Avio

Thanks again very much for the helpful elaborate insight. The overhaul time periods you quoted seem to range quite widely. I guess it depends on how heavily (or roughly) used each specific Hip is in the field. Flying the Hip in DCS feels totally safe as far as component reliability is concerned. In the real world, which critical component needs the most attention to? Which tends to fail more often? Setting failure mode on in DCS just doesn't feel realistic, as a 1 in 100 chance of failure is way too high. If only DCS allows for a failure rate mirroring that of the real Hip in the field, that would be nice. Better still, a maintenance mode like that in A2A aircrafts in MSFS. That part about the trim tabs was really good. Nice to know how helo's vibration is tuned out. The part under the nose is as shown in the attached (triangle piece behind the pitot tube). It looks like the one at the tail, so I assume it is another IFF antenna? The Hip needs two IFF?

Thanks so much once again, AlphaOneSix ! About the Mi-8 reliability, typically what are the service life span of its major parts, such as rotor blades, etc.? Are there those that push close of its life span and still fly reliably? By the way, overlooked one more part to ask about -- that pointed "horn" thing that sticks out from below the nose and the bottom end part of the tail, as marked on the attached pic. What are these? They don't seem to serve anything. This guy seems to be endowed and attached with a gazillion of parts all over ! About the Trim Tab, they are not adjustable, and not trimmed like in aircraft wings right? Not sure how they work out as trim. Thanks!

Sorry to have some many questions ..... In the attached picture, what are those items marked out :- 1) The hole besides the APU exhaust 2) The loop of string that goes to the horizontal fin 3) That piece of hump behind the engine exhaust 4) That device near the weapon rack -- is that the gun camera? 5) The piece jutting out from the rotor blade that looks like a trim tab Thanks in advance !

Yup seems like that could be the case. Thanks !

Was flying high over Persian Gulf map through clouds with OAT at zero degree, but no ice warning throughout, nor auto turn-on of any auto anti-ice. When flying over Caucasus region, however, occasionally I did get the ice warning with OAT below zero, BUT no cloud at all. Anyone else observed this anomality?

Thanks a lot folks for all the advice. So I went ahead to buy the Mi-24, and found the trimming bug to be really annoying as it takes away all the precision flying, especially during landing. Read that for this helo sim, it is best to use a special built setup to fly, instead of setting axes curves and such. I use Hotas Warthog, and the long throw needed by the stick means most time the stick is in the less responsive sections of the curves, and that makes controlling really unresponsive. Really hope the over-correction of the trimming would be fixed soon, as I much prefer to fly it like the very nice Mi-8 (move stick-press-release-center-stick). As for the retreating blade stall, there is still no clear picture on that. DCS professional modelling should not be affected by any "cut-and-paste" of coding, as it should follow blade and all other physics. Had posted about this over at the Mi-8 section. Hope someone could shed more light on how the real Mi-8 (and the Mi-24) should behave at RBS.

Thank you all good folks for the very, very helpful pointers. Learning so much from just this forum over the years ! Continuing to find the DCS Mi-8 to be so awesomely well modelled masterpiece, a class well above many others. Years of flying in this DCS piece seem to reflect the way the real Hip moves as shown via so many youtube clips. The only bugging modelling I have question on, would be that of the retreating blade stall behavior. Saw on youtube, as well as tried it myself, and the Hip always first rolled to the left, followed by strong, almost vertical pitch-up. Tried to follow some online discussion, but no firm conclusion. In theory, a blade stall on the right, should be followed by a right roll, not left (the DCS Mi-24 does that). Some discussions talked about gyro precession, thus the huge pitch-up. But why the "right" roll at the start of the event? Does the entire sequence (right roll, then pitch-up) modelled reflect the actual behavior of that of the real Hip? Hope to get some illumination on this. Thanks!

One more question here ... really trying to get to know this helo better. What are those hole in the attached picture?

Thanks much AlphaOneSix ! Just curious, how does that work in the real Mi-8? For flares, it is a matter of fooling the IR missiles away from the Hip. But with the fixed cannister jammer on the Hip, how does it work to fool those IR missiles?

Been flying in the Hip very much and loving it. Noticed in the DCS modelling of the Hip, there is this huge vertical cylindrical cannister just behind the APU compartment. What is this and what is it for? This item does not seem to appear in most other Mi-8 in the real world.

Have been flying in the Mi-8 for much of the time and loving it. Now thinking of getting the Mi-24, but have some questions :- 1) How complete is it now? Is the flight modelling complete and bug-free? 2) Someone posted that the Mi-24 modelling of retreating blade stall as rolling right, while the Mi-8 rolls to the left, followed by a steep pitch-up. Which is correct? If the right side rotors experience reduced lift, that should mean a gyro precession result of pitching up, right? Hope someone could help shed light on the above. Thanks.

But technically the doppler reflected signal would be affected by every metre of movement detected, and by that shouldn't it be reading the "slant range" when going up a really steep mountain slope? That would give an inaccurate readout of the actual horizontal range that one is more interested in. Question is, is this being modelled in game?

Thank you fellows, for the very helpful advice. This drift indicator is indeed an awesome piece of technology, considering its usage back in those days before GPS.

Does the DCS Doppler system takes into account measurements when going up slopes of mountains, as well as terrain objects such as tall buildings? Are these modelled?

Okay so I've tried using both methods and here's the finding -- right after take-off and still climbing to cruise altitude and getting settled on the required heading, I manually put in the needed crabbing angle to compensate for the drift, by intentionally offsetting the Hip's nose by the amount indicated by the drift angle indicator. And once settled in a stable cruise altitude, I kick in all autopilot modes and fine-tune the heading using the autopilot Roll knob to get the drift angle needle centered. From there the Hip flies rock solid precise. Best of both worlds ! I think the manual says above 150 - 170 kph, progressively more right rudder would be needed to keep the ball centered. So far I tried indeed that seems the case.

Thanks for the helpful advice, folks. Was thinking of the option of offsetting the heading by the drift amount to compensate as one method. Will try it out, as well as the method of using autopilot and trimming roll to zero the drift.

I had watched that, but not sure if the video showed the Doppler being turned on, or not. The manual stated that at 170 km/hr or so there should be no rudder input needed, and indeed the ball is centered around that speed, meaning the Hip is flying coordinated. If the Drift needle is to be centered, a strong left rudder needs to be applied, resulting in the ball swinging to the right, and that is not coordinated. Can someone helps to clarify -- the Drift Angle top center index refers to the aircraft's nose direction, while the needle shows the ground track, is that right? Or is it the other way round? I believe the needle shows the ground track, thus the left drift over time. If so, to fly with the ball always centered, one would need to intentionally crab the aircraft's nose to the right, so as to maintain straight up ground track? This is getting a bit confusing.

I was trying to fly to a waypoint using the Doppler system, flying at about 170 km/h. All looked good on the way there, but the Drift Angle Indicator kept showing the needle pointing to the left about 10 degrees, even though I looked to be flying straight, with the slip ball in the center with no rudder input. Even then, there seemed to be a gradual left drift. I had to intentionally put in some left rudder in order to center the Drift Angle Indicator so that the Hip could fly straight. But that caused the slip ball to go to the right of center. Anyone knows what is the correct way to track straight on course? Keep the Drift Angle Indicator needle centered, or keep the slip ball centered?

Thanks all for the helpful advice. I read somewhere before that the AOA indexer shows a few knots slower than that shown by the AOA needle indicator, and as such the AOA needle is a better judge of the correct approach speed. Is that correct?

Thanks much, Sedlo ! Didn't know at all there is a button hidden under the dashboard !!

Anyone else noticed the second hand of the clock is not moving? The minute hand does move over time, though.

Tried it again and this time the fuel feed was from the internal tanks if the external centreline feed switch was not on. Not sure if it was due to oversight in the earlier flight.

I know of the formula for calculating approach speed with ammo and fuel loading, but what about when also carrying stores like tanks and bombs? What are the additional knots for such loads?

Was flying with one centre-line tank last night, took off using internal tanks as per procedure, but forgot to switch on the centre-line tank fuel feed switch after took off. Yet somehow after some time, the caution light turned on indicating that the centre-line tank had emptied. But without the centre fuel feed switch in ON position, fuel should have been taken only from the internal tanks right? Anyone else experienced this?

Thanks for the pointer folks. That explains it !