Thorn

Guys, I think the point of this sim is to fly very low to the ground and avoid SAM sites if you possibly can. It's too bad that giant stick is in the way though because when the SAMs come flying in at ya it sure would be nice to be able to have that extra space to be able to lean forward to kiss your soon to be cookin Russian *as-prin* goodbye! :-) Well, then again it's not like you'd ever know what killed you anyways. The Ka-50 is a deathtrap in a SAM enviroment and pretty much every war fought in the last 40+ years has had SAM sites - either stationary or mobile. And in real life, I would have refused any orders to fly in this helo if I knew the combat area contained even just 1 SAM site. I'd rather take my chances at standing before a firing squad for disobeying a pointless suicide mission than to even waste my time flying blind to any aerial or ground based threats. Shame they never fully implemented RWR into this platform as I think the Ka-50 is a sexy CAS chopper. I imagine the real life Russian pilots that flew them in combat must have flown half drunk on vodka before straping themselves into such deathtraps. Thankfully this is just a sim though and I don't mind dying 100+ times, but the SAMs are a bit annoying.

I would just use "Fraps" to record the track (or the parts of the track you want for your video) and then use "Movie maker" or some other video editor program to add effects and voice over to the .avi file Fraps creates. Fraps will record the track in .avi format and you can use Movie Maker to save it in some other video format if you want. This is useful, especially if you're planning on uploading your video to Youtube - or Porntube if the video is just downright nasty! LOL!

Cool! :thumbup: So you're saying this is good for single player missions but it sometimes has problems when you use it for multiplayer missions? That's still cool with me as I don't plan on playing this online. I prefer single player when it comes to simulators like this. Thanks for finding this and posting it! EDIT: Ok, I've tested this in single player and it works... Sorta! You can only use it with CV and CVN-class ships and the ship can not be moving at all or the Ka-50 will just roll off the back of the ship. Even though you can attach the Ka-50 to a FFG, DD, DDG, or CA-class ship in the mission editor the Ka-50 will NOT spawn on those ships properly once you're in the game. Instead it spawns your Ka-50 out in the middle of nowhere in some field area and not on the ship. When you attach a Ka-50 to a CV or CVN-class ship, the Ka-50 spawns in the spot a fighter jet would take-off from which is innaccurate. There are small (H) pads towards the aft of the ship that helos should take-off from and land at. It's quite funny to see a Ka-50 lined up using the Carrier's flight deck catapult system! ROFLMAO! Hopefully someone can tweak the file Devas provided and set it up so that we can take-off from an FFG, DD, DDG, and CA-class ships as well. Right now the spawn locations on the CV and CVN just need to be tweaked so that the Ka-50 doesn't spawn on the Carrier's flight deck catapult system. The small (H) pads towards the aft of the CV and CVN-class ships is the accurate spot where helos would take off from and land at. Solving the problem with the Ka-50 rolling off the back of a moving ship needs to be fixed as well. Parking brakes and brakes do not work to prevent this from happening. Right now you have to make sure the CV or CVN-class ship is not moving in the mission editor by setting its speed down to 0 knots.

The AIM-54 was designed to be a long range fire and forget A2A missile and was never really tested in real combat. The AIM-54 was designed to be useful for long range engagements against bombers and/or fighters (especially when they had their backs turned to the incoming missiles). Due to the weight the AIM-54 didn't have great turning performance but the F-14 was able to detect enemy aircraft without the enemy aircraft even knowing they were around and when long-range missles like the AIM-54 start coming at you from nowhere you've got a problem and have to act quick regardless of how poorly the missiles perform. Then if the enemy fighter was foolish enough to head in the direction the AIM-54 missles came from in hopes of finding the F-14 that launched them, he's greated with incoming AIM-7 Sparrow (medium range) and AIM-9 Sidewinder (short-range) missles - both of which have been proven to be very effective killers - especially the Sidewinder. The only real problems with the AIM-54 was A) It cost a helluva lot of money per missile B) Could hardly use it in real life combat due to strict "Beyond Visual Range" (BVR) rules that made it impossible for US F-14 pilots to ever use them against enemies that weren't within visual range. These rules of engagement (ROE) were established to prevent pilots from downing any friendlies or innocents that they could not physically see or being able to "identify friendly or for (IFF)" with 100% certainty. C) The AIM-120 AMRAAM was developed and proved to be more effective (better performance) and still had great range that still goes beyond visual range - just not as much as the AIM-54 by about 25km. In realistic terms this makes sense as AIM-120s are a little cheaper and the extra range the AIM-54 offered proved to be pretty much useless in real world warfare due to these strict BVR rules that real life pilots have to take into account. But in a simulator, the AIM-54 is one helluva nice weapon to use as we simmers don't have to worry about friendly casualties and innocent school children like the real pilots do. We can simply sit back and launch missiles and paint the sky and ground with fire without a care in the world! God I love simulators! :joystick: They allow you to do all the "fun stuff" that God and Government forbids!

I would also like to see the F-14 Tomcat get some MUCH needed attention in a modern simulator. Those retractable wings and those AIM-54 Phoenix missles with their superior fire-and-forget 100km distance. Too bad they cost the government too much to operate. Same with the F-14 Tomcat - too expensive for the government. So we had to settle with the F/A-18 which is still a nice little jet - just nowhere near as sexy as the Tomcat was though. :smilewink: I'd also like to see the F-4 Phantom II represented as it has one of the longest military histories ever and could also take off from an Aircraft Carrier. :pilotfly: Plus, it would be nice if there were more map options available so that we could run a historical Vietnam War scenario flying either Phantoms or Hueys over the dense jungle terrain and villages scattered below. :thumbup:

Yeah, I was kinda hoping to be able to take off from a frigate or carrier as well. Just the challenge of landing on one is quite awesome but I'd like to be able to take-off from one as well. Maybe the Devs can fix this in a future patch or something? PLEASE! :) It might not be realistic for a Ka-50 to take off from a carrier but I'd still like the ability to be able to do so. I'm sure in an emergency situation a Ka-50 would be given special permission to land on a ship if it was vital to save the equipment and if the ship size was able to accomodated the helo. I served in the US Navy onboard an FFG and flight ops were always so intense because Oliver Hazard Perry class FFGs are so small compared to other US naval surface vessels. We only had SH-60F helos attached to the ship but there was one time we allowed a much larger helo to land due to an emergency with their fuel lines failing on them.