arneh

There is no such thing as a 100% accurate sim. There will always be something the developers don't know, can't model or just gets wrong. And don't take this for critisism, ED are doing a fantastic job getting it close to the real thing. But 100% is impossible.

I think you misspelled Mi-24 :P

BTW, here is a close-up of the AH-64D's throttle panel (which is on the left side, like it would be in a fighter plane):

No, I don't. I just have regular HOTAS controllers.

On the Mi-28 there is a little door under the left engine (or more accurately under the IR-supressor for the left engine) for that rescue cabin with room for three persons.

Collective controls Rotor AoA, throttle controls engine RPM. Modded EECH does have separate throttle and collective controls, although the throttle is only used during engine start and stop. During flight you just leave the throttle in the fly (auto) position, and only use the collective. And both the Apache and Comanche have the throttles separate on the left side console, airplane-style, not as a twist-grip on the collective. Other helicopters often have the throttles in the overhead panel. Not sure how the Russian helicopters do it. But in conclusion I don't think it's worth the bother to have it on a controller, since in most modern helicopters you never touch it during flight, only for starting and stopping an engine, or if simulating engine failure during autorotation practice.

The new cockpit has been released now: http://www.simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2443416#Post2443416 Also, SimHQ has a little QA with me to coincide with the release: http://www.simhq.com/_air10/air_313a.html

During the Iran-Iraq war there were several helicopter vs helicopter battles. About 10 Cobras, 6 Hinds and various other helicopters were shot down in these air-to-air combats. I'm sure both the Cobra and Hind pilots would have prefered to use air-to-air missiles if they had the option, instead of having to use the AG and unguided weapons (the Cobras seem to have gotten many of their Hind kills with TOW missiles, while the Hinds used unguided rockets and guns). I agree that helicopters going hunting for aircraft isn't very likely. But if you're going to get into combat with enemy helicopters anyway then I think carrying air-to-air-missiles could be useful and give an edge. And if such a conflicted developed again where helicopters faced enemy helicopters frequently then I'm sure both sides quickly would add air-to-air missiles to their helicopters, even if they don't carry them now.

Ok, this is from "Strike Eagle" by William Smallwood. An F-15E flight had been vectored by AWACS to some special forces that was threatened by some Iraqi helicopters. It was february 13 1991, Capt Tim Bennett is the pilot and Dan Bakke the WSO.

This incident is described in the book "Strike Eagle", and it was in Desert Storm. And looking it up now, yes, the book does say they used air-air radar to lock up the the helicopter while it was on the ground. I can quote the relevant section if you like. Actually it took off just after they launched the GBU. But it still hit.

Then... RESPECT! :thumbup: Come to think of it they were probably the best infantry implementation I've seen in a flight sim yet (not considering Operation Flashpoint or ArmA as flight sims). Better than the infantry in EEAH/EECH or Longbow. Probably because the Hind is used more for troop support and not anti-tank like the other helicopters. Some would scatter and run when under attack (which made them hard to hit with the gun), while others would shoot back. Definitely a original and classic sim! Had a lot of fun with it in its day :)

Yes indeed. In fact in the Afghanistan campaign they were pretty much the only opposition. And back at the airbase there would be guys walking around. And you could transport the troops in the Hind, and also be medevac, where people would run around with stretchers. Oh, and if you opened the cabin doors while you carried troops, and started manouvering a bit heavy they would become paratroopers, but without the parachute :P

Digital Integration's Hind had infantry earlier than that. Like these guys: Hind was made by much the same guys that made EEAH though :)

It was DI (Digital Integration) who made the Tornado sim, not DID (Digital Image Design). Both were great british sim makers. DID made TFX, EF2000 and the Total Air War. DI went on to make helicopter sims of the Apache and Hind and a F-16 sim. After DI disbanded some of the guys formed Razorworks which made the Enemy Engaged helicopter sims (but not EE2). So some of the spirit of Tornado lives on in those :)

Of course! Fighter Bomber had the Viggen (as well as F-111, Tornado, MiG-27 and a few more rarely simulated aircraft). Used to play this one a lot when I was younger :)

Sure it's fun to do a old-fashioned dogfight. But that's not really what I'm looking for. I want to feel like I'm part of a big war. A living world with tousands of ground units trying to accomplish their mission, and the aircraft to support them. In war pilots don't challenge each other for a 1v1 duel over neutral ground. They are there to support the ground forces. Doing AA realisticly would lead to many boring missions where all you do is make circles in the sky for hours in a CAP-pattern. Not my idea of fun. Even F4 didn't bother to do this realisticly, as you only have to remain on the CAP-station for 15 minutes, not hours.

Ey, Italian is official language of Switzerland as well! :P (Well one of the four offical languages :) )

I agree that this does some more likely. Although the they might have got the message from above that they were to use the BMP-2 cannon. Considering that the Mi-28 uses the same cannon, and the two aircraft were originally in a fly-off competition, it might have been specified something like "we want an attack helicopter, and it's going to be armed with this cannon". Just a guess. They might have independently figured out that it was a nifty weapon to use. Or one team tried it first and the other thought "hmm, that's a nice idea, let's try the same cannon on our helicopter, but we'll mount it smarter then them" (and now you can argue over who thought they were smarter than the other :) ).

Well, you have to take into consideration that when the report was written. NATO believed throughtout the 80s that the Havoc was a dedicated air-air helicopter, and not a conventional anti-tank helicopter. Quite fun reading it now and see how wrong they were, but you can't really blame the author of this Cobra-report for believing what was the "general wisdom" within NATO at the time.

Iraq were big on helicopters, but during the Iran-Iraq war. It's the only time there has been real helicopter vs helicopter combat (Iraqi Hinds vs Iranian Cobras). Think both side ended up with losing about 10 helicopters in air-air. So it's not like there's never been helicopter vs helicopter combat.

Norway has been using NASAMS since 1998, and it's pretty much the same thing as SLAMRAAM. I also believe Spain is using NASAMS, and Netherland has at least ordered it.

You're right that helicopters don't carry AAMs nowadays. But that's mostly because they don't need them in the operations they are currently used. They are very unlikely to see any enemy aircraft at all. But if you look at history, it shows that if a capability is needed it will be added, in the field if necessary. So if Apaches enter a conflict were they will meet lots of enemy helicopters then I'm sure they will quickly start to carry AAMs. And the same with the RWR for the Ka-50, if it actually needed a RWR, then I'm pretty sure it would quickly get one. Like the Hind got flares and IR-supressors in Afghanistan, or like fighters got RWRs in Vietnam, or like the observation planes in WWI started to carry guns. Tactics and weapons adapt to the enemy. Not that I fault ED for not modelling them. As long as they keep the threats reasonable, i.e. not lots of enemy aircraft and radar SAMs.

Yes, I am well aware that the Ka-50 gun is both more powerful and more accurate. I was only arguing that I seriously doubt it's able to aim the gun as fast as the Apache, which the quote I replied to claimed.

While I don't doubt the Ka-50 is very agile, I do doubt it can turn the helicopter as fast as the Apache's gun can slew the gun, because that's really fast! Check around 6:15 in this clip:

That's interesting to hear. The general wisdom in the Longbow community seems to be that the flight model is pretty much perfect and can't be improved. I just need to quote from the arcticle: "The flight model is second to none, and the helicopter handles just like a real Apache." So would be interesting to hear what you, who've actually flown the real thing, find wrong with it :)