rge75

Yes, the setup plays a huge role. I e.g. had to set dead zone for my pedals (using pedals from a racing wheels and not real flight pedals). I had to google that "Pro Flight Trainer Puma". That's for sure an amazing thing :-o And so are the prices. However, this must be a different experience with such controls. And damn, there are even swiss distributors... if I'd only fly choppers I'd probably consider getting something like this. Be aware that I'm slightly jealous though ;-) Can you trim those control like in a real helo in that case?

I don't know what it's called in the english version. But by default it's RCtrl-RShift-P (External Cargo Indicator). I simply mapped it to one of my controller buttons. My cargo pickup rate also isn't that great. But I think I'm doing better and better. New missions are always welcome. I'll first finish the Oilfield Campaign though.

You know what's funny - I just was going to write "I only use few curvature for sling load" (so that I have more sensitivity from the trim region). So I wanted to check my cuvature value in the settings and noticed that I don't have one at all - looks like I only set it for the Huey. So yeah, you're right, it's controllable with zero curve. I even managed my first sling load with the Mi-8 today. Trimming simply is the key to success. As you can see in the controll indicator, it's just "subtile" correction all the time while not really moving the stick too much. And this is with no curvature. But I'd say you still have better sensitivity from the trim region with some curvature. Anyway, I'll leave the axis the way they are. I'm just used to this now.

Thanks for the review. I'm sure it will be helpful for people who still haven't bought this campaign.

Very good points, thanks. I should probably use the trimming more often during landing (most of the time I only trim for flight and hover, but not for landing - I'm using the curvature though). Let me mention that I don't land the Hip this way normally though. It really was just a test. During the campaign, I often lose altitude a lot earlier. But since I flew the Huey first in that platform landing test, the starting point seemed to work. So I simply wanted to see if it's possible to do it the same way. I had other attempts where I was in a hover before the platform and where I slowly moved toward the LZ. So in this particular test, I had to push the bad position ;-) I'm for sure not yet at the 8/10 oil rig landing though, but I'd say I have a 29/30 normal landing ratio. Every now and then, the vortex of doom happens when I don't pay enough attention on the instruments.

Is it just me or is it really that much more difficult to land the Hip compared to the Huey? I tried the oilplatform landing with the Huey and the Mi-8. While 2 attempts out of 2 were clean with the UH-1H, it took me around 10 attempts to get a "similiar" result. Sure, I could have landed different (vertical approach, 180° turn or whatever), but I wanted to do it the "clean" way like with the Huey. First thing I noticed when starting with the same parameters (speed/height) - slowing down and descending was more difficult in the Hip. I had to completely reduce the collective. With the Huey, I almost had to pay attention to not lose too much speed. Anyway, it was an "interesting" experience to try it out. If you're interested, here's a short video about the two landings.

Thanks for the info about the radio chatter. Yeah, I noticed that the same page also has transparency on the other missions. So it's a DCS flaw.... maybe it will be fixed with DCS 2.5. Thanks, I'm aware of scrolling through the maps. The custom pages are pretty cool (I like the layout of your maps with the angle and distance as well as the ones with pictures).

I'm just wondering if this chit chat is from the campaign or default by DCS? I did not have this during the Spring Tension campaign though. As you notice, there's no text, so I have no idea what it is all about: Well, at least it's entertaining during the flight. But it would be cooler if you'd acutally understand it....

Ah ok, thanks for the info. I guess it was sort of that Russian voice-over. The "story speech" had text so far.

I only flew 2 missions so far, so it's too early to really judge on it. So far, I like to "slow pace" though. It's different than the other campaigns, but to get most out of it, I play it quite different than Spring Tension. In Spring Tension, I was using auto start, sometimes a little bit "cheating" by checking the F10 map or pressing ctrl-k on the kneeboard - and sometimes time compression. But since the tasks seems "easier" (at least atm) and there's less risk of having to redo the mission, I'm starting up the Mi-8 manually (nice to have some crew comments), doing the radio with the tower and all that stuff. It's just a lot more "calm". Take your time, do the transport, concentrate on navigating. In fact, I'm a bit surprised that I like it - I was first concerned it might be "boring" to just fly from A to B. But it's actually nice to watch the landscape and to check with the kneeboard map to see if you're on course. I even manually turned off the Hip when arriving at the sub base again. It might change if there will be harder missions (....sling load). The oil rigs/scenery look cool btw. And lesson learned in mission 2: double check your input in the Doppler. I entered 132 instead of 213 and flew the 20km. When there, I saw an oil tower and thought "there it is". I landed and nothing happened. Thus, I checked the kneeboard and noticed the error. So yeah...the only solution (without cheating) was to set the Doppler to 20km forward to fly back to WP2. From there, entering the correct navigation data to finally fly to WP3. Good luck the bird had more than enough fuel loaded. The mission simply took me a lot longer now ;-)

I noticed a slight flaw in the kneeboard in mission 2. The map doesn't fill out the kneeboard and there's now a transparent part. Thos doesn't really look nice. See screenshot. As a side note - I noticed quite some chit-chat during flight which is nice. But that chit-chat has no written text. Is this by design? I didn't understand what they were talking, but it might have been information about drifting off too far from the course or before going into a vortex?

It would be nice if they'd add it with the next patch. Looks good.

On a did dans les forum anglais que cette mission ne marche plus avec 1.5.7. Il faut "downgrade" (voire lien) à 1.5.6 ou attendre pour le patch. https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=190554 Personallement, je recommende d'attendre. Edit: C'est la réponse de Greg: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3201764&postcount=5 C'est possible d'accrocher le hook si tu as quelque distance au cargo. Mais je n'ai pas essaié.

Most of the time I only use time compression if I have to refly a mission and if it's a long way. Otherwise there's the risk that you miss some speech. Just in case, I'd still have the trk file. But maybe it's one of those "bugs" that happens once in a lifetime and never again. Or I simply turned right a bit too early. I mean, the Doppler told me I'm there and I also saw the edge of the city. So with that, it was obvious to me that I'm at WP3. Anyway, it seems normal that I have something not workin in mission 1, haha (happened with Argo as well when a civil plane crashed into a parked plane which resulted in a mission failed). Let's hope all the campaigns will still work and it won't be too much to fix for the new map.

Maybe it was just bad luck.... I'll simply continue with mission 2 ;-) But I'll replay mission 1 (the whole campaign) once the new Caucasus map will be available. So maybe I'll have more luck next time. Before WP3, you're told to change a frequency or something with the radio and I think I didn't do this (wasn't sure what/how). So maybe this was the problem? I was just wondering if the other events should be triggered, no matter if you triggered WP3 or not.

Unfortunately it didn't save the screenshots. But the co-pilot repeated to tell me that I'm too high and that I have to descend to 500m, even when I was clearly below 500m (e.g. at landing approach). First I thought I might have set up the barometric altitude meter wrong, but the co-pilot even told me that I'm too high when I landed at the airport. Either I really did something wrong or there was an error with a trigger. Second thing (not sure if it's by design or not - or if I didn't set the radio correct) - I did not get a message to turn at the 3rd waypoint. At 1st and 2nd waypoint I always got a nice message to turn. Sure, it was no problem because I simply adjusted the doppler anyway. But it would have been nice to have a message. But like I said, maybe I was wrong with the radio settings? It was the first time I dealt with them today. My first impression of the Oilfield Campaign after the Spring Tension. It was a nice flight and it was all about navigation. I enjoyed the slower pace and I even did my first manual ramp start (needed a printed out checklist though). I missed all the following speeches as I noticed in the video. The slower pace gave me time to deal with the radio and all those things. I did not even use time compression this time ;-) So I think it's the "right campaign" if you have an hour or two left and if you want to "calm down". Looking forward to mission 2. Edit: I just had a look at a video from mission 1 and there was the message to turn to 125° at WP3. May it be that it won't be triggered when you're too high at WP3?

Spring Tension Mission 20 (at arrival in target area) PS Time to start the Oilfield Campaign now.

When I finished mission 20 and I missed the "You can quit the mission now" when I landed at the base. So I flew to the other 2 bases as well...but no matter where I landed - it never told me I can exit the mission. Sure, there was that text "this is how the mission ends" (or something like this) before you RTB. But it was not clear if you can now exit or not. In the end, I thought it probably doesn't matter and I simply exited. So yes, the mission was counted as success. But it's confusing to not have this message because it occured on all the other 19 missions.

Well, I tried it several times now, but the winman is being shot down all the time (and I don't see where from). I opened the miz file to check out the location, so in theory I should know where they are (more or less). But that's plane theory. In reality, I'm shot down all the time before I even know what hit me (and where from)... Edit: Finally managed to do it - but I let the wingman do the "dirty job". Just in case somebody doesn't see the ZSU....the location is marked in the screenshot (that's where the rockets of the winman were directed to).

That's a good hint. I also gave him the order bit when he was oit of sight. I'll prepare my next approach from further distance trying to observe my wingman.

Be aware that there are spoilers in this text, in case you did not play mission 18 yet. After the slightly frustrating mission 17, mission 18 feels a lot cooler. However, I'm slightly stuck there and I could need some help. Once you neutralize the troops, you get the message that it's sort of a trap and that ther's a ZSU. My problem...I didn't find it so far and I was now shot down 3 times so far. Before I try over and over again, somebody might point me to the right direction. When you watch the video (if you don't want to watch the full fight, just do a fast forward to 5:26), you can see that I'm hit out of nowhere. Ok, maybe the wreck on the hill should have warned me. I suppose that was my wingman who didn't manage to take out the ZSU. (I would have embeded the video, but the button simply doesn't work on my browser). Once you know where the ZSU is - how to take it out without being shot down? Any help is appreciated. Edit: Just notice that the co-pilot said it's on the edge of the hill? So on the right side (north within the game)

I forgot one hint. Somebody else once told me in this forum when we were discussing about generator failure. So I'll share it here because it was very helpful to me - not just for mission 17. Make sure you always keep an eye on the main rotor RPM (see screenshot, red square). Make sure the needle doesn't go below 90% (well, 88-89 can still work, but when it's lower, generator failure may occur). Also for the collective (yellow square), you can go up to 13 in the beginning of the mission. Once you're in the target area and more meter above sea, 13 is risky. Again, simply check the main rotor RPM. So once you know those limits of the Mi-8, it's a lot more relaxing to fly the helo and generator failure should not happen anymore - simply fly within the limitations of the machine ;-)

Well, I finally managed mission 17. I wanted to save the track but clicked "ok" in the debriefing too quick (out of habit). Anyway, let me share some of the experience I made - maybe it might help some other poor pilots who are stuck in this mission. First, it really took me around 20 attempts. The first 10 times, it was because I lost the AI/leader. Once you know where they are flying to and where they make some crazy manoevers (hard brakes, fast ascend), it's no problem anymore. Second, you don't have to land at every LZ. At LZ1 and 2 I only orbited (make sure you don't get into a hover - I almost lost the chopper at LZ2). I think you don't even have to land at LZ3 (but I'm not sure). Anyway, when starting again, you can let the chopper "fall down the hill" to gain speed. But make sure you don't lose the AI out of sight. Third, the hint with turning off anti acing was helpful to me. Sure, you can't have it turned off all the way. But when you're in "troubles" and you need some extra power, then it may help. I almost missed LZ4 and had to ascend again. So I shortly turned it off and it felt like it was easier to climb again. But maybe it was just a placebo effect. At LZ4, I was using F2 to check my back - the wingman too often landed on me). This time I was lucky, but I made sure I immediately took off when the leader started. When they're telling you to attack the enemy, then don't get nervous. The AI will deal with it. So again, make sure you keep the AI in sight. Stay behind them, slightly above. If you see that they slow down, decrease the throttle and pull back the stick to also slow down and to not gain altitude. RTB was more or less easy but there were two points where the leader almost went into a hover to pass a mountain. But since you know where you came from (and since you might spot the shadow of the choppers on the ground) it's possible to find them again. And don't get nervous in the end when you're finally at the base. Hell, I almost most crashed the Mi-8 when I went into a vortex at the landing approach. I noticed it and was able to catch him slightly before the ground. So after approximately one hour, I finally touched the ground savely and finished the mission. It was a pain in the a** ;-) Edit: BTW, I did not have to deal around with the emergency power (in fact I didn't even find out how to do it).

There's another thread about that, so maybe you'll find some valuable input there. https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=134659 Personally, I think the speed isn't the problem because the AI often "brakes" before they ascend to get over the hill. So it doesn't matter when you're slightly behind them. The even worse problem - and I count this as "bug" now... the AI tends to land on my chopper. This happened 3 times so far. Twice on LZ3 and once on LZ4 (see screenshot - I slightly pressed too late when he was already airborne. But he destroyed my blades). So where shall I land to avoid this? No matter where I land...the wingman simply seems to crash into me. And in my last attempt, when I landed a bit further away on LZ3, the troops who were disembarked, managed to damage my Mi-8. It's just getting very frustrating to do the formation flight over and over again to finally fail due to the AI wingman. I wish this guy would still stay there ;-) So he wouldn't get into my way.