices, you stay within the number of allowable buttons in DirectX. When you use TARGET, it combines both the joystick and the throttle into one virtual device, and now you are over your button limit, so buttons stop working (The ones on the base of the throttle come to mind as ones that stop working). In addition to this, when TARGET has turned the virtual controller on, DCS will no longer have an automatic default binding that just works for it. So If you want to use TARGET, you're going to be spending a lot of time programming buttons in it, so the buttons that no longer function as Directx buttons send keystrokes instead. In addition to that, you'll have to program DCS to properly use all the DirectX buttons that the combined virtual warthog joystick does have. It's... a lot of time consuming, but not hard work. The benefit doesn't outweigh the work required for me personally, I just don't use TARGET.

flick the HUD mode Day/Night switch on the AHCP to turn the Hud amber instead of green.

Thank you! It's working now. I'm now staring at a 16 channel multiplexer on sparkfun, and trying to figure out how to make it work with DCS bios. If I'm going to make an armament panel, I'll need 15 different signals, and the arduino uno only has 13 I/O's I can use a mux with DCS bios right? I'm assuming it's possible to write some code that will let it interpret the 4 signal wires from the mux, but I haven't even started looking into how to accomplish it.

Ian! Thank you for this wonderful program. I just rigged up an electrical panel with DCS BIOS. Everything works great. Almost. My emergency flood light switch is not working. The arduino sees the switch, it sends a proper signal for the flood lights over the com port (visible in the cmd window), but in the game itself nothing actually happens. Any insight as to what I'm doing wrong? Have I found a bug?

One of the things I do that I don't see mentioned here, is reducing the saturation of my cyclic axis, rather than give them a curve. I've never liked the way curves interact with helicopter cyclics. My cyclic is set to 60% saturation, without any curve. This allows for linear fine adjustment of the cyclic at all times, with the caveat that if i want to go from full left cyclic to full right cyclic (or front to back), I will have to trim to accomplish it. Honestly, I never end up swinging the cyclic about like that anyway, so it ends up working pretty well, and really helped a lot with being able to hover.

The P-51's oil viscosity is currently bugged, once you get the thing running, you will discover that it is impossible to get the oil pressure down into the green zone. Use the oil dilute on the ground around 30 seconds before startup to make it thinner, and it will help with startup. If you have a failed start, make sure to wait 30 seconds for it to cool, or you'll burn out the starter motor. I find that setting the throttle a bit lower than normal helps as well. When they fix the oil viscosity, the auto start will probably work again.

There is no brake axis for the MI-8. Therefore, you cannot assign the toe brakes, because they are seen by DCS as an axis. What you need to do, make the toe brake be seen by DCS as a button. You will have to use the CH control manager to accomplish this. If you uncheck DX mode, it will allow you to configure any given axis as key presses, instead of a joystick axis. Once you've setup the CH control manager properly, you'll be able to assign the MI-8's brakes to your ProPedals toe brakes. I just played with the manager a bit to confirm that it's possible, but I didn't work out exactly the correct steps. You'll have to experiment.

The Mi-8 flight manual is right here: http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/1074349/ Have you looked at your battery bus voltages? you need 24v or the APU won't start This is what it says about the APU, and engine shutdown. --- The APU must run for a minimum of 1 minute before attempting to start the main engines. In case of an inadvertent shutdown of the APU, press the "ВЫКЛЮЧЕНИЕ АИ-9В" (APU OFF) button for 2 to 3 seconds in order to cut off fuel supply to the APU [Key com.]. The APU start can be aborted at any time by pressing the "ВЫКЛЮЧЕНИЕ АИ-9В" (APU OFF) button for 2 to 3 seconds [Key com.]. In case of an unsuccessful APU start, crank the APU as follows: – set the "ЗАПУСК – ПРОКРУТ. – ЛОЖНЫЙ ЗАПУСК" (START-CRANK-FALSE START) selector switch to (CRANK) [Key com.]; – press the "ЗАПУСК" (START) button and check that the "АВТОМАТ. ВКЛЮЧЕН" (AUTO IGNITION) and "ДАВ. МАСЛА НОРМА" (OIL PRESS NORM) lights illuminate. Restart attempts must be 3 minutes apart. Three attempts can be made. If the unit does not start after three attempts, a 15 minute shut-down/cooling period must follow before another start is attempted. Continuous APU operation is limited to 30 minutes. In "РЕЗЕРВН. ГЕНЕРАТ" (STANDBY/GEN) mode, the APU cannot be operated beyond 30 minutes, after which a 15 minute shut down/cooling period is required. Cool down the APU 15 minutes between shutdown and restart. Run the APU a minimum of 1 minute before shutdown. Three consecutive attempts to start the main engines via APU bleed air are al-lowed. The duration of each air bleed cycle should not exceed 45 seconds with intervals between the air bleed cycles no less than 1 minute, during which the APU is run at idle speed. The continuous running time of the APU in this condi-tion should not exceed 13 minutes, followed by a 15 minute shut down/cooling period. Do NOT start the main engines with the APU in DC generator mode (STBY GEN switch on the right side console ON (up)). 6.7 ENGINE SHUTDOWN In preparation for idle power setting, switch off the PZU particle separators [Key com.] and all electrical power consumers apart from powerplant monitor-ing and control systems. Turn the throttle full left [Key com.] and perform the following steps: – switch OFF the rectifiers [Key com.], set the "ПО-500А" (Inverter 1) switch to "РУЧНОЕ" (MANUAL (up)) [Key com.], switch OFF the AC gen-erators [Key com.]; – after allowing the engines a 2 minute cool down period in idle power, close (pull aft) the "ОСТАНОВ. ДВИГ. ЛЕВ. ПРАВ." (ENGINE STOP LFT/RGT) fuel shutoff levers [Key com.]; – engage the rotor brake [Key com.]; Nr <20%? – with engines fully stopped, switch off the fuel fire (shutoff) valves [Key com.]; – switch off the fuel boost [Key com.] and transfer pumps [Key com.]; – switch off all of the circuit breakers and set all other control switches to OFF positions, apart from the reserve hydraulic system; – switch OFF the batteries [Key com.]; – set the "САРПП-12Д1М "РУЧН – АВТОМ"" (FLIGHT RECORDER) switch to the "АВТОМ" (AUTO) position (down) [Key com.].

I just stopped using yaw stabilization after a while. I just got tired of suddenly finding that I'm applying full rudder deflection and getting no response, because the virtual pedals have become trimmed by the autopilot such that maximum control input only centers the virtual pedals. I might turn it on temporarily if I'm landing in high winds, but mostly it just gets in the way.