Scaley

Yeah, by default discord invite links only last 7 days. Here's a persistent on to the Capt Zeen discord (which, despite the name, is the main Helio place to be). https://discord.gg/mPGXaEQzev

Yep, it been like this in the Hornet for over 2 years. There were a load of threads a while ago that were all removed at the time when ED released a patch that seemed (from the patch notes) to have attempted to fix this. It only affects some aircraft I understand. As a workaround a current solution is to use ReShade to increase the brightness DCS on your 2nd (3rd/4th) monitor.

Looks like the weird glowing dust is still happening. It would be nice to get someone from ED to acknowledge this (I'm sure they must be aware). Seems like something that probably quite important to fix when you are about to release a major module focussed on an attack helicopter that operates a lot at night... Glowing Dust Video There are no aircraft lights on in this video apart from the cockpit internal lighting. I guess you're talking about this: Kopp Etchells Effect

So by way of clarification: You can put any virpil collective grip on any base. You can also put the left hand Alpha flight stick on the collective base. Regarding throttles - you would only need to be manually adjusting the throttle if you are flying something without a governor, like an R22. That is basically confined to small piston engine aircraft theses days. Nothing you'll fly in DCS requires constant throttle adjustments. You set the power levers to "fly" (or equivalent) and just leave them there unless something fail/breaks/takes battle damage. The governor/flight management computer/etc takes care of the throttle setting in a modern helicopter with a governed rotor.

In case anyone is reading this and thinking of joining us to fly the Apache, outlined below is our propose training track for the AH-64D. We won't have a recruiting button live on our website until the module is released, but if anyone wants to get involved prior to that then just message one of our Apache team (Scaley, Nomad, Florence, Roman) on discord or through our website. Initial Qualification Training – Nellis By the end of IQT student should be able to operate as PC on simple training sorties, and PI in the PLT seat with a CMR PC in the front seat. All flown as PLT with instructor in CPG seat unless noted otherwise. IQT1 Hovering IQT2 VFR flight IQT3 Emergencies IQT4 Basic formation IQT5 Night Flight IQT6 Unusual Conditions IQT7 Night Formation Mission Qualification Training Phase 1 – Anderson By the end of MQT phase 1 the student should be able to operate a PLT/PI in a simple combat sortie with a CMR CPG/AC, or PI/CPG with appropriate briefing and instruction. MQT 1 Contour/NOE MQT 2 Tacform Day MQT 3 Movement techniques MQT 4 Night Sensors & Nav MQT 5 NOE Night Mission Qualification Training Phase 2 – Nellis By the end of MQT phase 2 the student will be competent to operate as PI in most training scenarios, and simple combat scenarios. They will be PC capable in simple training from their preferred seat and could fly a training sortie as a crew with another trainee of similar experience. They will be PC capable in some simple combat missions with appropriate detailed briefing and instruction. MQT 6 Area weapon systems MQT 7 Precision weapon systems MQT 8 Tacform & Movement Techniques Night MQT 9 Attack techniques 1   Mission Qualification Training Phase 3 - Nellis MQT 10 Reconnaissance MQT 11 Attack techniques 2 MQT 12 Threat reactions & move to contact MQT 13 Escort MQT 14 CAS MQT 15 SEAD & missile evasion

Maybe this is obvious to point out, but there is a column in the Unit list inside the ME that lists the module or external mod that the unit comes from. The list is sortable by that column so it should be fairly easy to find anything from a particular mod.

This is both a good point, and an opportunity for Ed to be a bit more open which might be useful. If this were the case, and ED actually said "we can't do this because we specifically aren't allowed" then it would cut down a good deal of the discussion and would let the community managers get back to other, more useful work! Even better, if there was a persistent list for each aircraft of "stuff we simply aren't allowed to implement" then that would be extremely useful!

It would help if all the structures on the map actually had damage models so you could at least see if you'd hit a building, but a fairly big percentage don't unfortunately.

Absolutely! I've been a jet pilot under extreme duress waiting for an attack helicopter that wasn't the KA-50 to come out since the days of Blackshark 1!

The bigger question is why you would want to do AAR in the Apache. For the Apache mission set what you are looking for is a place to land and refuel close to the battle (a FARP) not a tanker.

Good suggestion! I remember previously this being a contributor, but the screenshot below is with Metashaders and FXO deleted and rebuilt, and no daylight mission flown prior to this: The issue is still there - full bright NVGs to the point of being blown out and the land is completely black and featureless, so it seems this workaround doesn't work for the current issue.

@gatordev To be honest the main thing I found that made DCS helicopters much more controllable and generally comfortable to fly was getting the stick down off my desk and mounted somewhere you can rest your forearm like you would in the cockpit. After that the next highest yield is spring tension, but like you've already said the warthog grip, being a big old lump of metal, does impose some limits on how far you can go both with spring tension and any extensions. The DCS trim implementation in the UH-1 does take some getting used to, but it absolutely does work once you've gained some muscle memory. You have beeper trim in the 135/145 right? I'm guessing coming from that to a single button system AND it being an odd implementation it's going to be a good few hours before your brain gets it, but it will eventually. I've been flying the UH-1 in DCS for maybe 15 hours and at this point I can trim out some pretty big inputs, and not only hit a reasonable "hands-off" setting most of the time, but also my brain has figured out how long DCS blends the existing control input and the trim position over so there is no big "bump" that you get when you first start using the system.

I came here to post exactly the same suggestion about helipad related objects. One thing that would be good and easy would be to take the concrete pads from the top of one of the elevated revetments and put it at/very near ground level. That would be a good landing pad in place of the very very old ED FARP object.

This is still present, and I'm sure ED are aware. It would be good to get some acknowledgement that they have identified this as a problem. Currently it seems the ONLY things that contribute to the ambient light, and thus the NVG capability, is the sun and moon. All other light sources (cultural, searchlights, floodlights, etc) only have an effect in the visible area they illuminate, not in any way increasing the ambient lighting around them. The quick fix would be to add another "always present" invisible ambient source of low intensity. Even a point source in the centre of each major urban area and a source in the sky to simulate starlight would be a good start! The more realistic long term fix I guess is to have variable ambient levels, but even the direct lighting has been broken since 2.5 so asking for dynamically calculated local ambient light levels seems a bit of a stretch!

IRL everyone will talk about wind in a FROM format. That true for every aviation community that is anywhere connected to an English speaking aviation system, or to NATO. It's also true in maritime use, mountaineering, civil aviation and popular weather forecasting. The ONLY place that has routinely reported wind in a TO direction format is the former Soviet Union, and that is probably why the ME is the way round it is.

A bit of a thread resurrection, but I've just noticed the NVG gain (at least in the UH-1, on the Marianas map) appears to be odd again. On a moonless but clear night it seems like the ambient light level is WAY lower than would be expected. So low in fact that nothing that wasn't illuminated by man-made lighting was visible at all unless the NVG gain was at maximum, but then the man made lighting was so bright everything was blown out. It seemed almost like maybe a 1st gen NVG would be (but not sure, never used anything that old) but certainly not like anything at or beyond 2nd gen (aka early 1990s) technology.

For some reason there seems to be an increase in people interested in flying helicopters in DCS at the moment... Like many of you, the members of the 476th vFighter Group are waiting for the Apache module to be released so we can get our hands on a modern multi-crew attack helicopter for DCS. In the 476th we have previously operated the Ka-50 and UH-1, but we haven’t ever had a large operational helicopter squadron. With the imminent arrival of the AH-64D we think that now is the time to stand up a new helicopter squadron. The 7-6th CAV vHS has been activated as a multi-airframe squadron operating the AH-64D in the attack and reconnaissance role, alongside the UH-1 for CSAR and airlift. As a predominantly fast-jet group we feel that we have space for a number of new external helicopter pilots to join us in developing this new squadron. Right now there is an opportunity for people with specific knowledge of the AH-64 or extensive online helicopter flying expertise to join us in developing this new squadron. We are looking for a small number of highly motivated people to join the current core team developing all the processes, training structure, documents and resources that a new airframe will need, and then testing and validating the training and combat procedures we design. These people will go on to be our first cohort of pilots and instructors on the Apache. The 476th is committed to operating each airframe we adopt in the most realistic and comprehensive way we can, while still making sure that this hobby remains fun for all of us and never feels like work! Recruiting using our normal process is already open for the UH-1, and we will open more general slots for the AH-64 once we have developed a functional training program for new pilots. If you think you are interested in being part of building something new and hopefully special for the DCS AH-64D check out our website and then get in touch with one of our Apache core team in our discord. Contact: Scaley Nomad Roman Florence

The only way I know of setting monitor positions by text input is to use a 3rd party tool like MutliMonitorTool. Once you have your monitor positions set then in Helios Profile editor use Profile>Reset Monitors to update the Helios profile with the current monitor positions from Windows.

Sorry, I've updated the post to reflect the actual terms used in the current NVidia Control panel. Maximum Performance is exactly what you need to NOT select. Forcing that on the DCS process is (I think) one of the ways to cause the problem. I'd leave DCS set to adaptive. What you set Helios to doesn't seem to make a huge difference. There also appears to be some possible interaction with the Setting in Windows Graphics settings. Adding a custom profile for Helios and DCS both set to "High Performance" rather than "Let Windows Decide" helped as well.

For anyone still having the old problem with the update/frame rate of Helios being very slow I think I may have found another significant contributor: Nvida control panel has an option called "Power Management Mode". On digging a but into what this exactly does it seems that it is primarily designed to allow the user to tell the GPU to override certain scheduling and prioritisation when the GPU is throttling inappropriately. It's not akin to a power management setting as most people are familiar with. The emphasis is important, since the name of the setting does not imply at all that it's only for use in this situation! Key point - if this setting is set to "Maximum Performance" for DCS it can cause the lagging behaviour seen in Helios, presumably because the Nvida drivers are doing as instructed and overriding any throttling on the DCS process, including I assume anything making space for other graphics processes like the scheduler trying to make time for Helios to render! At least on my card (2070Super) setting this to "Maximum Performance"" for the DCS process can induce the Helios lag reliably, and it goes away by changing this one setting back to off. https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3130/~/setting-power-management-mode-from-adaptive-to-maximum-performance

You could get round this with vJoy by having one physical button press 2 virtual buttons mapped to each command, so whichever seat you were in it would work.

Thanks!

Yep, using Helios and making my own layout and profiles for the A-10, Hornet and UH-1. I was mainly interested in the layout since it looks like you've used the standard buttons with text added directly via Helios, so that will move across with the profile and would save people (me) a ton of typing and laying-out.

The key reasons people are taught not to look at the basket are PIOs, as Swift has pointed out, but also the fact that once you are connected the basket isn't a reference since it's attached to your aircraft. Thus if you use the basket as a contact reference you then have to move to a different reference set for the "stay connected" phase. Swapping from one reference to the other often messes people up. The second point (or lack of) of why pilots using a boom refuel system don't get taught the same - the boom remains a useful reference both before and after contact, so can be usefully included in your scan. Learning a technique that has you using the basket as a reference is clearly possible, and can work well, but the advised technique is based on the "average" student.

Looks good, any chance of sharing the file?