Zorrin

Can't ever get on with Arcade modes. Sim all the way till the cows come home dragging my wrecked and mutilated carcass of a Ka-50 through the Base's main gates.

If you have turned them on, just turn them off. By default they are off unless you use them. The collective's buttons aren't clickable.

There is the EKRAN will pop and give you a warning about the front and or rear fuel tanks being low. IIRC it complains when the tank drops to 1,100kg. EKRAN message will display something like FWD FUEL 110

You cannot "set up the controls of a helicopter to fly hands off". It's just not possible. The whole principle of helicopter flight dynamics do not allow that. What about if the AP channels fail? If you don't have Black Shark yet, then get it, and see for yourself. I've been tinkering with the Shark since early November, and have yet to find myself to either have the capability, or the weather conditions where I can comfortably hover it and let go of all the controls. If you turn the AP channels off you will see for yourself that the Ka-50 is not dynamically stable. The AP channels help you because you do not have to make the fundamental control corrections to keep it stable. Yes the co-axial design provides relative stability in the hover. Whether the R22 is a modern design is irrelevant. It has a conventional rotor layout and suffers the same effects as the AgustaWestland AW139 (which for all intents and pruposes is "modern"). There is a huge gap between what a computer simulation and the real thing can teach you about feeling. There is no way a conventional helicopter can be set up to hover with no control inputs. The whole point is that you as the pilot have to counteract what it's trying to do. When it comes to aviation never assume. Assumptions get you killed, whether it's civil or military. Now have you even flown DCS's Black Shark? Yes it's the most realistic simulation out there. But it's not real, it is just a simulation. While I can categorically agree that there is nothing else that comes close to DCS in terms of fidelity and realism, it's not real. It cannot be, it's a simulation, when we get the "new engine" and real weather effects, the helis will become more affected by that, especially at low speeds. Have you ever seen a single day where there has been no wind whatsoever? Sure you might get little pockets where you can't see the trees moving, but there's always wind of some kind or another. Very rarely (at least in the Southeastern UK) do you get those absolutley calm days, I think I have perhaps seen one of those such days in the last five years. You either need to accept the real world factors that affect it, or look at it purely from a simulation point of view. If you want to look at it from a DCS only perspective, then yes, you can probably leave the Shark in a zero-wind hover with no pedal inputs (is that realistic? Not really, see earlier statement with regard to weather). When in any helicopter can you ever let go of everthing? Only if you have a deathwish. Even the DCS Shark manual explains that the autopilot never has full control of the Ka-50. Why? Well because it is dynamically unstable. If you pull it into a hover and let go of everthing in zero wind (completely unrealistic, especially given the coastal area and valleys that we have been given in DCS Black Shark) and left unchecked it drifts to the right. How are you going to counteract that? Well either with a bit of left cyclic only or with a bit of pedal and cyclic, whatever you feel like doing. You say Tomahto, I say Tomato. I strongly urge you to take up your own "challenge". And on a side note, are you really sure you have a "good overal feeling"? How can you say that if you have never experienced it? Have you had the chance to fly a fixed wing aircraft? Flying an aircraft that has no rudder trim, may or may not require constant rudder inputs. All depends on the individual aircraft. If it has a rudder trim tab that is fixed and you get her at the right speed then sure you can do minimal rudder inputs. Yes you are right in saying that at high power setting the BF109 will require a lot of pedal to counteract the torque reaction from the propeller, and to a degree the propwash. But if as you say it has no rudder trim, now I haven't flown a 109, nor ever had the chance to look at one up clsoe, then even at a cruise power setting it would require rudder input. Unless of course it has a fixed trim tab set specifically for the aircraft's cruise. And the correct positioning of that trim tab would then of course vary from aircraft to aircraft because of that great thing called human error. Not too mention that it's hardly practical to have an engineer clambering over the rear of your 109 to set the trim tab while you barrell along at 300-odd kilometres per hour eh?

I think the term always was correct. Have you ever flown a helicopter? From having flown a few hours in the Robinson R22 and the occasional play in a Longranger there's always an element of pedal being involved. With a conventional rotor layout you will require pedal to maintain a hover, because as you pull in collective power the torque reaction gets stronger so the helicopter wants to spin around left or right depending on whether the main rotor is clockwise or anti-clockwise in its rotation, therefore you need to apply more pedal to counteract it. And of course with a conventional layout the tail rotor actually generates a bit of lateral thrust too, so you then have to compensate for that as well. Which is why typically a conventional rotor helicopter will hover with one skid slightly low (certainly the light ones anyway). Now turn the autopilot channels off and tell me if you still think I am exaggerating. With them switched off I think you'll soon see what I mean. Edit: Don't forget, that what is considered a small control input in a fixed wing, is considered a large control input in a heli... Certainly in civvy street you are taught to think the movements rather than actually make them. Yes undoubtedly as you get further up the scale in terms of size things become easier because of stability augmentation. Seriously, set yourself up ready to roll on the runway, turn off the AP channels and lift it into a hover. Now tell me, can you sit there and not tuch any of the controls? Yes pedal input is minimal, but there's still an element of it that is required even with the coaxial design. If you just leave it sitting there it'll start drifting and of course with the AP channels off you will be wobbling all over the place like a drunk sailor onboard a boat in Force 9 winds. And you have misquoted me... I never wrote "I guess what I was envisioning was more like the BF-109....."

Well Bucic, you will always need pedal inputs in a helicopter. Especially conventional rotor layouts as you have to counteract the torque reaction from the main rotor. With the Shark you have the co-axial design, but the lower blade generates less lift than the upper blade and you'll find that to fly the Shark "in balance" right pedal is required (in zero wind). You have to remember, that really a Helicopter doens't want to fly. It would much rather crash and burn, you have to coax it into the air and as soon as you make a control input on one of the three, it will throw the other two controls out of "balance". RT: You probably aren't being aggressive enough. You can stop the Shark pretty damn quick if you drop the collective and heave back on the cylcic

Not really sure. I was too busy playing DCS Trench Digger :D Had some accuracy problems but you could get it to work. They'd been trying it for distant launches and what not.

We'd been playing around with buddy lasing, trying to get them to take out Tanks and what not :)

Rhino, it's a "homebuilt" FARP from one of our members. Who needs fences when we're there digging trenches with rotor blades!!

Another point to remember is that the majority of a helicopter's rotor noise is actually generated by the tail rotor, rather than the main rotors. Ka-50 doesn't have a tail rotor so you would expect it to be quieter. Eurocopters with a fenestron, and MD Helicopters' NOTAR both reduce the helicopter's audio footprint quite dramatically.

Don't forget to drop a bag of flour first to judge the wind drift!

When you are placing the heli in the Mission Editor in the drop down box where you select turning point etc set this to Take Off from Parking. That will leave you with a dark and cold Shark. Edit: Lego beat me to it!

Had an argument with a building... And managed to get it home in one piece, albeit a very shaky ride home! And I forgot to jettison my weapons too!

The whole point is that with the second option you can do it Rotors running. The manual doesn't say anything about that. Was an eye opener to me anyway!

Had been wondering for a while if you can or cannot get the ground crew to rearm and/or refuel you at the FARP while your rotors are running. A little digging through the manual showed the way! Set your Radio Communications selected all the way to the right. Should read something like HON. Make sure your intercom flip switch is up and voila! You can get those workshy b**tards to get you ready to rock 'n' roll.

Took them around two weeks to ship it to the UK.

I've searched the manual and tried a search on the English forums, but to no avail. Does anyone have the avoidance curves, or know where I can find them for the Shark? I can use my own guesses, but I'd like to see what the man at Kamov suggests!

I have had that happen, no idea how I did it, but to clear it as I found it rather annoying (and I don't use TrackIr), was to switch to an external view and back into the cockpit.

The joys of being self-employed :)

I had an empty Shark above 6,000m. I'm sure I got higher but I cannot remember the exact number... Loads of power being pulled as the blades struggled to beat the incredibly thin air into submission. Certainly seems like the temperature has an effect too. You can really notice the hot days to the cold ones! Ended up the wrong side of the avoidance curve on a hot day trying to get over a mountain, only to be shot to pieces by a sneaky Shilka...

But the Flight Director doesn't clutter the HUD when you have weapons selected. And surely at the point where you are attacking it's easier to have the Flight Director engaged because this means you have an extra finger/thumb available for other controls. You can of course utilise trim with the flight director as the trimmer merely "remembers" where you left the cyclic.

To add to Draco's post. Any landing you walk away from is a good one. If you can use the aircraft again, it's a great landing... Not quite got the autos yet... Often find I'm landing slightly too heavy and the blades meet. But at the point in time I'm not that fussed I'm down in one piece :)