ThunderChief

I think most of all the Harrier has only very limited excess power in hover, which makes it less agile than helicopter. You have to plan your decent and landing very well in a Harrier, as you can't allow high sinkrates in a hover. I think this denies hovering in combat but it very well can use vector thrust in forward flight. But that shouldn't be overestimated anyway.

I think you have to see the advanteges of helicopters when interacting with ground units. If its a pure air war, choppers have no advantage to aircraft. It might be basically the question of what risk one is willing to take. If you have infantry on the ground the risk of loosing a chopper will pay of if you save your man on the ground.

I think the current website is just right for people who know the game already. To attract people who don't know it yet I think it needs an update. But I guess its much more a question of the content than just a question of design. BTW your website states that DCS:BS will be released December 2008? How do you know, did I miss something?

I think to start with a picture of the Ka-50 from the side and an overview picture of the cockpit + detail pictures of each panel would be needed. But I think we should wait with the wiki until we have at least the manual to be consistent with the game.

If you start from 5000m, no airspeed and no spinnig rotor, you would surely fall like a stone and the rotor wouldn't start to spin by it self. And without a spinning rotor, the blades would surely hit each other or the fuselage. But i'd say you have at least 50 seconds before hitting the ground, so you might have a very little chance to start the engines and establish controled flight.

Is the laser beam modelled to that extend that if to Ka-50 lase to targets in that way that their laserbeams cross each other it might have an effect on the missles?

I think the weak points the A-10 has compared to Su-25T would be compensated by F-16s or F/A-18s in a real scenario. As the A-10 is only deployed by USAF there its no suprise it lacks capabilities like precision standoff weapons which other planes can deliver. I think in the longrun the UCAVs will take over the AFAC and CAS role as they have a higher loiter time and are not restricted by ROE. Anyway in certain situations the A-10 will still be the best aircraft to do the job.

I think we should wait for the 500+ pages manual and then decide which topics could be better explained in a wiki.

Still better then cutting off rotor blades and then no ejection...

Don't want any multipost argument about A-10 but ;) 1. I agree! It does carry limited load because it is slow and would be too slow with full load (based on MTOM).Thats because it has huge drag compared to true fighters I guess. And Fulda Gap is what it was designed for right? 2. I agree! This ingress + egress is safest because its faster (ROE besides). It takes even longer as you are realy slow at those high altitudes and you have to manouver in the right position first as you would not want to bleed of any speed due to manouvering on the bombing run. 3. I agree! But that depends on the model. You can also use the Maverik seeker + you are so slow you can savely use binouclars (would that be modelled). So we are both right. The tactics which are used in combat were designed to match the A-10s limitations. But in LO you can very well do away with those tactics and just do some super manouvers with combat load which should be impossible in reality. As I understand it the dragforce of the external payloads is underestimated in LO (SFM) which would make the A-10 suffer if it gets a AFM but ofc I could have got that wrong.

I think based on LO its easy to overestimate the Hog's capabilities. First of all its SLOW. When you fly with a serious combat load (like 6 AGM-65 + bombs) it will be even slower and maneuverability will be very limited. If you execute your attack in a realistic maner (with MANPADs in mind), you will have to do a diving attack to get extra speed and then climb out again to safe altitude again. And that can take endless time. ;) This attack pattern will also mean you have to aquire your target from long distance and altitude. Not easy at all without sensors. But then again thats true fun :D

There are three seperate switches to arm the ejection seat. What would happen if you activate only one or two of them? Ejection without cutting of the rotorblades? :unsure:

Sorry I misunderstood the original question then! I thought the existing Su-25 should get a clickable cockpit (like upgrading LO:FC). If the Su-25 would be modelled as a DCS aircraft there has to be a clickable cockpit :thumbup:

Will the sound be diffrent depending from where you look at the helicopter? I.E. louder engine sound if you are directly at the exhausts or less intense if you look from ahead?

Yeah exactly! :D I mean the current model of the Su-25 and Su-25T can be very well controlled via keyboard / HOTAS. Only the much more detailed model of the Ka-50 will force you to use the clickable cockpit. So as long as the Su-25 model stays the same I think it is rather an advantage than a disadvantage if you don't have to click any buttons in a combat sim.

Not much to click anyway unless also the systems would be modeled in detail.

I very much agree that knowing your aircraft is a vital part to enjoy that complex simulation of the Ka-50. BUT ... ...think about you make something wrong in every flight. Maybe you don't know about the govenors (just an example I know). In most flights you would damage your engines and in reality someone on the ground would tell you that you are doing something very wrong. But in the game you just won't know that. If you consider ingame info cheating maybe some kind of summary at the end of flight giving you the condintion of the aircraft would be more realistic. But I guess that wouldn't be as easy to implement in the near future...

My idea is that by getting the "true" values, you could even better understand how the system works. I am not talking about examining every single bit of available model state data (that might be EDs secret heh?), only something like "20% less power due to overheat" or "APU Starter damaged/inop". Knowing similar complex simulations (like NASSP) there are sometimes happening things you just can't explain to your self, and might be easier to understand then.

Would it be possible to get some info about the current state of your Ka-50 displayed ingame (much like the Ctrl-Backspace function in LO)? As the simulation is so complex, it would be great while you are still learning how to handle the various systems e.g. get info if you already damaged the engine due to overload (and remaning power) , icing conditions, various damages ... I imagine you could cylce through "pages" containing all the info you have no instrument for or where instruments may not show the true value. As it might be considered cheating to get this information "directly" it might be better to make that feature optional on multiplayer games. What do you think about it? Maybe it could be a hidden feature and thus won't require to much effort to implement ;)

But keep in mind that the modelling of avionics and weaponsystems in FC can't be compared to BS. Most imortant the Vikhr will be much more limited and the Skhval will require much more configuration. I doubt there is game out there to realy prepare you for BS. Maybe tactics and flight skills, but nothing will give you the experience of having to care about all that at the same time.

Wouldn't a CRT be more realistic ;)

To improve your piloting skills, X-Plane is the only way to go. You can try a 10 minute demo version and those 10 minutes will convince you, that FSX and BF2 can't match it (in terms of FM). As far as I know X-Plane is the only simulator that models most effects of BS like: *Settling with power *Transverse flow effect *Realistic autorotation *Birdstrike ;)

Interresting idea to use the 1977 timeframe :thumbup: I will test that missions ASAP

Do you think a DC would be realy that exciting? I mean custom designed missions sounds much more fun to me than computer generated dynamic missions. It would need a realy outstanding algorithm to ensure that tasks won't repeat, level of difficulty will increase gradually, and still authentic development of the story. And besides this I think the Ka-50 can't decide a battle by its self. So if you failed to destroy lets say a convoy, someone else could do that, so it will be gone in the next mission anyway. Thats why I think 2 or 3 well done static campaings will be more fun than a not absoulutly perfect DC.

Very good idea :)