Martyn

Sounds good, look forward to the WIP mission. I doubt I'll fare so well! I've got some hours on the Huey but I'm a relative newbie on the Hip, despite owning it for almost a year now. I can't confirm about the ending of that mission - such was my embarrassment at pranging the helo that I quit and restarted the mission in some hurry before the impending fireball erupted! :D As for my approach, just for info, I think I was doing a steady 60-80kph or so over the threshold and losing speed very slowly, for the very reason that I wanted to avoid coming to an abrupt halt followed by an even more abrupt descent due to losing ETL! I thought about touching down at speed to make the landing zone (as if I was in a fixed wing) but had visions of the tyres catching at an angle and the thing rolling over, so took the safe approach instead!

It worked well for me, although I was a little surprised on my A-rating! I landed over halfway down the runway due to coming in a little too fast and taking a long time to gently slow down, but it was smooth otherwise. The touchdown point is hardly the critical factor as it's not a fixed wing, so I suppose it isn't important anyway. It was my first run in the Mi-8 for some months, and on my first attempt I managed to bump the ground hard whilst trying to switch on the autopilot channels with the mouse (I had forgotten prior to take off), causing the tail boom to break off and havoc to commence, and that triggered a message about me having an accident (I'll say!), so at least that event was covered too :thumbup: Thanks for the mission! It's not something I would have considered trying with the Mi-8 otherwise. Now I have some idea what to expect if I lose an engine. Perhaps some variations with heavier load-outs or an engine shutdown mid-flight would be nice follow-ups, if you were to make any.

I'm using a MS Sidewinder FFB2 and separate Saitek throttle quadrant. I can just get by in the A-10C with its limited buttons, with only one important hat switch still assigned to the keyboard (thank heaven for the customer 'modifiers' section). I also fly the helicopters, and here's where I'm not so sure if the Warthog is the right stick. Big, heavy, stiff springs, and obviously a loss of the excellent force trim function, so I'd definitely like to try it out first. Thanks for the recommendation though. Never say never! :) I've no idea if VEAO will be at Cosford - it was wishful thinking! It was also part assumption that someone there will have DCS up and running there, perhaps with a Warthog and maybe the Occulus Rift. Or if not, maybe one or the other will be available to try out in another sim. I didn't arrive at Duxford till just after 11am, and after entertaining our toddler for a while was a bit late heading over. I'll know for future though!

I came along just after 1pm with plenty of time left till the flying started, but everything had been shut down and cordoned off, much to my disappointment. Well, I guess everyone needs lunch at some point! :) I know I'm not a forum regular but I was excited to drop by and see some new DCS content, and perhaps try our the Rift and also the TM Warthog. (See if either was worth putting my list to Santa!) Still, it's great that you spread the DCS goodness at these opportunities. Glad you had a good day. Good luck for tomorrow, it'll be busier than ever I expect. Maybe I'll get another chance at Cosford in October.

I use an MS FFB2 and have done for much of the last 10 years. It's still going strong with no faults at all. It is a great stick (before it I had the FFB 1), but not perfect. I haven't used any other sticks so can't compare easily. I somewhat disagree with Abburo though; it doesn't stay exactly in place and there is a small 'slack' area in the centre where no force is applied. When flying the Huey, I sometimes find it best to trim very slightly away from the required centre position, so I have a small force to 'hold' the stick against. Helps to keep it steady. If I trim it exactly to the right spot, I sometimes find my hover wobbles a lot more due to the 'forceless' area. But overall I would highly recommend it. I just wish it had more buttons! (I use two of the buttons on the base as modifiers, so it still makes for a reasonable HOTAS in the A-10C for example, with 3/4 of all the functions I need on there). I'm tempted to save up for a HOTAS Warthog, but I am really in fear of missing the force feedback and off-centre, realistic trim aspects. Difficult to know what's best!:joystick: Still, the MS FFB2 can usually be had from eBay for a good price. Last time I looked there were plenty on offer. I sometimes think I should buy a second one as a backup!

I'm sure it's not, because there were no problems a few versions ago. I think the missing rotor mast shadow came in with 1.2.7 when the angle of the mast was adjusted (tilted forwards). The missing tail rotor shadow from certain angles could be a game engine limitation though. Yes, I am sure you are correct on those 2 points. The self-shadowing in the cockpit only comes from the cockpit geometry, not the outside aircraft model. That's fine by me. But seeing a 'broken' rotor in the ground shadow when I'm hovering is slightly disturbing :huh: I'm quite sure all the ground shadows were correct (more or less) in the 1.2.6 (and lower) versions, so it can be fixed.

This issue is still present in the 1.2.8 beta, at least from the cockpit. Original post updated above.

Edit: Same problem exists in 1.2.8 Beta. Main rotor seems okay in external view now, but not from the cockpit. 3 new screenshots attached. (Also noticed the tail rotor shadow disappears at some viewing angles - tail rotor was not spinning at this time.) Reported this in the 1.2.7 Open Beta and it was acknowledged, but it wasn't fixed unfortunately. Not a major issue, but somewhat obvious when hovering close to the ground. On external view the shadow is all fine, but from the cockpit the rotor mast is missing in the Huey's shadow. I would link to the original post but can't see the open beta forum any more so presume it was hidden. Here's another fresh image from 1.2.7 proper.

fignuts, Maulkin; there be three of us in this boat! :D I have found some of the single missions to be a nice step up from the tutorials. Some are difficult and I need to re-think how to approach those, but some are more straightforward and can be accomplished after a couple of attempts. Having a quick look at the mission files, the ones I seem to recall are relatively easy are 'Hideout', 'Sunset Sierra' and 'Smerch Hunt'. Hideout has you attacking a base in the mountains, but here you do have to call in a SEAD flight once you read an orbiting point near the IP (nice, clear briefing on this one). Sunset Sierra has you attacking some artillery which is guarded by SAMs and other AAA, but some SEAD flights should take out most of the SAMs before you get there. You might find yourself getting locked up in the 30 seconds before weapon release but generally I didn't get fired upon. If I did I had time to turn away or evade. Smerch Hunt is a bit more open and unstructured. You have to contact JTAC and get co-ordinates to search for some individual (and widely spaced out) threats. The threat level is quite low on this provided you stay up high. Like yourselves, I do struggle with knowing how to approach a mission when the briefing is not too specific or the flight plan does not include steerpoints at an appropriate elevation. One mission, 'CSAR' I think, has you flying down a valley to defend a downed pilot. I went in low and fast like Luke Skywalker attacking the Death Star. It didn't go down so well, lots of AAA! Perhaps a stand-off approach would have been better but I was just following the waypoints... since learned that's not usually the best idea! :huh: Hope that helps a bit, but I am in the same boat so apologies if not!!!

Is there any way to set the display format for the date in the forum? I find it very hard to adapt to the US-style MM-DD-YYYY format. It's difficult to remember which forums use which format, so I'm often left looking at a date and wondering if it was recent or old. And on the ED forums it's usually an old post due to the above setting. Would be nice to have an option for DD-MM-YYYY or MM-DD-YYYY depending on location. I can set my time-zone so the post times are adjusted, but not the date display, it seems. Unless I missed something? Maybe the vBulletin admin area has an option to enable this setting... Thanks, Martyn

DCS Ka-50. Very generous giveaway, thanks! (In the unlikely chance of winning I'll buy a new copy of the Huey to give to a stubborn friend who needs converting from FSX's poor flight models! :D )

Well, tonight I did the same (edited the mission) and we all headed out to the target area as normal. After firing the first rocket salvo, the group turned around and came into a hover, and so they stayed, creeping along as a couple of knots. So once again the mission failed to progress. At least they didn't head for home this time. Small progress. Due to the 1.2.6 adjustments in engine power (or whatever was changed) I struggled to keep up with them during the attack run/climb, so was a few hundred metres behind, but got no warnings from my co-pilot. I wonder what causes the mission to become stuck. Annoying, in any case!

I have the same problem where TeamSpeak is concerned. If I Alt-Tab from the game to make an adjustment to TeamSpeak's volume, my Sidewinder 2 force-feedback is messed up (strong centring force only - the ability to use trim then goes out of the window). However, you can set up shortcut keys in the TeamSpeak options to adjust the voice volume whilst you're in game, so that might solve your problem but from a different angle.

Very minor issue, but frequently bugs me: When I learn of a new update, I like to pre-load it in advance of the next time I want to fly DCS. Saves me a wait when I just want to get airborne. So I use the Start Menu option for "Update DCS World". The path has a command line switch on the end as follows: "D:\DCS World\bin\DCS_updater.exe" update The update works - no issues there. But after the update has finished, the game launches, which it shouldn't do in my opinion. If I run the game from the shortcut on my desktop, there's no "update" switch on the end of the path, but the update still occurs (if there is one). So it seems to me that the "update" switch is slightly broken... since it makes no difference when used? I'm running Win7 64-bit for reference. As I said, it's no huge issue as I just let the game launch and then close it, but I do wish the "update" option did only that... Could be an issue on my machine only, I didn't try to repair my installation (since it's fairly fresh and works perfectly fine otherwise), but in case anyone else has noticed this, I thought I'd mention it. Apologies if it was already posted; I didn't do much digging on the forums prior to posting. Martyn

Cheers for the update. If I get time later in the week, I'll try the fixed mission from page 1 and see if it also works in 1.2.5. Congratulations on the new future Huey pilot in the family! If it's your first then you'll get more flying hours (and sleep) ... eventually. :thumbup:

Same problem here also. Leader calls egress followed by left turn, but just turns right, climbs the hill and levels out at 3600ft and heads homewards. I Alt-tabbed and killed the game so as not to mess up my campaign record. FSKRipper, did you use the edited mission on page 1 of the thread (post by Dzen) or the mission included as standard? I'm wondering whether to try the modified mission from Dzen in the hope it fixes the problem, but if someone already used that with the latest patch and found that it still has issues, I can save myself a wasted half hour trying. Kontiuka, the Tango mission has you flying as four-ship of Hueys to go to 'persuade' the insurgents to give up their weapons by shooting at them (first time weapons are employed in the campaign). They're hiding in trees near a friendly group.