Raisuli

The dust effect from the helo landing was also much, much better. Makes me wonder if some of those Soon(tm) to be released modules aren't waiting for core features in 2.9 or 3.0

Does seem like an odd use for a dedicated attack helo, particularly with one that has such crappy visibility. The AH-64 (sorry to mention that here) doesn't sling cargo, does it? Plenty of trucks with rotors if you want to haul the mail

Central Europe has been on the wish list since Central Europe was formed. It is the ultimate cold war environment and perfect for so many DCS scenarios and campaigns you can't count them all. A DCS map also has the advantage of being a much better place to host a war. One of the problems was the redonkulous amount a detail needed to pull off the map, but it appears some of those limitations have been conquered. Hopefully we will see the heart of Europe in my lifetime, but you never know.

Wrote it from scratch, and it's not even a mission. There are no waypoints (none that I pay attention to) on the -18. I might have spurious waypoints that might get used for something else if I'm up for a different reason. Ramat David got completely fouled up on that mission (it's about half red now, and doesn't work right), so I've gone back to Sinai. I'll run one of the formations (and make sure there are no waypoints configured) a little later, then take a screenshot once the UFC lights up. Since you're asking specific questions I am of course questioning my answers, and want to make sure they are accurate! The whole point of the exercise is a portable TACAN station that sits on a small trigger point. When the trigger is activated a lead aircraft appears and I chase it around for about five hundred miles. During that chase I noticed the UFC lighting up with AP settings, which seems odd because all I do is throttle/pitch/roll to stay in formation with the lead aircraft, which has sevety or eighty waypoint/turns programmed into it's route.

B-24J. Davis wing. Twice the load of a B-17, and even able to carry a group of blue Aussie infantrymen home in the bomb bay.

Getting my head wrapped around the auto pilot is going to be a project in and of itself. Once I can fly without thinking about flying I'll worry about rapid unscheduled disassembly of opfor equipment. That's my current project, just flying from A to B and landing within a cubit or two of where I aiming on the landing pad, even without downward visibility. Once I get close peripheral vision seems to work, and until then knowing what reference points to use. What's worse is it seems many people fly differently. This summary and Volk's videos would appear to disagree, which is not a problem; it just means I need to find the methods that work best for me. However, it does sound like FD has a place in that mix. Might need a button on the HOTAS somewhere. In the meantime has anyone else noticed flying helos and jets are complimentary? The same skills that get my helo in a manual hover (with no autopilot channels on) also help with AAR or formations. This thing is a blast. I've played with it a little (even back in BS2 days) but never really got into it until recently. Of course it's just been recently I had the skill set to have a blast with it. Wonder if those are related...

Hop in a live F/A-18. Push the A/P button on the UFC. Looks like this, other than the only controls being used are the throttle and stick for pitch and roll (no buttons involved). <edit> Oh, and the CPL is live also </edit> null

Bet I know what it is. The north east side of the base thinks it's red. The southwest and center of the base thinks it's blue. I can make it all red, but the red areas won't go blue or neutral. Be a pain in the butt to re-build that mission from scratch, but if I do that at least it will be a lot cleaner.

Noticed a couple things since I came back to the Syria map; first is RD doesn't 'exist' anymore. No ATC, as in it doesn't show up on the ATC menu anymore, aircraft that are supposed to land there go to Megiddo. Stuff like that. Lights work. TACAN works. Just me? Time for a rebuild? Did I miss a memo and that base is closing for remodeling (the O-club is rather dated)?

So, I completely unbound the UFC-> A/P control. Not even a keyboard command. Still pops up, which obviously makes it a bug and ED...you get it. #include entitledWhining.h Or, I could try a full (slow?) repair as BuzzLine suggested. Or I could just ignore it. As I've said, it's not a problem, just a puzzle. Even if there is a glitch somewhere in the code they'd have to re-open the Kola super deep borehole to find anything that low on the priority list...

In an actual, 1v1, head to head guns-only battle? Sure. Will there be a winner? Maybe. Will it be you? How good are you at deflection shots with those spud guns on the -21? Against all knowing, all seeing, dead-eye accurate AI? Don't hold your breath. Against Growling Sidewinder in an I-16? Make sure your parachute harness is tight. The problem with jet vs piston is the jet might be able to dominate the fight, but the piston aircraft will turn three times and do a loop before the jet can come back for another pass, and the jet will always overshoot. Then it comes down to whether or not the piston fighter can get rounds on that retreating target, or whether the jet can get rounds on an aircraft with a 90 degree tail crossing angle. The bigger variable is SA. There are a lot of UToob videos of this exact scenario for various values of jet vs piston. The results are almost always the same. I occasionally did the Final Countdown things with an F/A-18 vs Me-109 in the channel, and unless I've got missiles it's nearly always somewhere between stalemate or the AI hunts me down and shoots me as I land low on gas. Long ago I disengaged at sea level and the AI got me while I was climbing at 350 knots at 28,000 feet (??!!), but that was back when the AI didn't bother with trivial nonsense like physics. Might be different now.

Everyone says hold trim in all the time, where I tend to hit trim only after I get where I want to be; more of a tap. Let me think. Who is more likely to be right...the clueless newb, or everybody else... Might need to remap my trip button. Thanks again! Watching Volk's video now. Going to re-watch it later. A few times.

So...good point...I'm trucking along chasing after a train for the practice, then out of the blue the helo suddenly banks hard right and I'm all in with the stick to the left just to keep from sliding into the ground. Get the same thing with pitch, and if I can't react fast enough it's Ka-Fireball time. That never happens with the autopilots off... Any ideas on that, because I don't have sudden control inputs out of the blue if I turn them off. If they're on and I'm maneuvering it's a crap shoot.

And once I get in a hover I turn them on I think I found the problem. Yet another DCS bug...I changed the switch I had mapped to 'Auto Hover' and yes, you guessed it, DCS doesn't seem to realize I'm using the old switch and not the new one. You would think since nothing else had been mapped to the old one yet it would know better. I hadn't actually tried to use it before, either... Um. *cough* I'll just...move along now... Thanks a bunch, MAXsenna! You really did help with this!

I do, I just don't always look at them (they're mapped). Or at least I think that's what those cool illuminated push buttons mean. I know just enough to think I know more than I do. This time I looked down. I've been killed by the autopilot a few times, so it's off a lot if I'm out joyriding. Wheels up, 40M (or am I set to feet?), +/4 on trim, hands off the stick, feet on the floor 2023.08.28 KA-50 AutoHover 2.trk

Yes, yes, and yes. Previous mission (no track; too much goof-off time) I had it trimmed to +/- 1 lateral motion with hands off the stick, and down to zero more than once. ~80 meters, and the wheels were even up! Yeah, if it wasn't for bitch' Nastya I'd land with the wheels up a lot. Haven't gotten used to that in a helo yet!

For my next dumb Ka-50 question...auto-hover. It doesn't like me. I can get trimmed into a dead hover, hit auto-hover, and Bitchin' Nastya just laughs maniacally at me from the avionics bay, which means I'm missing something. Watched Cap and didn't see anything different in my setup. Yes, Nastya, there is a track file! I was pounding the auto-hover button quite a bit here... 2023.08.28 KA-50 AutoHover.trk

Dang it, where's the control input window? Some of those are maneuvers I'm trying to do (and failing miserably, I might add)! I've got 5 hours in that thing, and I've already started to see where it can go. I never knew it was going there!

Not the worst idea I've ever heard. I was going to fly it again later today; maybe do some repetitive AAR and see if I can get it to pop up, but it's pretty strange. The good news is it's not a problem, just a puzzle. Since nobody else has noticed anything it's probably a puzzle involving either my installation or the myriad bits of USB attached to it. I mean, obviously a bug. So far I've only noticed it during formations, but those can run over an hour.

I read Russian like a bloody third grader and don't know the aviation vocabulary, especially all the abbreviations, anyway. This does nicely explain why everything in the main office is labeled in English, and I am a huge fan of causal logic. Besides, it says MARINES on the outside. I should probably spend less time goofing off playing video games and more time reading the shelf or three of Russian books we have, but I don't really need it for much anymore. Would be cool to read Master and Margarita in the original, but I think the vernacular and cultural references would kick my butt. Come to think of it now days the only Russian I read is on these boards. Third grader, though...

Well. That was a bit of plot thinning. Back to the drawing board. Thanks for the info!

The plot thickens. I don't know how ED did this, but they are masters of creating bugs that diminish with practice so it was probably trivial. In the Ka-50, actually mine is an AH-50 license built by Boeing but that's a different story, just flying around not using the Squall targeting system, it will go into test mode at random intervals. This makes me think one of my boards is randomly sending a signal, and I can probably track that down because I know what button would have to be sent to kick off the auto-pilot on the F-18. I'm guessing DCS has 'helped' me by binding that button on the KAH-50. <edit> Or not. If I push that button nothing happens (don't have it mapped to anything on the AH-50 yet)</edit> As I originally suspected that makes this more of a me problem because ED isn't going to fix that bug until I eliminate the spurious input.

Nope. Never pops up unless I drop out of [P] mode. I've gotta say, this thing is a blast to fly! I haven't had this much fun since I started. Sill like my jet, but end of the day jets are jets. Helos were frustrating until I decided to learn this one, now I'm doing maneuvers that give me a headache. Not since Doom has screen motion messed up my head like that, but flying funnels (or near funnels; not very smooth yet) is way more fun than you're supposed to have...

I think the scale you're referring to is load factor, from +3G to -1G. Airspeed shows up if I turn [P]itch mode off, which makes me think there's some kind of relationship between the scale that's there and pitch, but I haven't found it. Really need to go find documentation on HUD modes, which means (and I know this will require safe spaces and therapy pythons) R-ingTFM. <edit> Manuals. There's information in them. Who knew? The indicator I had up is the deviation from assigned airspeed. The one you mention is, in fact, load. Lots of stuff up there! </edit>

Started flying the BS. Because...name like Chorny Akula, how can you not like it? No George, or Jester, or Clown, or Pavel Petrovich to get me killed. I do that very well on my own, thank you. Besides, I seem to be able to fly this one and actually enjoy doing so. The hud never looks like it does in the manual, and I can't find where I go to change the hud. Just flying around I get this, which doesn't show the speed on the left hand side. Every other time I get even less; sometimes because I'm throwing orange smoke at civilian trucks; hopefully they don't mind. Sometimes...not sure why. null