Zorrin

It's a cup holder. Sheesh, how can any self respecting attack pilot go to war without a cup holder!

You're in a helicopter. You park wherever the f**k you want to!

That depends on what the trigger zone is for. If I want to create a corridor of airspace that the mission is to be flown in, how can I create a nice long rectangle with circles? Oh okay I could go and draw hundreds of trigger zones but then I have to assign a trigger to each zone. Far easier to be able to draw a rectangle. Circle zones are not more natural at all, take one look at an Aeronautical chart... Yes Danger Areas and typically ATZ are circular but not much else is....

The ability to create trigger zones that are anything but round! Even just adding the option of Round or Rectangular will do!

Nope you need to get the Lat/Long from in game using F11 view or similar. It varies quite dramatically to that of the ME's map.

Well if you are going to ignore a checklist... Work on the principle of left to right, but start with the battery power and fuel shut off valves. Then start at the left by starting the APU and setting anything on that side while the APU spools.... blah blah blah etc etc etc

Yes but before anyone gets let loose on something like a GIV-SP they need to have done some serious training. I had never touched anything of that size until I spent an hour in that simulator. Should have clarified that a bit better.... Used that as an example of what can be done in a sim from knowing the theory. Yes of course, half the battle when you learn to fly is knowing where things are. But having had that experience of the real thing, can you honestly say that you would have coped with no help from anyone else whatsoever? Would you be here now reading this post or would you have become another statistic? Physically flying an aeroplane or a helicopter is not the hard part. It's everything that goes with it... Notably 'command decision'. You cannot pull over and take a few moments to catch your breath and think what's next. Even in a 152 you are still covering a mile and a half every minute. For a JAR PPL minimum time is 45 hours, I don't see using something like FS X actually being able to help with that level of flying. Now when it comes to IFR flying and say IMC ratings or IRs... Well that's a different kettle of fish. By the very nature of instrument flight the focus is now on having your head in the cockpit and ignoring what's going on outside of you. It can help show you the way, and I won't disagree that once you are beyond the level of basic PPL training it can indeed help keep you fresh. It does not however make up for actual time at the controls to experience the way the engine always sounds like it is running rough when you are crossing large stretches of water in a SEP... Or the spatial disorientation because you "peeked" out the window while in cloud... Oh look real ice affecting my aerodynamics! I'm not calling all sim pilots that at all. I merely used an actual example of the contempt that it can breed. Does FSX actually make your bum take a bite out of the seat when at 300ft after take-off the engine of your 172 starts coughing and spluttering, and suddenly you are no longer climbing? Of course not, you're sat in the computer chair, y'know that nice comfy leather one... There is no subsitute for the real thing at that level. As mentioned earlier, yes once you are into seriously expensive and complex aircraft types it is ludicrous to do anything other than use a simulator. But being trained on a simulator after you have amassed hundreds or thousands of hours of actual flight time, is a whole lot easier than doing it the other way round. Has that guidance been with an instructor sat next to you or has that been online? If you can get that sort of advice then you surely have a headstart over someone who has not. But that fact remains, you can be the world's most competent Flightsim pilot when everything is working. What about when something breaks? What if you lose the engine on your SEP? Sure on FS you can say, well I'm sure I'd have survived I didn't hit that hedge too hard. Not like this field was freshly ploughed or anything... What about the real intricacies of the environment. Ever been caught out by fog? What about losing an alternator at night knowing you may or may not have to fly your apporach using only the maglite wedged under your headset ruining your night vision yet do you really want to fly this approach without seeing any of your instruments? How has your actual flight experience compared to that of Flightsim? Not really the same is it? What about when you make a mistake... There are no consequences when you're being a PC Pilot. But when there's that scrap of aluminium or composite or fabric or whatever... Separating you from the Earth you snap back into your training that has been drilled into you endlessly. How often on Flightsim have you practiced EFATO [Engine Failure After Take Off] or even just an engine failure... How often have you injured yourself? You cannot replace the fact that while you are being a sim pilot, no matter what calibre or level of fidelity you are flying at, there are no consequences to mistakes. That is the key difference, when suddenly as Pilot In Command you are responsible for the lives of everyone on board, whether you are two-up or on a fully loaded A380. It's your fault if it all goes to sh*t...

There is no way that a sim-only pilot could fly the Shark. It's far too complex... About 6 years ago an 18-year old lad walked into the flying school I was running and wanted to know the costs and what was involved in getting a JAR PPL(A). So diligently I explain the processes and the costs... He said he wasn't worried because he played a lot of Flight Sim. "I could easily take one of those little planes and fly a circuit..." as he pointed at the proverbial spam can that is the Cessna 152. So, I give him the keys and tell him to get her started... Funny thing, there wasn't a Ctrl E and he had no idea about needing to prime a cold engine. Now of course, as a sim pilot you dream that you have the skills to do the real thing. But in reality, unless you already have some significant flight experience you are going to become unstuck very very quickly. In a Level D full motion simulator - the ones that cost millions - I can handle a engine failure on take-off in a Gulfstream GIV-SP. Does this lead to me believe I can do it in a real GIV-SP with a staggering 1 hour on multi engined jets? Of course not. Anyone that thinks they can do "it" because they've learnt on Flight Sim is talking complete crap. I have maybe 10 hours TT on Rotary Wing flight and I know for a fact I'd kill myself if I got let loose in the Shark no matter how well I can fly it in BS I wouldn't even be tempted to try... Not that that temptation would ever be realised of course...

There is... Although it doesn't really make that much sense seeing as it's a Russian bird... If you go into the ABRIS settings menu (in cockpit)... I can't remember where exactly, but it's from the main menu after you click the OPTION button. You can then choose the units for measurement. You will have to do some digging it's been a while since I did it. I can't remember how much of the system gets changed, but the ABRIS will at least display its figures in knots and nautical miles.

The reason you are seeing it in knots is because you have set them to Imperial in the options in the GUI. Set those back to Metric and you'll see it in km/h and m rather than knots and feet - if you wanted to that is...

Alt + tab to task manager, then under processes find DCS.exe. Right click, Set Affinity and tick the boxes for the unused cores. Then get back into the cockpit. Although I've found more often than not doing that means I can't alt + tab back into the game so I tend to not bother anymore...

Did you take out a neutral building? Could've been from collateral damage?

Well I guess you'll have to get yourself a flight to Russia then, go and see the Director General at Kamov and complain to him. If you can persuade them to fit those devices then you might just be able to persuade ED to model them....... :)

Also pay attention to your aircraft weight. While I'm a firm believer of the saying that you the only time you can have too much fuel is when you are on fire.... Only loading the required fuel in the Shark makes life a hell of a lot easier when you lose the engine at awkward times. While not so much of a problem in colder weather, it really pays dividends when you get to hot and high places...

Don't forget that if you take something to a run-of-the-mill copy shop it's going to cost a fortune... You send it to a professional printers and get it done in bulk it becomes a lot more cost effective. It will probably be cheaper to buy the printed manual than to do it yourself, unless of course you can print it off at work...

Must've misread it then, I assumed (yes I know assumptions) that it was meant it was linked directly and not indirectly through the differential torque. Still stuck in plank mode and forget the helicopter intricacies at times!

Turning right hard at high speed, or putting in a lot of right pedal at high speed. Things to the right seem to break blades more than to left... My guess is that because of the coaxial design its the lower blade that flaps up on the right hand side, whereas the upper blade seems to flap on the left. When you turn to the right at speeds this seems to exaggerate the flapping and lets them hit rather catastrophically. You can actually get away with losing a couple of blades I've found so far... Although this requires an iron stomach and some serious concentration (although I reckon pink squishy thing would long be dead from all the vibrations...) I've found you can be quite aggressive going left, but like morsmortis says going from one to the other can cause upsets. The helicopter kind of acts like a pendulum under the rotors. Rolls to the right can end in tears and also just throwing in full right pedal with oodles of collective and spinning off awkwardly airwolf style... After what seems like 15? 20? complete rotations I've found the blades have a little bit of a disagreement... I'm sure some of the Beta Testers can fill on some other ways!

So how can it be castoring if pedal input has an effect on it? Lost in translation maybe?

So why does it turn if you are stationary? Is that a bug? My experiences of castoring nosewheels have always seen them stay perfectly still unless I am moving....

Q1 No idea am on the Russian version... Q2: You just answered your own question... Not enough height to deploy the chute and would certainly have mangled the pink squishy thing to death. A real bugger when that happens...

You're better off leaving Heading, Pitch and Bank AP channels on with Flight Director. Makes it easier to fly, with Flight Director on the autopilot has no control inputs only stability augmentation. But sure if you want to make it harder then switch 'em off...

Actually you shouldn't pull in more power, that can make the situation worse. Of course if you are that close to the ground you don't have much choice... Sometimes you can get out of it and just pull in full power and hope for the best... The majority of the time you'll be brown bread. Now if you have altitude on your side the best thing you can do is dump the collective and push the nose forward to regain forward airspeed. You'll accelerate fairly quickly and once the vibrations stop you can then add in power to slow your descent

The nosewheel is steerable and therefore isn't castoring, but will self centre I believe.. Not sure though. The reason you'll notice it turn and if you switch to an external view you'll see your rudder has turned too is because of the autopilot. It seems to want to turn you onto heading even while you are on the ground... At least that's my take on what you're seeing...

First up, remember that the Autopilot's Route mode is linked to the Nav computer NOT the ABRIS. The ABRIS and the Nav computer are like a married couple with problems. They share the same bed, but they don't talk or touch eachother. Route mode tells the AP to follow the waypoints programmed into the Nav computer. Now these can be programmed in in the mission editor, or by you manually. It can however only hold six nav waypoints. A departure FARP/Airfield can be programmed under the Airfields button, and so can a different arrival airfield. When you have Route mode on it will switch the waypoints as you pass them and thereby follow the Nav computer's waypoints as you'd expect in Route mode. When you are flying with Flight Director on, the AP is off but the stability augmentation is still there so it makes flying the Shark that much easier. When you are flying with Flight Director OFF and Route mode OFF the AP is trying to steer you to the current waypoint set in the Nav computer (most likely waypoint 1 if you are starting from the FARP or haven't touched anything else). To stop it from doing that you can either trim it... Or next to the HSI on the right is a little toggle switch that says something like Heading Auto/Manual. If you flick that up to Manual it will no longer keep trying to point you at the waypoint. Now I can't remember if you need to put that back to Auto if you wanted the Turn to Target mode to work. So to answer your question of "What mode"? Well depends how you want to fly it, but I've always found Flight Director to be the most comfortable, but if you don't want the steering cues in the HUD then switch heading mode to Manual and you'll not have a Shark that wants to twist one way or another all day long.

Flight Director and its usage depends on what you are doing. General A to B use the Trim or Route following method... But if you are doing some serious nap of the earth or are generally flying it like you stole it, it becomes so much easier if you have the FD switched on. Eases your workload from having to retrim constantly or flying with the trimmer held down.