Cloudberry

GTX580

Just getting started with FC2 (and fixed wings in general) and decided on going with F-15 first. Want to also fly+learn some F4AF (the level of detail + dynamic campaign system really gets you hooked), and with too little time to spend flying (plus having to also find some time to fly the Shark) I'm hoping for a leaner learning curve between the F-15 and the Falcon, e.g. similar threat warning systems, similar radar system look&feel. :joystick:

Thank you for all the good tips! I thought I'd give a ping-back. I also discovered this post over at the X-Plane forums of another pilot who described a similar difficult transition from Black Shark to X-Plane ... As per a tip in e.g. this thread I set flight model cycles per frame to 2. Used zip-strips on the outer X-52 spring to reduce spring tension and ease off-center joystick operation. Opened joystick settings in X-Plane and set pitch/roll/yaw to no artificial stabilization and maximum non-linear. Mapped pitch/aileron/yaw trim to X-52 hats. Downloaded free helicopters (including some referenced in previous posts) via this index, including the Chinook. Tried some of the suggested other helicopters, and found the Chinook and the Sea King a lot easier to handle, so finding the right chopper to start with seems to be a good way to ease into things! One minor frustration that the pitch trim maxes out at 0.500 which seems to be less than I need to be able to center the cyclic in stable forward flight, at least for the Sea King ... I really like being able to trim the stick back to center position in Black Shark. I still don't see how I am ever going to handle the Robinson choppers though, they are still totally out of control for me ... but who knows, maybe I'll get there eventually :-) Thanks again for all the tips. I was about to give up on helis in X-Plane, glad I gave it a 2nd chance! Edit: Updated tip ... purchased the BK-117 by ND as recommended by one of the earlier posters, and I must say that really made for a much nicer flying experience. You even get Black Shark style (pre-patch) trimming to re-center the cyclic, which makes everything so much easier! Had some difficulty getting the cyclic properly re-centered with the loosened X52 spring tension, so ended up changing back to original X52 spring setup.

Hi, Though still fairly inexperienced I am having great fun flying around in my Ka-50 in DCS, and when the heli blows up it's mostly because of missiles and incoming fire rather than crashing into the ground or having the rotor blades collide. Flying with a X-52 HOTAS, which is not force feedback, and using the "new" trimming system which came with the DCS patch. So I got X-Plane 9.50 in order to have some fun with flying a heli around the home area, and practicing commercial flying navigation with beacons and such. Mapped the joysticks including reverting the collective and yaw, and had to change a rendering option for a wider-angle view to actually see the cockpit, plus enabled Track-IR and ctrl-o to see a 3D view of the cockpit, so it's possible to see the instruments when flying. Result - more or less total lack of control in hover, what felt like an extremely over-sensitive chopper, and generally not a very pleasant experience. With forward flight the heli was semi-controllable. I couldn't figure out any analogy to DCS trimming, so had to constantly fight the cyclic. I have a suspicion it's more something about how I use X-Plane than my piloting, because I did try a little heli flying in FSX some time before starting up with DCS, and I was able to get around without too much crashing. Could even take some time to fiddle with the navigation instruments now and then. Anyone who cares to offer some tips for someone who has done a little DCS flying how to properly get started with flying a heli in X-Plane? / Cloud

Hi soup55, not sure what is the problem; I just tried setting up a new user ("create account" upper right corner) and then join the site (via "Join this Site" on the main wiki page). The Captcha was quite ok to read here (4 letters). Maybe just try again? The site allows anonymous edits, so you do not necessarily have to 'join' it to use it or contribute. The wiki markup is pretty straightforward. Anyways no sign-ups or contributions so far on the site, so doesn't seem likely it will become much of a success. Thought it was a nice try though ;) / Cloud

Hi all, As a combat sim "noob" I am seriously enjoying this sim and its "study" aspects. However not being a long-time simmer I find it is some times hard to understand what is going on, e.g. why am I always getting shot down on a certain mission, and searching the forums doesn't always give the answer. So I thought I'd try to make a small contribution and set up a skeleton structure on a free wiki service for a what might develop into a wiki site targeted specifically at learning this sim and becoming a master Ka-50 "virtual pilot". Or which might inspire someone to set up something similar. Key thing is the community should have a Wiki somewhere :) The site is at http://blackshark.wikidot.com/ /Cloud

By the way, I just spotted a similar discussion over at SimHQ, in case anyone happens to be interested.

Thank you for the helpful replies. As so often with this sim, there is a logical explanation why it behaves as it does. I'll try out the LetfWin+F1 trick tonight and see what happens. However, given the arguments and how you seem to prefer the standard behavior, I wouldn't be surprised if I end up keeping "natural head movement" switched on ;)

As a first time "real simmer" I have just started exploring some of the basics of Black Shark, and I must say it is a fantastic game. I also ended up getting a TrackIR4 set, which I must say having head tracking adds another dimension to the game. The TrackIR basics seems to work just fine; head movements are correctly detected and the in-game view changes correspondingly in all dimensions. However, the following has me somewhat puzzled: from a state of level flight with the cockpit and horizon aligned and the head kept in a neutral stationary position, then when rolling to enter a turn then the internal view of the cockpit also rotates on the screen, even though I am keeping my head still during the maneuver. I would have expected that my view of the cockpit (relative to my head which has not moved) should remain constant during the turn unless I move my head. After researching the forums and staring at configuration options I have not come up with a way to correct this behavior. Any tips/suggestions would be greatly appreciated! :)

Profanic solved the problem, thank you Profanic! :thumbup: The solution is to configure axis control by choosing "Axis Commands" from the Controls screen. Then all axis controls can be set. I would say this is a UI problem, because labeling the default selection as "All" suggests that in this screen you see all available settings, and the button "Axis Tune" on that same screen suggests that it includes axis controls. Suggestion to DCS for some later patch would be to rename "All" to something like "All keyboard/button commands" or "All non-axis commands", and to make the "Axis Tune" button only show up on the relevant screens. Then again, it might just be me being stupid :smilewink: Thank you everyone for helping out!

Unfortunately the above solution didn't work for me ... posting here since the thread title fits well with my problem, and I spent most of the evening researching other posts and trouble-shooting without any success. I just installed the game in Vista and the joystick axis do not show up as configurable controls. From the drop-down menus I am only able to select joystick buttons for control assignments, the axis do not show up as options. I have a Saitek X52 Pro in addition to CH Pro Pedals (same problems whether pedals are connected or not). Both devices should be functioning correctly in Windows as they show the proper responses in the Windows Control Panel dialogs (responds to x/y axis movement etc), plus I never had any problems in MS Flight Sim. Initially I had no special driver installed for the X-52; as part of trouble-shooting I installed the latest drivers from Saitek. Same problem before and after installing Saitek driver (including reboots of course). The hints I found on the forums don't seem to apply here ... I have the same problem whether I select simulation or game mode (I saw that some people had problems only in one mode) Fresh DCS install without any modified or imported .lua files Tried to stop and restart the SaiDOutput service (no effect) The cable between the joystick and throttle was properly connected I have not done any special programming of the X-52 device via software, so there should be no software layer "between" the joystick device and the game except whatever comes as part of the standard X53 drivers. Anyone able to help out? Would be too bad if I had to return the game over some silly joystick problems :)