Quadg

in real life to start the huey you turn the throttle to just below the idle position (start position) and then start the engine. when the engine is started safely you turn the throttle to idle, engage the idle cut off and you can no longer turn the throttle to below idle without disengaging the cut off. this is a safety feature. to stop you turning the engine off in flight. you cannot turn the throttle to off/closed. but our sim throttles don't have cut offs. (most of us). so to make the idle cut off work they have put the range below idle set to the page up and page down keys. not the throttle axis. its not a bug. because the bug lies with our own hardware. its a design choice. we cannot reposition the bottom of the throttle. with a cut off. so this way its setup is a work around. to fit most game throttles. and it only effects the cold start and engine shutdown. not actual flight. where you have the full range of throttle from full to idle. (but not to off) of course it does not work if you have a collective and and an idle cut off. the down side to their design choice.

@rayrayblues Yes, I agree, the Kobe Bryant crash is a classic example. He (the pilot) should have just setup his full autopilot to fly the minimums and switched it on before he entered IMC. But he waited till he was whited out and then tried to figure something out. AVweb has an interesting discussion between them, the NTSB and Helicopter Association about preventing it.

The only time I have died on the search and rescue server was flying into IMC in the huey. it was with the old clouds where the boundary was less obvious. one second I was fine the next I was completely whited out. when I thought I had more room. when I was really close to a mountain. with no easy escape route. slowing for a hover. I'm so glad for the new clouds with more granularity to their edges. but I also totally get when real helicopter pilots say that the biggest killer of helicopter pilots is unintentionally flying into IMC. the unexpected switch from VFR to IFR is what kills you. even if you have skills in both. that moment of disorientation and panic

I think mast bumping is missing as well. on the acrobatic server I had another huey fly into me and destroy my tail rotor. I tried for several minutes to fly and recover and I entered several situations where normally the mast would have bumped and the main rotor would have departed the aircraft. like it usually does. I was trying to regain forward flight using speed, collective and weather cocking from the tail. I entered several low g situations during my spins with a lot of cyclic input. but instead i had no bumping and no loss of main rotor. and I even managed to land the huey backwards. after spinning and rocking for 5 minutes. I don't have a track but can someone check the ones posted above?

I always end up flying it for so long on the search and recue server that I run out of fuel... "has it really been 2 hours???" the fix you are looking for is not "autopilot" its removing the centre return spring from your joystick. or if you don't want to do that then trim, trim, trim. both remove the physically demanding fight with the centre return spring. As helicopters don't have return springs.

you don't have the optic doors open when firing the gun. partly the doors are there to protect the sight from the gun concussion. Hungarian hind 24p night firing. looks like they have fitted new LED lights to the rotor tips.

if you read the manual it tells you the pitch and roll SAS is mandatory. why its part of the start up procedure. you can fly without it but you are not supposed too. the only two channels that are voluntary are yaw and altitude.

the pedal you press to counter torque is known as the power pedal. when you pull up on the collective you also need to push on the power pedal. when you reduce collective you need to let it out. its a muscle memory thing. you need a lot more power pedal in the mi-8 and mi-24 than you do in the huey. slow movements of the collective are easier to learn. as you require slower power pedal inputs. also remember the dampener on the torque pedals limits your speed of inputs. so pull too fast and the pedals wont move quick eneough. raising the collective also causes the nose to pitch up slightly. and down when you lower it. so moving the collective requires a steady adjustment of both pitch and torque pedal. in the huey its more pitch than torque. in the hind/hip its more torque than pitch. (you have pitch and roll SAS)

in real life pilots are banned from flying with the pitch and role SAS off in the mi-8. not sure if its the same in the mi-24. we will see when we get the manual. learning not to fight with the SAS was one of the major problems I had with moving from the huey to the mi-8. and hovering. my muscle memory insisted on putting in stick movements that were not needed. the pitch oscillations in the mi-24 are much reduced if you use enough back stick to account for the extreme forward rake of the rotor disk. you need a lot of back stick just to get the disk level. so using more back stick kind of fixed the pitch oscillations. Rather than fighting the SAS here the SAS has less to do.

MH-53J/M pave low could. it had terrain following and terrain avoidance radar. And forward looking infrared. not sure if the HH/MH-60 pave hawk is the same.

@Avimimus opinions are like arseholes, everybody has one and they all stink...

the yellow circle is the spotting range the much smaller red circle is the actual shooting range. the route goes nowhere near the red circle. the yellow circle is irrelevant in this instance. (does not matter if they spot you) I wasn't lucky 20 times.... i simply flew the route i was ordered to fly. and you were not unlucky. just well off the route you were ordered to fly. if you got shot down. no luck involved. and no bad mission writing. war likes to punish the reckless, lazy and inept. its not a tickling competition. hell war even likes to punish the ones who do everything right. its not exactly known for being fair.

maybe we can get the ka-52k that they sold to Egypt after France refused to sell Russia the mistral assault ships. Ka-52k was supposed to be the attack helicopter for the ships in Russian service. its navalised with folding rotors. or the ka-52 Nile crocodile they sold to egypts land forces. getting data on export versions seems a lot easier.

It did say in the release notes that you should stick to the pre built loadouts to avoid conflicts. when we get the full manual it will probably tell us what works, where. And why.

I have flown this mission at least 20 times and never got shot down. didn't even know that gun was there. so yes its a fun experience. follow the flight plan and don't cut corners. like the guy giving you your familiarisation flight tells you too. follow the bearing leaving tshkinvali till you see the outpost then turn right onto the new bearing and you will be fine. you are warned several times to stay away from the border because the whole area is contested. and you are given a flight plan specifically avoiding the border area. going down in flames is what you get for cutting corners and ignoring all the warnings. take it as learning experience. when they said stay away they actually meant it. you are carrying very very important documents. if you get shot down someone is going to have to fill them out again in triplicate.

well it is sort of like the huey gunship, in that if you load it down with weapons then it cant even take a full tank of gas, let alone troops.. especially hot and high in Afghanistan.

read about the mission to rescue a missing soldier in Afghanistan where British marine commandoes rode to the target sitting on the pylons of the AH-64 they used it like a little bird. That time when British Commandos rode an AH-64 Apache helicopter to combat - We Are The Mighty

like other grenade launchers, they are great for getting people hiding in fortifications. (behind walls, in trenches and fox holes. without top cover) where direct weapons like cannons and rockets would hit the defences. but we don't have extensive fortifications in DCS. So direct weapons tend to be enough.

the pedals have dampening which means they only move at a set speed. look down and you will see your feet don't match the virtual pedals. if you move them fast. this feels like loss of tail rotor effectiveness but its actually the pedal not catching up. you are late with your pedal input. turn the dampening off till you get used to it. button 27 on the pilots instrument panel. once you have the timing down, turn it back on for smoother flying.

dampening. switch 27 on the front dash of the pilots cockpit turns it off. or just get used to moving your feet slowly.

well the operator can see a lot out of his window the no feet thing looks like the cover for the ammo feed for the front gun. looks like it stores the ammo in the cargo compartment.

Yeah I have to admit this is the best module I have bought in years. I absolutely love the way she flies. just went for a 2hr mooch up and down the kodori gorge and it was awesome. landing at the little mountain villages and tanking along at 200mph. downhill slaloming amongst the trees, following the road. didn't think any helicopter would steal the place of my beloved Huey. the mi-8, the ka-50 and the gazelle didn't. but this one has.. And I haven't even used her weapons yet.. Bravo! Oh mighty krokodil! I must just be a sucker for rotors that beat the air into submission.

you need to take a minimum of 5 seconds to go from no collective to take off power. this allows the engines to balance their power output. it also gives all the other systems time. count it out as you pull collective. one thousand two thousand three thousand. four thousand five thousand. it actually feels a long time. and that is just the minimum. no harm in going slower.

its the dampening on the pedals that make them slow to respond to quick inputs. with the dampening on they move slowly at a set speed. it takes them time to catch up to your pedals/twist grip/key inputs. which means if you are late with the pedal you actually struggle to catch up. you can turn the dampening off with switch 27 on the front dash. with helicopters you need to be early with inputs. you need to be one step ahead of the beast. which takes practise. why nobody can fly them at first. try turning the dampening off till you get your timing straight then turn it back on. for smoother flying. this has nothing to do with yaw trim/autopilot (although the yaw trim may not work with dampening off)

download the chucks guide for the mi-8 if you want some radio instructions. the R-863 can be manually tuned in the mi-8 but I honestly have not even looked at the radios in the mi-24 yet.