EinsteinEP

Hollywoody, ditto what EtheralN said, plus: Press RCtrl+Enter to see a real-time display of your virtual inputs. Things to watch for: - After trimming, are the cyclic inputs where you think they are? - Trimmer trims your rudder pedal positions as well. Are the rudder inputs where you think they are?

Very cool! Thanks!

If a view point moves in a 3D world, parallax will be observed with nearby objects. Maybe I'm not understanding the question? ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax

The two lights on the overhead are "AUTO HOVER" and "R-ALT HOLD". The "R-ALT HOLD" button lights only when you've engaged a hold mode that uses the radar altimeter. As zdXu points out, if the altitude source selection switch is set to barometric, you'll never be in "R-ALT HOLD" and the light will never light, even when the autopliot is holding altitude per the barometric altimeter. I'm not aware of a light that indicates you're in barometric altitude hold.

Would like to see .lua files, please!

Russian airway management is notoriously lackluster. Sounds like you're running into air-potholes. ;) Seriously, a track would be helpful here, but here's a wild guess: you could be in an autopilot mode (route? auto turn to target?) and starting your turn by providing cyclic inputs that counter and swamp out the AP's feedback. Once you get 180° around, the AP switches the direction of input, so it seems like a sudden jump in cyclic controls. Just a guess.

Back to the OP's issue: my bet is rudder trim. Even with the Heading autopilot channels enabled, the autopilot can only input up to 20% control authority. If you've trimmed in, say, 25% right rudder, the autopilot's input will cancel all but 5%, resulting in a slow right turn. Proper (i.e., frequent) use of the Trimmer will prevent this from occurring.

In real life, I would suspect that any helos that went out without fighter protection (sweep, escort, TARCAP, etc.) would be sitting ducks as soon as they were spotted by enemy fighters, with or without RWRs and A2A missiles. Practice safe CAS - fly with protection!

IMHO, flying skills, but that's because I enjoy the challenge of flying "normal". Other folks may enjoy performing wild aerobatics more than executing a regulation traffic pattern - I'm the opposite! I would also think that having a mastery of general flying skills can lead to better aerobatics and combat.

Great vids, Frazer! The reason I don't do aerobatics in the Ka50 is that normal flight is hard enough of a challenge right now! Once I can manage hovering, I'll start working on my dive-hammerhead-dive-immelman-S turn-funnel maneuver. :music_whistling: I noticed the boresight indicator in the HUD from the 1st Ka-50 video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG1E1lgTsLw ) is inverted compared to what we have in game. Interesting!

Glad to help! Yeah, the "old" Trimmer system only gives you about 0.5 sec to return your non-FFB controls (cyclic AND rudder!) to zero. If they're not at zero at that time, then you get a "bump". It's REALLY hard to get no bump at all, although with some practice/coordination, you can reduce the bump size to a pretty small amount - small enough to not impact your flight much. Control bump is a limitation of this Trimmer implementation and, as you point out, is NOT present in real helos (they have the ultimate force feedback sticks and pedals!). ED removed the bump behavior with the "central" Trimmer method in 1.0.1: instead of waiting for a set amount of time then accepting control inputs, this new method will ignore your inputs until the non-FFB controls are centered, thus, no bump. The achille's heel of this approach is that it will literally ignore your input FOREVER if you don't center the controls up, even as you sprial down, screaming, crashing into the ground, a flaming ball of fire. To make it worse, centering the cyclic after releasing the Trimmer button is easy and intuitive, but many pilots forget they also need to center their RUDDER inputs too, resulting in what appears to be control lock-out ("My cyclic was centered, what gives?"). Personally, I'd prefer a hybrid of the two methods - the central method with a timeout, say 1.0 sec - but, in the meantime, I prefer to fly with the old method and live with the bump, since I, too, frequently forget to center my rudder pedals.

1.) You attempted to activate Auto-Hover before the doppler nav system had warmed up. Wait for ground-speed indication in upper left of HUD to appear (about 3min after K-041 switch is turned on) before using this autopilot feature.

mdee, I thought I had posted a response, but must have goobered it, cuz it doesn't show up here... I reviewed your track and have the following observation: in normal autopilot mode without any modes enabled, when you release the Trimmer button, the autopilot "reads" your current attitude (pitch, bank, heading) and attempts to hold that attitude even if you move the controls around afterwards. For example, at 12:04:40 in your track, you press/release the Trimmer button with about a 5° nose down attitude. The autopilot now is set to maintain that atttitude. You then pull the cyclic back and pull the nose up to 5° nose UP. You can see the autopilot "fighting" you and it gives its full 20% cyclic forward to put the nose where you told it to keep it: 5° DOWN. When you press the Trimmer button again at 12:04:50, that 20% cyclic disappears, so, to the rotors, it looks like the cyclic got bumped 20% back, hence the nose "jump" up. Remember that when you release the Trimmer, the autopilot is trying to hold that attitude. If you want to change that attitude, press and hold the Trimmer button, then release it when you have your desired attitude. I recommend you fly with FD on all the time for a while: get used to how the system responds WITHOUT autpilot feedback (other than stability augmentation). Then the autopilot responses seem less mysterious. Good luck!

mdee, I also get great performance from holding the Trimmer button down during maneuvers. Like Alpha mentions above, it's the most frequently used button when I fly and I often hold it for great periods of time - wind or no wind. The only instabilities I've regularly encountered were due to autopilot wind-up (due to me not Trimming effectively), being in an unexpected autopilot mode (dang, wonder how long I left that Route mode switch on?), or having critical pieces shot off the helicopter (hmm...that rotor blade sure looked mighty important...). If you could post a track of the behavior you're experiencing, it would be great to review. Perhaps there is something else going on...

Nothing fishy going on here! All the cases outlined here sound like the Trimmer, autopilot, and the beautiful Kamov coaxial rotor systems are operating exactly as they should. [edit: scenario doesn't demonstrate the concept as clearly as I had hoped.] When you trim for nose down attidue, the cyclic is "centered" in that position and the AP attempts to hold that attitude per the PITCH autopilot channel. Initially, not a lot of "extra" control from the autopilot is required to hold this attitude. As airspeed increases, the pitching moment created by the rotors changes, requiring more down cyclic to keep the nose from pitching up (google "Translational Lift" for more info on this behavior). The autopilot automatically adds this input as you accelerate to maintain the commanded pitch angle. Once you press the Trimmer button, the autopilot control feedback responses are instantly canceled, which means the down cyclic that the autopilot has been adding is suddenly removed. To the rotors, it appears as if the cyclic just got yanked back. To the unawares pilot, it appears as if the helo is going crazy!

Krazus, My $0.02USD: Flying for a while with the FD off is a *great* idea. It's really important to learn how the control system works without the autopilot "help". Eventually, once you master flying with FD, you should try the AP again, to see if it works for you. It may or may not! Personally, I fly with Flight Director off about %99 of the time, but I spent many flight hours with it on, trying to understand how the Trimmer works, etc. Here's a link to some lengthy reads on the subject, if you'd like some reading material, otherwise here's some quick take-away points: - As airspeed, increases, the Ka-50 NATURALLY banks to the right and yaws to the left. You have to counter this with left cyclic and right rudder to maintain coordinated level flight. - Trimmer trims your cyclic AND rudder inputs - Autopilot only has 20% control authority

Thanks for the track/vid, Frazer! Great work, as always!

http://www.lowlandtigermeet.com/ Anyone else planning on going? It'll be my first trip, although I will probably just be a spectator - I don't plan on bringing my PC. I'm still thrilled about it!

Another x52 Pro Layout Diagram I use Microsoft PowerPoint, which is easy to use and re-arrange commands. I've attached the template sheet and the layout I use for Black Shark (just as an example). The .pdf is for folks that don't have Office. x52 Pro layout.ppt.pdf x52_Pro_layout.zip

OT, but: That is *AWESOME*!

Bad advice! A pilot can enter VRS long before the low altitude warning (the "H" you refer to) is activated. And, once in a VRS, increasing engine power will excacerbate the problem, not help. A decent rate of more than 5 m/s and an airspeed of less than 50 km/h is the range to avoid. The expanded Black Shark manual, available on the DCS website for free download as a pdf, has a VRS Safety Zone diagram at Figure 13-2 on page 13-6.

Jermin, Any chance you can post a track? A number of things could be going on, but doesn't sound like a bug. If you post a track, this community can give you better feedback on what's really going on.

Welcome [back] to the community, 27! I second Agent StrongHarm's recommendation: don't leave out the books! Enthusiasm to want want to get in and fly is a good thing - but there's a lot of background knowledge you'll need to be able to fly and fight the Black Shark well. Stick-time alone will not get you there. The "just hop in and fly" method seems to give pilots bad habits and can result a negative view of the Ka-50 and her complicated systems (just search this forum for "autopilot" and "trim" for great examples of hatin'!). While I certainly do not wish to dampen your enthusiasm, I can't recommend enough that you take time to read through manuals, forums, and websites and really try to understand the complex workings of systems like the autopilot, the Trimmer, the Shkval, the PVI-800, etc. Your DCS experience will be greatly improved with in-depth knowledge. If you're looking for a relatively easy "just hop in the cockpit and go fly with my buddies" type game, you will probably not enjoy Black Shark (perhaps in Game mode?).

I prefer to play private co-op, and use single player missions to beef up skillz/procedures. My public/open multiplayer experience with Black Shark has been tainted by team-killing jerks. You know who you are... :mad:

"It isn't a 'shame', it is simulation." Yet another excellent quote, GG! 100% agree and support! Sorry for the lack of support, Timmeh, but many of Black Shark's fans actually enjoy working around the limitations of its accurately modeled systems. While you find it hampers engagement opportunities, us Elitists find such limitation immersive and enjoyable. (Writing it out like that makes Elitists seem masochistic. Maybe a grain of truth in that, eh?)