frostycab

Well, in fairness Auto mode is only accurate on level terrain anyway. Whatever you do with the IHADDS the best way to get accurate gun use is to fire via the TADS with laser ranging.

Regarding the Hellfires falling short, I tried my first coop flight with a friend tonight with me in the front seat, just working on some static range targets. My Hellfire shots nearly all went wide of the mark. I had a good lase on the target and everything looked good, but they generally hit to the right and short of the target. My friend was watching my TADS video in the back seat, and while he could see that I had good aim on the target at launch, it appeared to him that the video drifted right and down while the missile was in flight, which would correspond with the final impact location. Meanwhile my TADS image was still showing the target in the middle of my crosshairs. I wish I could provide a track file for ED to look at, but I had a system crash later in the flight and didn't get a chance to save the track. If we get another chance I will try to see if I can reproduce the problem.

1) I believe Wags said that a hover hold mode would be coming at some point later on in early access. 2) I've managed to get him to put wheels on the ground once, but only once. He'll generally stop at around 3ft. I just jump in the back and bottom out the collective.

OK, let's break this down a bit. For starters, are you in the front or back seat? In the pilot seat, selecting the gun will automatically get it to slave to your IHADDS. Thus the gun will always follow your head movement *as long as you are the one that selected the gun.* I believe that if the CPG selects the gun then he gets control of it either through his own IHADDS display or with the TADS. This brings us to the front seat. If the CPG selects the gun he can switch its targeting mode between his IHADDS and the TADS by using the controls on the TEDAC RHG. There's a 4-way hat switch just left of the Manual Tracker control to select this. Up is for HMD and right is for TADS. When slaved to the TADS you can then use the Manual Tracker control to slew the TADS camera around, and the gun will follow that. If you then select HMD the gun will slave back to your IHADDS. Remember that if you are using the IHADDS to aim the gun in either seat then its accuracy will depend on a number of factors. You must have accurately completed the boresighting procedure for your IHADDS, and must have the correct range set for the gun. In the back seat the manual range defaults to 1500m, whereas in the front seat it defaults to 3000m. You can either manually reset these figures, or select auto-ranging, but that comes with its own issues. Like the AUTO sight in the Hind, it takes your height above the ground, and then assumes that the terrain is flat between you and the target point. If the terrain height increases between you and the target your rounds will fall short, so you need to compensate, and vice versa if the ground slopes away from you. If you are aiming using the TADS, then make sure you lase the target while firing as I believe this is the most accurate way of ensuring the gun has the correct range information and should see you on-target most of the time. Also, if you're shooting off to the side of the aircraft while flying forward at speed then you need to aim slightly behind the target (relative to your direction of travel) to allow for the fact that the rounds will have some forward inertia as they leave the gun. ...I think! (Still getting to grips with things myself). Is that what you were asking?

Thanks. I thought there was probably a reason for it.

When I WAS the gun from the pilot seat I nearly always change it to auto ranging. If I then deselect it and WAS it again it returns to manual range at 1500m. It would be nice if it could remember what it was previously set to. Might be correct as is, but it seems a bit strange to me.

"Do you regret buying other chopter modules after experiencing what Apache can do?" That's a bit like asking if any of us regret buying the Spitfire after experiencing what the Hornet or Viper can do. Every module is special in its own way.

BTW, you can tell if you have LMC engaged by looking at the target crosshair on the TADS. Normally it will just be 4 lines, but when LMC is active there will be small perpendicular larks at the outside tips of those lines. If your TADS seems to go haywire and keep slewing when you don't expect it to then it usually means you've forgotten to turn it off.

There is, sort of. Simply remove the waypoints from your active route (or select one of the other empty route plans), and then manually select the next W## you want to fly to using DIRect and the COORDS options.

Totally agree! An amazing achievement by the whole team, and one of the best launches we've seen for a new product. I'm so happy that they didn't give into the pressure to release this back around Christmas and instead took the time they needed to present this wonderful new toy to us.

I was lucky enough to catch one of the SME's in the same Twitch stream chat last night, and he was kind enough to answer a couple of questions. He said that although the force trim was obviously something he used all the time in the real aircraft he never uses in the DCS Apache. He recommends not trimming at all and simply holding the cyclic where you want it to be as it's much easier than trying to find the perfect trimmer position. It also negates the fact that there is no way to cancel out or zero your trim like you can in the other helis. I've been trying out his suggestions today and it does seem to work quite nicely for my setup (I have my cyclic between my legs rather than on the right of my keyboard, and benefit from greater fidelity thanks to a stick extension.) I can, however see that this may not work well for a more conventional setup. I'm able to let got of the collective and hold my cyclic with my left hand if I need my right to use the mouse, but thinking back to the days when I used "standard" control setups this would require quite a bit of flexibility for a lot of people.

I'm finding it a bit tricky to maintain a steady hover, even though I'm quite experienced in all the other DCS helis. Aside from requiring a lot of dancing on the pedals she seems to have a much more noticeable translating tendency than the others, requiring a touch of left cyclic to keep from drifting.

Use the Linear Motion Compensation on the LHG. It's not ground stabilisation as such, but it's close to it. It basically zeros out the motion of the helicopter as best it can. I slew to a target or area, hit the LMC and the TADS stays quite stable. I then turn it off before slewing to a new target. If you leave it on and start to slew it will just keep slewing with the same direction and speed (good for following vehicles). You either have to try to slew in the opposite direction accurately to slow it to a stop or just turn it off. Turning it off and on again once I've got a new target is easier.

OK, so I've just tried to reproduce the issue and I think it's down to a procedural fault on my part. I'm going through the start sequence so quickly that INU Confidence hasn't turned green by the time I start entering my points into the TSD, and as such the system seems to default to Grid 31N. Once the INU Confidence has improved it is then able to identify the correct grid, so I apologise for my mistake. There may still be an issue, as the PP reported by the system on the TSD is correct even before the INUs have fully aligned, though I expect this is down to the aircraft being told where it is either by direct entry from the ground crew or via a data cartridge and therefore its initial position wouldn't depend on the INU status. Anyway, I've included 2 track files just in case this bears any further investigation in the future. Thanks NineLine! MGRS test 1.trk MGRS test 2.trk

This may be related to something I created a bug report for last night. Have a look at this thread. It could be down to damage you haven't noticed.

I'm happy with the representation of it in VR, but then both my eyes are ok. Have you tried switching it over to the left eye to see if that helps in your case?

I'll try and grab one today. If that doesn't work then I can certainly try to get some video.

That's not what I've observed, so I've created a separate bug report just for that. I'm not talking about the Georgia map where we have 37T in the West and 38T in the East of the map. These errors are orders of magnitude apart, it seems, and I've been nowhere near the edge of a grid when they've happened. I'm happy to concede that it could well be down to user error on my part, but I posted the question for ED so I'll have to see what they say. I'll try to make notes if and when it happens on my next flight.

I was watching a great streamer on Twitch tonight (Cutlass_ahoy on Twitch, just to get in the shameless channel plug), and he had one of his stub wings blown off in combat. Both George (CPG) and the WPN page still thought the wing was there with missiles available for launch, and George did keep calling out shots but obviously nothing happened. I'm not sure if this is partly due to the WIP damage model for the Apache, or if the system on the real bird simply isn't able to diagnose a missing wing and it's associated weapon pylons (though that would surprise me as the Hellfires surely must have 2-way data flow to the aircraft in order for them to report their ready status.)

Quite often when I try to add a new point from the TSD the I run into a small problem with the auto-filled UTM coordinates on the KEU. For example, taking a random set of coordinates, I might want to create a point at "38TGG45871245". The cursor is automatically positioned to start entering data at the "GG", but the larger grid preceding it (the "38T") will be way out, such as 40R. I initially couldn't work out why the auto-populated altitude entry was always so far off what the kneeboard for the missions was telling me and why I couldn't find my points on the TSD until I noticed. To get around this I always check my PP coordinates on the TSD to check which grid I'm in before creating my first point. Subsequent points all start with the correct grid once I've corrected the first point. Behaviour might be correct, but thought I'd mention it just in case.

Haven't come across this myself. I the SAFE/ARM set to armed?

Check the Major Grid reference is correct. That's the first 3 characters before the "GG" in your example. I've noticed that quite often the first set of auto-populated MGRS data has entirely the wrong grid. I normally resolve it by checking my PP on the TSD and using that grid, and then it works fine afterwards. If you're in the Caucuses map then I think most of the map is in grids 37T and 38T. The big giveaway that usually tips me off to the problem is when entering data from the kneeboard and the altitudes don't match.

Well said!

If you go into control bindings, do you see any movement on one axis when you move the other one? What hardware are you using, and are you sure it's all calibrated correctly?

That's a HUGE relief to hear! I thought I just had a wonky Index headset. I get the same effect in the Apache, A-10C II and the F-18. I spent ages in the Hornet doing the alignment procedure over and over again, but it just won't twist upright.