Socket7

It's intentional. The briefing map has a different grid layout. I assume so that your enemy can't figure out where you're going by listening to your radio calls. It's pretty rare that you really need the grid references in the campaign, but they do come up from time to time. I found using the kneeboard map and marking my position on it was good enough to get me through the campaign.

The Logitech Extreme 3d pro is the best cheap joystick out there. It's durable, functional, and did I mention cheap? That said, It has a dead zone, it calibrates its center point based on where the stick is positioned when plugged in, and if you get serious about DCS, it won't have enough buttons, and the twist grip rudder will become a pain in the butt. It's the perfect starting point. Once you get to the point it's insufficient and you are sure you want to spend big money on flight sim stuff, you can buy a TM warthog, or if money is an issue, an X-52 , and a set of rudder pedals.

Nope. Not like force trim. The control helper option (seen in the special options section of the MI-8 ) automatically moves the joystick into the proper location for hover and normal flight. It's ostensibly easier to fly the aircraft because of this, but I find the game moving the cyclic controls for me without my joystick inputs to be highly distracting. Op, I'd advise spending some time practicing hovering. It took me well over 20 hours of practice to manage a half decent hover. I would also advise turning the saturation on the cyclic control stick down some. Just be aware that if you do this, you will need to use the trim button to fully deflect the cyclic controls. (If you set your saturation to 50%, moving your joystick all the way in one direction, will only move the cyclic stick in the game halfway to it's limit in that direction.)

As long as you have your saturation is at 100%, 100% deflection of your joystick == 100% travel of your cyclic stick. The only thing not trimming does is makes you hold the stick in a funny position all the time vs neutral. Well that, and there's the heading autopilot, that occasionally needs a trim reset if you use it. Disabling the autopilot stability channels will make piloting the MI-8 a much more "lively" experience. Your mileage may vary on if you like the feeling or not. I find the stability channels to be invaluable in saving me a lot of effort and stick wiggling.

The Doppler hover indicator responds a fair bit faster than the VVI, but its meter for vertical velocity can be affected by pitch or roll.

3 m/s maximum descent rate while in a hover according to the books. You can get away with more, but you're playing with fire. I love flying the mi-8. The difference in handling between fully loaded and empty is one of my favorite things about it.

I'm available at that time. ...What are we doing again? :huh:

http://www.microcenter.com/ has retail locations in those areas and they do stock TM warthogs. I bought mine there. Seems to be priced at $500 though. They have 2 locations in GA, 4 in NY, and 1 in NJ. Hopefully one will be close enough to your friend. B&H, as mentioned by another poster is also a reputable retailer to buy from.

This seriously needs to go up on the wiki. We could almost fill out the entire section on the MI-8 with this one guide. :)

Fantastic stuff! One question. I thought that the MI-8 didn't suffer from mast bumping, because it's rotor head is designed differently from the Hueys. Am I wrong in that understanding?

After you leave Tskhinvali you are supposed to proceed to Leningor. There is an outpost a few KM south of the FARP there that you are supposed to land at. There is no landing at Gromi in mission one. The radios need to have the AM/FM switch set to AM, and the radio/ICS switch set to radio. Otherwise you won't be able to contact FARPs. You can use the kneeboard to see the path you need to take, and there's a button that will mark your current position on the kneeboard map also, to help aid in navigation.

Seems like a good move for consumers. There is some legitimate debate though about what this means for games you can finish in under 2 hours. Not sure what to do about that. Maybe a flag gets set when the game is completed?

I already made a video starting up the MI-8 using the USAF official checklist.

I'm pretty sure that mission is broken. I've tried using it before and I couldn't get the homing working either. I have gotten the ARK-9 and ARK-UD working before in my Snowbound mission. I've never used the R-828.

It's an artifact of our pedals in the real world not being able to change their centerpoint. I just turn the heading autopilot off unless I'm going in a straight line for a long time. It doesn't tend to trim the pedals much then. They did mention that the MI-8 will get an automatic autopilot adjustment option, perhaps it will reset the yaw trim too, or keep it from getting really far out of adjustment. I asked, but didn't get a reply in the news thread.

Very nice! How does this change the handling of the Yaw channel trim? When the autopilots yaw channel maxes out, it starts to trim the center point of the anti-torque pedals. If you do not reset the trim, the autopilot can trim the anti-torque pedals so much you lose yaw authority. Will this behavior be changed?

If you give a mouse a cookie... There will always be another thing you want. Always. I just need the joystick. I just need the pedals. I just need the track IR. I just need 2 more monitors. Now that I've got 2 more monitors, I need a bigger computer. Now you've got all the stuff, and theres a problem! You say to yourself, "Where do I put it? I need a dedicated chair for this." Now you're building yourself a flight sim chair. Since you're building a chair, you might as well build some armrests to go with it, so you have a place to put switches, and since you've got switches, you may as well build an instrument panel as well. This is about the time when your significant other leaves you as your project has consumed an entire room of your domicile. You realize you've got a full blown sim pit on your hands. Since you've got that, you might as well mount the whole platform on some simvibe transducers, and replace the monitors with some curved projection screens. Seriously though? A joystick with a throttle, some pedals, and a trackIR is a perfect place to start. There is nothing else that you really need. Only stuff you will want.

I guess since practice is definitely what fixed it, then the bug was a result of bitrot in archival storage for brain.exe :doh: One of these days I'll be able to install a hard drive in my head, and my memory will stop playing tricks on me.

I wish I could recall. I have a memory of reading it in a patch notes, but it was so long ago and I can't find more information. I wouldn't put it past me to be misremembering things though. :doh:

Fixed! Thanks for letting me know.

GUV machine gun pods.

Have fun with your dead horse.

Is english even BST's primary language? It's hard to post updates constantly in a different language. Their last post on the subject was a few months ago, and is sticked in the forum. It even mentions EGTS... The DCS unofficial roadmap also has some interesting tidbits on the UH-1, and the MI-8, that suggest a possible 2.0 in the works. http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=1931682&postcount=3

Next up, using the UPK machine gun pods!

I've started updating my weapons tutorial. To keep video length down, I'm just covering 1 weapon system at a time. First up, Rockets!:pilotfly: