blave

why are you complaining about "LTE not implemented" on a helicopter that has no tail rotor? I understand most of your post, but not that part. Based on how DCS:BS simulates things like Vortex Ring State, I think the dev team will do better than anyone else in PC-sim history has done for LTE for modeled helicopters that have tail rotors - other than perhaps Dodosim for FSX, but they're working against severe limitations in FSX's flight model. Dave B.

This is purely my curiousity, but - most of the switch covers in the Ka-50 have holes in them that the switch lever can "poke through" (when the switch cover is closed) when the switch is in what I'll call the Desired Setting For Flight and Combat, but at least one switch doesn't conform to this, and that's the switch on the right rear panel that turns on the countermeasures (flares) stuff. Why is this? While I'm at it, I'm also curious as to the thinking behind the ejection seat switch gang - with all 3 switches enabled, the cover cannot be fully closed. What's up with that? thanks, Dave B.

I was a big LB2 fan back in the day, and lament the fact that's somewhere between hard and impossible to get it to run on modern hardware and operating systems. That said, I have told more than a couple folks that BS makes LB2 look like an NES game. My main beef with BS is that (from what I have read) it's a little unrealistic in the workload that it places on the pilot. I read "somewhere" (I wish I'd bookmarked it) that in RL, the Ka-50 pilot is handed targets that are found/acquired (and lased?) by other aircraft - none of this flying around trying to eyeball teeny pixel-sized bad guys... Even though I have thus far totally ignored the radio and datalink systems, I find the workload to be almost too much to handle - e.g. flying while finding/locking/terminating targets. And that's with the target text turned on! Still, I've spent more time with this title in the last two weeks than I have done with anything in a long time - too much time in fact! In the end - it's a fantastically detailed simulation of an aircraft that has some interesting limitations (e.g. no night ops capability in this variant). I look forward to the A-10C and especially AH-64 products - if the latter gives "two multiplayer guys in the same aircraft" I will be a happy camper indeed. Dave B.

The Shkval seems to never want to stay "boresighted" when turned on - it always wants to stay on whatever it's pointed at (even without a lock or when not Ground Stabilized), so that when you make a turn or whatever, its line of sight goes "off the map", locked to some random point on the countryside I have my cyclic's (actually, CH Products Combat Stick) "uncage" button set to have an alternate function that re-centers the Shkval when it and a modifier button (on my "collective") are pressed simultaneously, and I find myself doing that constantly to "get back" the Shkval into my area of interest - either that or (via BKSP) turn it off entirely until I need it again, as that cages/boresights it. Either way, it's pretty annoying and I'm hoping that we're missing something here - but I've spent more hours than I care to admit over the last week trying to suss this sim out and this is what I Think I Know. BTW this has nothing to do with the automatic scan feature, which I find to be pretty useless. You probably know this but if you press your Uncage button twice it will start to scan. When I first started messing around with BS I thought the auto scan was such that it would find and Lock targets (as in "Game" mode) - but now that I know it's really just an "auto slew back and forth" I don't see any use for it. Dave B. (whose .sig ought to read "have I mentioned lately how totally blown away I am by DCS: BS"?)

ED folks, I have been flying flight sims since before Longbow (version 1) from EA, and am also a RL helicopter/fixed wing pilot. Thanks so much for the dedication and hard work to make BS a reality. It's almost too deep of a sim for me to fully comprehend - and that's a large compliment believe me. It is a STELLAR achievement, and I look forward to more DCS high-fidelity sims. Happy Holidays (if there are any nearby in your part of the world) to everyone involved! cheers, Dave B.

I got it working pretty quickly. I have my LGT's lever controlling the gear, and a few T8 switches controlling some of the electricals. BTW in a couple cases I programmed one switch to do more than one thing at a time, e.g. turning on all of the radios. good luck, Dave.

Rocket, Sorry I missed your post until tonight - for some reason I didn't get notified of a new post, or else I missed it (I get a lot of email - unlike anyone else here :music_whistling:). As you noted, I have not built anything at all from scratch. Although I'm an electrical engineer by trade, I don't have the shop tools - or patience - to've done any custom work yet. All of my stuff is off-the-shelf. In the end, I want to spend more time flying/simming than building or getting drivers to work, but I would still like to hear everyone's ideas. I have no plans to build anything that is specific to a single aircraft or sim, but want to always consider how to support as many simulators as well as is possible in a "generic" cockpit. BTW does anyone know what happened to the Beta Innovations company? The site has gone a bit dead.... http://www.betainnovations.com/ Leo's stuff seems like it would've been the way to go - USB compliant controls, easily used. Now I wish I'd bought some of his stuff before "whatever" happened. cheers, Dave

OK, I'm in - I'm actually local to youse NorCal folks (I'm in San Jose). I have a limited amount of time and $ to spend on my "cockpit" due to my current Employment-Challenged Status, but then I've had an intent for several years now to build a General Purpose Sim-Pit. So far my efforts have been focused at MS Flight Simulator, but I am enthralled with the Black Shark videos that are available and am looking forward to getting my sim hardware to work with it. Thus far, my setup consists of: 1 primary FS PC - 3.4gHz WinXP / 2GB RAM, NV 8800XT w/ 512MB; CH Products flight controls; Precision Flight Controls avionics stack; GoFlight pedestal with a variety of GF modules; 1 secondary PC, currently running several applications that can be networked with FSX (e.g. Jeppesen Flite Deck (moving map display with IFR enroute and approach plates), FSWidgets Gmap, Project Magenta instruments for FSX, etc.) simpit image: http://blave.smugmug.com/gallery/2207903_QEPqr#114915553_kZDip Background: I'm a long-time FS/X-Plane/Longbow2/EECH/etc. simmer, who is also lucky enough to be a "real" helicopter and instrument rated fixed wing pilot in the US. Lately, finances have dictated that more of my energy be directed in the simulation direction 8^), and so - here I am. Again - I don't have a lot of time to spend on my simming habit, but I'd like to join in and contribute if I can. cheers, Dave B.