bradmick

Never heard the FCR called the donut...cheese wheel, never donut

I fly the warthog myself.

shameless plug... https://forums.eagle.ru/topic/263857-apache-control-mapping-recommendation-from-a-real-apache-pilot/?tab=comments#comment-4586693 critical binds and mapping are already addressed here. V/R Brad

I don't, because at any given time all 6 of those buttons along the top, bottom, and sides of the MPDs can be super important to you...just depends on what your current page/sub-page is. V/R Brad

Howdy! Been thinking on this for a while and seen some traffic in various Discords about how to map the controls of the Apache. This is my recommendation! The way I plan on doing this personally is the XBox and Warthog Combo, but I did a version where everything is mapped to the Warthog using the pinky switch as the mode selector. It covers all of the critical functions for the front seat and some of the Collective Mission/Flight grip items useful to the pilot or someone who's solo'ing the aircraft. Granted, this is 100% subject to change based on what we ACTUALLY get, but hey, it's a start! Here's the link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1VOGq5rAgwdCn288y7fmE8Ontksc-ZEJVCbT9zVZP_kM/edit#slide=id.gbb35f7e78e_1_1388 And yes, I am a real Apache pilot, like the title says. Been flying them since 2009. V/R BradMick

All the info's been great. I went back to no curve and she's just way to sensitive still. I would say, and after conferring with my old man who's a fellow rotor head and flew hueys as well, the aircraft sensitivity needs to be reduced by at least 50% if maybe a little less. even when you get her to the 'sweet spot' she quickly leaves it and becomes unmanageable. Still working through it, but i'd say as a quick and dirty, 50% reduction or so of the input would be a good starting point. V/R Brad

I think I admit to being spoiled a bit in my first post ;) heheh, and hats off to you guys too. I'll tell you what, you guys have gone into some places and situations i'd have been like 'hell no!'. Spent many an hour covering infils and they were all interesting...lots of nerves going into dust clouds like ya'll do. It'd get real quite until the dust settled so we could see you all were down and safe. Look forward to the updates! The Huey is the one aircraft I wish I could have flown more than anything in flight school. Brad

Awesome! I'm still pluggin' away at it. This thing is still way to sensitive yet. Playing with the values that clamp down on the actual throw of the controls did a little bit, but overall made the aircraft nearly unflyable because I lacked control authority. Will keep pluggin' away and post what I've got when it's workable! Brad

Howdy all, Just picked up DCS UH-1H and started logging some time in it and was interested to see that she maneuvers like an AH-64D. I've fiddled with my controller sensitivity but just can't get her to stop being so touchy. Any ideas out there? I've flown the TH-67, the fine bell product she is, and I know that this sort of rotor system and helicopter (especially the much larger Huey) isn't that responsive. So, I wonder to if it's not a part of the way she's modeled and a combination of hyper sensitive controller hardware. To clarify a bit of what I mean, I expect the 64 to be nice and responsive, she's got the SCAS system (which i'm pretty sure the Huey doesn't) which gives me 'speed of light' inputs through a series of transducers to make up for the slop of the mechanical control linkages. I should expect a slight delay in the Huey and other non SCAS (or whatever flavor of name it goes by) Helos. Just some thoughts. Great product though! Beautiful model both in and out. Just gorgeous! V/R Brad McKinstry

...I hate flight school kids...Great video, sure. But...so much stuff is just given away about our airframe. OPSEC clearly means nothing like it used to. Brad McKinstry

Yup, i'm a Longbow driver. You said you just finished the 64 course? I've probably seen you around B-Co. Drop me a PM if you're so inclined. Brad

So, I didn't want to sully my Campaign with random crazy flying (gun and rocket runs on known ADA with reckless abandon and the like), and opted to jump into Instant Action. Inevitably because I was ignoring every bit of my training and just goofing off, I was shot down and killed. This ultimately killed my campaign pilot, this seems a little off, and definately a little frustrating as I was making really solid progress on the master campaign with invulnerability off. Instant action seems like it should be more like an Arcade/Simulator deal and not count as an actual part of your pilots overall record. So far this is my only gripe, mainly because this was my first pilot with invulnerability off. Brad

Applying the same logic it stands to reason that you could. But, there are different factors in a hover vs. forward flight, so my first thought would be its not that likely to happen in a hover as it is in directional flight. And, the reason for having the control input range is so that you do not limit the aircrafts maneuverability. It's why pilots spend so much time in training on their given airframes, learning the nuances of the aircraft so they can effecitively fly it in any particular envelope without to much worry. Brad

The reason for the blades rising is the result of dysymytry of lift. It doesn't matter what size the helicopter, this is something that is going to happen irregardless. As the aircraft picks up forward airspeed, three main regions shift in size on the rotor blade. You have the no lift region which is inboard nearest the hub, the lifting portion of the blade, and then the stall region at the tip. As airpseed increase, the no lift and stall regions increase effectively shrinking the lifting area, resulting in the advancing blade rising and the retreating blade dipping. The faster you go, the more pronounced this effect. Now, this is happening to both rotor discs at the same time as a result of Blade Flapping. Now, throw in cyclic feathering (the means of gaining directional control of the aircraft) you're further changing the pitch of the blades through use of the cyclic to generate greater lift on one side and roll/pitch the aircraft. At a high power setting, high speed, so i'd definately say an aggressive right hand turn (the input occurs at the nose on the swashplate, hits its highest point on the left side to result in the roll to the right) would result in a blade strike. Aerodynamically it's supported with a clockwise rotating rotor system (which I believe the lower rotor is if I remember right) Brad

There was a recent article in Army Aviation where a CW3 actually performed a Cross Bleed start due to his APU recieving damage. He got the aircraft up and running, took off and went to take care of more bad guys. I've also been demonstrated ONE Cross Bleed start in my training, and I can definately say it's my least preferred method of starting an engine, the amount of power you have to pull to make it happen makes the aircraft WAY to squirely for my tastes. Brad

If you pick the aircraft up to a hover, and leave the collective at that point, you're only going to go so fast for a given pitch setting before you start to descend. As you increase airspeed, collective pitch is ultimately going to be reduced because the rotor system is becoming more efficient. That being said, a helicopter is not like a jet, the turbine engines do not provide the thrust like in a jet, pitch is you're primary means of gaining forward airspeed, but you have to have a given power/collective setting to maintain that airspeed, without it you start to descend. Brad

I have heard of units doing that actually, but in general the pilots gripe. At least that's what my IP's were saying. Neither seat liked giving up the overall advantages of the FLIR for tracer spotting. I didn't mind flying NVG's actually, I hated not having any of my Symbology, but the fact that night became like Day was just awesome. I was cruising around one night, as comfy as can be, happened to be a crappy FLIR night, but an awesome goggles night because of the moon illume, scared my IP because I was outside of his comfort zone, heheh. Good times. Brad

Heheh, neither are we. I got a whopping 6 hours of goggles during the course. FLIR is pretty solid, though I can say legacy FLIR is terrible versus MTADS. Which I really can't wait to get to fly a bird with MTADS, all I've seen so far are videos, but holy crap the difference is rediculous. Brad

A 30mm cannon, at least the ones on a helo, are not generally going to be sufficient to take out a tank. You can maybe hope to track it (immobilize it) but definately not kill it. You have to think, most tanks have around 4 - 6 inches of armor on them, a 30mm HE round can hope to pierce maybe 2 - 3 inches of armor, probably closer to 1 to 2 inches. Rockets are a good candidate, so long as its the right type of rocket. Generally i'm going to just shoot Vikhr's at the tanks, 30mm for APCs and other light armored vehicles, and then rockets or 30mm for soft skinned vehicles. Target/weapon pairing is an important aspect of being a gun pilot, and knowing the capabilities and limitations of each weapon system is the first step to building that knowledge base. Brad

As I think about this, the only thing I can think of is this, and I came to this conclusion after looking at the airflow patterns in a hover diagrams for IGE/OGE. While airspeed is airspeed, sure, at a hover the induce flow velocity is far greater than it would be in actual forward flight, as you begin to pick up more and more airspeed, you require less power to keep the aircraft aloft because the rotor system is becoming more efficient. Any time the wind is anything but directly off your nose, you're still going to require a significant amount of power to keep it aloft, so the vortices aren't exactly being blown as they would with you being in forward flight. The aircraft is still operating in largely disturbed air. A way to test this, pick the aircraft up to a hover on a no wind day and see where you're holding for power/blade pitch. Next, put about a 24-30 knot head wind in, and see if the power requirement is lessened. It should be. I know my dad was out flying gunnery one night and had winds in excess of 24 knots, he pulled up to a hover and was registering 24 knots (outside of ETL and was requiring something around 30-ish percent torque to hover, typically a loaded out 64 will hover around 75-ish percent). So...yeah. My rambling thoughts (shouldn't do this at 1:20 in the a.m.) Brad

Sorry about that, I just realized I meant to post this elsewhere. Got click happy and didn't pay attention. Brad

Anytime you're operating in an enviroment where these conditions occur simultaneously you're sitting real likely to (>90%) get into this condition: A vertical or near vertical descent of at least 300 feet per minute. Actual critical rate depends on gross weight, rotor RPM, density altitude, and other pertinent factors Slow forward airspeed (less than ETL), the reason being you're still very much in that prime zone for recylcying your own rotor downwash. Once you're through ETL the rotor disc is operating in clean, undisturbed air. Rotor system must be using 20 to 100 percent of the available engine power with insufficient power remaining to arrest the descent. Low rotor RPM could aggravate this. The italicized portion there is the kicker that most folks forget about (and what IP's like to nail you on check rides for). If you don't have the power to stop that descent, and you're falling even faster get some kind of airspeed and fly out of it. It can be forward, rearward, sideward, whatever just as long as you avoid obstacles and get you're but out of that column of nasty air. Now, all that being said, if you're out there flying along and the enemy takes some shots at you to which you respond with a sharp bank in the opposite direction and a dive to the deck for speed and cover, and you maneuver yourself outside of the threat radius and find that perfect little hidey hole, it is possible to do a rapid decel to a hover and not get yourself into this situation. My usual trick is this: First, I know what my hover power requirements are. In the BS I tend to go off of the blade pitch indicator because its the most like Torque to me. I know that for an OGE hover I usually have to have around 9-10 degrees of blade pitch or so. I lead my deceleration with an aggressive drop in collective as I aggressively pull aft on the cyclic, as the airspeed begins to bleed off and the first signs of a descent come in I bring the power back in to catch it, usually this is followed by the nose wanting to drop as well. As the airspeed continues to bleed off, the nost is gradually going to want to settle (in the aircraft you'd actually feel it, but you just have to go off of visual cues here). Around 80 km/h or so you should be at about 75% towards your goal of the required blade pitch angle and still sitting at a 0 feet per minute rate of descent. If you have a positive one, that's okay so long as you're not balooning yourself. By the time you reach 0 km/h you should have the full required blade pitch for and OGE hover and shouldn't have gained or lost a bit of altitude. It's all about being smooth, controlled, and staying ahead of the aircraft. You have to meet that power requirement prior to even thinking about stabilizing yourself or fly out of it, keep slow, and try a less aggressive maneuver. Hope that helps. Brad

I forgot to mention to actually, a lot of the stuff i've mentioned works rather well against MANPADS and older SAM systems. The 2S6 (god help you if you encounter it) kind of throws a wrench in the whole works. It's missiles can engage you out to 8km, and its guns cover the middle ground out to a max of 4km. So, if the enemy has a solid ADA setup, i.e. there's a single radar site doing the hunting, and its feeding the data out to the gun units, life can get very interesting, and very, very bad for you in a hurry. Brad

Well that's just plain good information to know. That's something i've never heard ever happening. Standoff is my main deal, i'm always seeking an engagement within the last third of my weapons engagement ranges, not so effective against moving targets, but stationary armor in a field it works well enough. Brad

I think the strangest thing that has me most terrified out there is the T-72 MBT's 122mm gun. I've never read of a tank actually using its main gun to shoot at/down helicopters, but i'll be dog goned if they didn't do that to me on multiple occasions. Lets just say I employ the hell out of some standoff. If i'm closer than 7-ish km from any enemy, i'm not a happy camper. Brad