AlphaOneSix

Took that picture of our governor panel today...looks just like the one from the training material...

Here's an image I got from some Mi-17 training materials that I have...it's about as legitimate as you could possibly get. ;)

I have a full set (mostly full?) of these in English and I'll see if I can help you. I'm currently sorting through them on my floor. ;) But just for general purposes... The "LH" and RH" are sort of redundant on the governor panel, as they are already labeled above as left or right. I would personally suggest dropping the "LH" and "RH" and renaming "TEST" to "FT", since again, the word "TEST" is redundant. In other words, I'd label them "FT1" on top (both engines) and "FT2" on the bottom. Also, for examnple, "EMER PWR" is usually just labeled "CP" for contingency power. EDIT: Can't find a panel in my collection for the governor panel, although I seem to have just about everything else (sans armament). I'll take a picture of one on Monday and see how you like it.

There is definitely some odd information going on here. Helicopters, especially modern ones with hydraulically-boosted flight controls (of which the Gazelle is but one example), have one or two "trim" systems. For lack of a better description, I like to call these two systems "force trim" and "beep trim". So far in DCS, the helicopters have all only had "force trim". As we already know, this system uses electromagnetic brakes built into the flight controls to create and maintain a "center" position for the flight controls. You can press the force trim release switch, and the electromagnetic brakes will allow the flight controls to be moved around with very little force, and no center. When you release the force trim switch, the electromagnetic brakes in the flight controls are engaged, and springs built into the electromagnetic brake assemblies hold the flight controls in place. This is often referred to as "artificial feel". You can still move the flight controls around, but in order to do so, you must overcome the "artificial feel" created by the springs in the electromagnetic brakes. The system described above exists in just about every modern helicopter I can think of that has hydraulically-boosted flight controls. It exists on the three current DCS helicopters, and it exists on the Gazelle. Next we have the "beep trim" system. A lot of Western helicopters(and even some Russian ones, depending on avionics (I'm looking at you, Mi-17KF)) have this system nowadays, especially those with advanced autopilot systems. What the beep trim does is use china hats that allow for "fine tuning" of the control position in the exact same way that fixed-wing aircraft adjust trim. There would be at least one, and sometimes two china hats used for this purpose. One will be the china hat on the cyclic, used for trimming pitch and roll. Some aircraft will have another china hat (or similar) on the collective that is used to trim altitude and heading. When you use the cyclic beep trim, it physically moves the cyclic in your hand. It is basically using an electric trim actuator to move the controls instead of your hand/arm. In most cases, the trim actuator and the electromagnetic brake are the same device. (I say "most cases" but in every helicopter I've worked on that has beep trim, the trim actuator and the electromagnetic brake are the same unit.) You can use the beep trim (china hat) to do all the trimming, if you wanted to, but I've never seen it done this way. Instead, the force trim release is used for gross (as in large, not yucky) adjustments, while beep trim is used for fine adjustments. For example, when picking up the helicopter to a hover, you would normally use the force trim release (maybe continually, maybe periodically) until you established a more or less stable hover...then you could use the beep trim to hold that hover (although in my experience, the force trim release is still used to maintain a hover). When you transition to forward flight, you would again use the force trim release to establish your cruising attitude. Once you got to your desired heading, airspeed, and altitude, you would generally stop using the force trim release to maintain that attitude, and instead use the beep trim to make fine adjustments to the aircraft's attitude.

Are you absolutely certain of this? I don't think this is true. Do you have a reference? EDIT: Nevermind, found the reference I was looking for. The aircraft uses the DISS-15 Doppler device for automatic hover. The GLONASS is only for the ABRIS and does not interface with any other aircraft system that I'm aware of.

Based on the pictures I've seen, that is correct. I don't know how many are in service with the U.S. Army since that is not something I've kept up with since I left the military, but your numbers seem roughly correct. Nope, no idea.

I never heard anything about that. Up until around the time of Desert Storm, Hellfires were always loaded on inboard stations, with rockets on the outboard stations. Shortly after that, my unit would always mount rockets inboard instead, claiming that it improved accuracy. I don't know whether it did or not, honestly. The horizontal stabilator on the AH-64 has a rubber matting glued to it (it's black unless it's been painted over, and visible in pretty much any picture of an AH-64 horizontal stabilator. That was put there specifically to prevent damage from rocket motor exhaust from both Hellfires and rockets, but I personally never saw any damage done to anything back there from rockets or Hellfires, neither on the tail rotor or the stabilator.

Well, that explains that, then. (I had a lot of issues with the content of "Apache" that really tarnished my opinion of Ed Macy, who I have no doubt is an otherwise outstanding pilot and Briton.) I can assure you that American pilots do not have this capability. In fact, the involuntary twitching of the eye in responsible to stimuli independently of the unaided eye was a huge source of medical issues, specifically migraines. Over time, the pilots "got used to it" but it was not something that they could voluntarily control.

When installing ferry tanks, the gun was normally disabled because it was possible for the gun to slew to either side far enough that the barrel would be pointing at the fuel tank. In order to get around this problem, the fire control computer software was updated to restrict the guns' azimuth limits to one side (or both sides) when ferry tanks were installed. This allowed the gun to be operated even with ferry tanks installed, which was not possible (or at least, a very very bad idea) prior to Desert Storm. There was also an issue with the Hellfire seeker heads not being able to see very well with the ferry tank in the way. That is, if you had a ferry tank on the right inboard station, and a rack of Hellfires on the right outboard station, then seekers on that rack had a very limited view to the left. I believe that was solved via training. I don't recall any issues with rockets, although the rockets at the time were known for ejecting debris out the back during launch, and I think there was a concern that the debris would damage the ferry tank since they were in such close proximity. When I was in the 101st, we trained for combat missions with two inboard ferry tanks, although Task Force Normandy just used a single ferry tank on the right inboard station.

Can you give any references for these two statements: "tracking the eye pupil" and "They learn how to operate their eyes independently of one another"

Well, the helicopters in DCS don't have toe brakes, but pretty much every western helicopter with wheeled landing gear has toe brakes. Not that we'll ever see them in DCS, of course. ;)

You could always think of it not so much as "adding right ruder", but instead think of it as "removing left rudder". More collective = more torque = more left pedal. Less collective = less torque = less left pedal. Bear in mind that at "neutral" (that is, with the pedals centered in the cockpit), there is still positive pitch in the tail rotor blades. On the Mi-8, for example, full left pedal is just over 6 degrees of pitch while full right pedal is just over 23 degrees of pitch in the tail rotor blades. So centering the pedals in the cockpit is still about 8 degrees of positive pitch in the tail rotor blades.

Like I said, the fix will eventually show up in a public version of the game, I just don't have any way of knowing when that will happen. If I was a betting man, I'd say when or before 2.0.0 is released.

I started out in aviation using F4210's (AN/AVS-6) goggles, but have since switched to F4949's (AN/AVS-9). Now we are switching from green phosphor to white phosphor goggles (they are black and white instead of green). Very weird (in a good way), but I have yet to do a lot of testing with them. I have a little over 1,000 hours of flying with goggles (maybe 1,100-1,150). I think people should pay more attention to what Eddie is saying. And yes, most serious ground pounders these days are wearing AN/PVS-15 (or better) goggles that are definitely on par with (or better than) aviation-grade goggles.

August 2, 2000 DVD: Apocalypse Now

it is being addressed. Not sure how long it will take to filter into a public version, though.

No it wasn't. It doesn't even LOOK like VRS. The motion of the tail rotor in the video is not very helpful because of the frame rate of the camera taking the video, although it does indicate a change in rotor speed.

That's easy. When you can see, you can correlate that information with what you're feeling. When you're IMC, you can't.

Spectre is taken

Yeah that's it. I was briefly (and I mean BRIEFLY) assigned as a sensor operator, just long enough to do a week of Star Safire HD training and a few training flights. But we talked about how synthetic aperture radar compares to FLIR. Then my previous boss pulled me back to being an Mi-17 crew chief. Oh well.

Oh yeah, this is not something in the sim now but there are millimeter-wave radars that can generate a "picture" that's almost as good as a FLIR image but it can see though clouds like they aren't even there. Of course they have their own limitations, too...

If you can't see through a cloud with your eyes, a FLIR can't see through it either. That's sort of how I work it out (in real life, anyway). Because of the same effect, clear glass windows look like mirrors to a FLIR camera (can't see through them at all with FLIR even though they are perfectly clear to plain vision).

My belief is that it is a bug, although it's not currently in the bug reporting system. I've mentioned it before and got no traction. When I get some time I can collect the data again and submit it as a bug report but I wouldn't get any hopes up, as it would likely be quite low priority. Right now it's really just a slight annoyance, as far as I can tell.

Not to derail you, but I think the best way to see exactly what he is talking about is to do this: 1. Get into straight and level flight somewhere. 2. Start a nice level turn in one direction or the other (you can hold the trimmer in for this for best results.) 3. Release the trimmer in such a way that the aircraft will maintain a level turn all on its own (preferably without altitude hold, as that is how I tested it). 4. Every time the aircraft goes through 180 degrees from where you released the trimmer, the heading will "bump" or "lurch" or "slip"...etc. If I remember correctly, if you did the turn one way it would sort of stop the turn then bump back into it, but if you did it the other way, the aircraft would slip ahead of itself at the 180 degree point, then resume the level turn, but I can't be sure if that's right. I did a lot of research on that a while back with tracks and everything showing the issue and nothing was ever done with it. Low priority, I guess.

I'm pretty sure that "lurch" you get at 180 degrees is a bug. It happens in either direction at 180 degrees from the heading where you last released the trimmer button.