mbolan

Just in case anyone cares, a miinor model detail, in the dark when cockpit lights are on, they cannot be seen as being on from outside the helo. Same with instrument lights Shows how great the sim is when this is the kind of issue I'm reporting

Having crashed after being warned 'Watch EKRAN' and failing to either understand the message there, or importantly no knowing how to respond to it, I'm wondering if anyone knows where we NewBs can find the error messages e.g. EKRAN and the various strategies for dealing with them? Of note have been ENG ELEC and HYDRO MAIN TRANS. All help appreciated :book:

Auto hover problems Thanks guys...why didn't I think of that stuff??!!! Seriously, there's a huge amount to this. What...a month to learn to start and fly the thing? Brilliant sim Thanks again for the info...will apply and get back into it. Cheers

Hi, I'm making solid progress but am unsure of why AUTO HOVER frequently causes the Ka to swing wildly (up to 180 degrees), climb vertically and/or dive straight into the ground from 200 m up. I'm steadying the Ka, coming to a hover manually, then hit ALT T and all hell breaks loose. This is happening in mission when the controls have all been set up by the mission designer (e.g. Miss 3 in Depolyment campaign). I haven't preprogrammed the Shkval, nor am I aware of any other action of mine that might do this. The resulting instability is most disquieting I must say. Any ideas or useful comments appreciated. Cheers/ English 1.0 DCS on full Sim AMD 3700 2 Ghz 1 Mb cache nVidia 9800 GT 1 Gb 4 Gb DDR RAM

Control balancing Thanks all. Very useful and interesting grist to the Ka control mill. Useful detail again PT.

I have 2 issues that I cannot resolve that appear to be important: 1) How does one balance the throttle settings (PAGE UP/DOWN)? Do I just use as many PAGE UPs as I can without creating an alarm or is there some other useful rule? This is also part of Q2 balance issue. 2) Flying the Ka appears to be a balancing act - blade angle (collective), throttle and cyclic versus weather and track requirements to maintain some particular course/altitude for some motive. To achieve the best angle I'm spending a lot of time trying different cyclic positions to balance off against wind, altitude etc which means that I'm not using the trim unless I really need to get my hands off the stick for whatever reason. I can't help but wonder how many times the pilot hit TRIM while flying the 'Showflight.trk' demo file for example. It's clearly essential in combat, but should I be using it when I'm learning just to fly While this seems to lead me to getting in tune with the Ka and its external environment, it flies in the face of the 'trim trim trim' exhortations by other posters. Currently I'm hitting Auto Trim only when I need to. The rest of the time I'm flying I'm trying to find a Ka attitude where it flies with the fewest control inputs by adjusting cyclic, collective and throttle. It's similar for auto-hover. There appear to be physical positions (wind, enemy, altitude etc) that allow me to almost let go of the stick and hover without any computer assist. If I keep just hitting ALT T, I don't have to think about any of this but it seems to me that I, as the pilot, would be well served to understand all of these dynamics before I just hit Auto. So I've been rejecting the 'trim, trim, trim' method which appears to be standing me in good stead in terms of learning the various balances although throttle is still a bit of a puzzle (see Q1) Longer term, which approach is better - leave it to the helo (Auto Trim etc) or leave it to the pilot (learn the balance)? I cannot help but wonder how many times the pilot in 'Showflight.trk' in the demo folder used the Trim command.

OK manual now found Oops. I was looking at KA-50 path on ED's web site. Duh. Now have the item. Didn't even know this lot was there as I downloaded my manual off the net. How dumb is that? Thanks anyway Panzer. There's just too much whizzing around my NewB brain at the moment - rotor dynamics - cockpit drills - PVI vs ABRRIS and so on endlessly. Wow. This is the greatest sim I've ever experienced on a PC Cheers

Still cannot find the 8 page Key Commands pdf for BS Sim English 1.0. All paths I've tried on ED/Ka-50 lead to no 8 pager. Does anyone have any links or other means that I can obtain this bad boy? Thanks

I imagine that's exactly what I'm after yes. Will try to track down that path. Thanks Mike

Hi folks, I have the 1.0 English release of BS, I've printed out the manual and the GUI manual, I got the Quick Start guide in the box. How do I get my stickies on the supposed 8 page command manual :book: for the sim version so that I have half a chance of programming my X52 HOTAS system? Help appreciated. Thanks Mike

Learning the sim Can't tell you a lot about this sim except that it's a work of genius and... I can tell you something about learning that might help you get the most out of your investment. 1) Motivation. Without a drive to learn, anyone starts to stumble and give up early. With a sim this good, that's a real shame. So instead of telling yourself it's too complex, will take ages, manual too big or whatever, focus on thoughts that motivate you - I'd love to be able to really fly this baby - if I take this one step at a time I should be able to get this - ain't no-one out there that can outperform me when I set my mind to it - Jee it's sure gonna feel good to be able to say I can fly a chopper like this...and so on. 2) Each of us has a preferred learning style. Some like visual information, some audio, others feeling and so on. You should first try to figure out how you like to learn by remembering times when you did learn and enjoyed doing it. Once you've got a good fix on that, connect that ability to your motivation for learning Black Shark...if I do it like I did X then I should be able to (understand the manual, learn the cockpit drill, gently take this thing to a hover) etc. 3) Pick a sensible place to start and go one step at a time. I went with learning the start up sequence off video, found that some of the switches weren't labelled as I'd like so looked them up in the manual. Then tried from memory - discovered that I'd forgotten some key steps. Went to the manual and tried to figure out what would happen if I missed those things. Then tried it in the sim on the Shooting Range mission. Then realised I didn't know why I was operating all those switches so looked them up in the manual. Learned something new at every step. Once I could start the engines, I tried flying only to discover another problem...looked it up. Not there. Checked in here with bloggers, got useful help and direction, went back, tried it all again and so on. The real key is the motivation strategy. Without it you may find you lack the drive and determination to see the whole thing through. The same ideas apply to life in general - very useful really. Make sure you're motivated (that's entirely under your control of course) then take up the challenge. If you can conquer this sim at your desk, you can conquer a lot of other things using the same general strategies. Good luck :thumbup:

Hmmm. The manual says "...we chose the KA 50 for several reasons: 1) It is an interesting and unique attack helicopter due to its single pilot cockpit, co-axial rotor system, sensor system and broad mission range. 2) We have a close relationship with Kamov and they were instrumental in providing us the data needed to create an authentic simulation etc These seem like excellent reasons. I'd also guess that for the level of detail that BS contains, modelling two separate cockpits would be pretty crazy and could overdo the number of variables needed to keep the program inside the control of a single player. I have major problems remembering where all the knobs and switches are in the KA 50 as it is so a second cockpit with a different layout and another maze of switches and dials would do little except confuse me I suspect. Jumping from one to the other wouldn't be funny. Simplifying the design would break the simulation from a realistic copy to a fantasy copy. Overall, I suggest that ED has done a brilliant job of meeting their design goals in way that produces a fast and responsive sim that offers the same kind of detailed elements as are present in the real world. The single cockpit design makes total sense to me. I flew Janes Longbow for a couple years and it certainly had many excellent features. The KA 50 offers a different set of features which is welcome, otherwise I'd be repeating my Longbow experiences for which there seems little point. You can download the manuals from the net...they'll answer most of your questions and a whole bunch you didn't know you had. I understand an english manual will be up for sale in June or so.

Help and descriptions greatly appreciated Thanks all. I hope you all realise how useful it is to have a few savvy simmers out there to explain and focus we NewBies on this superb item. I hope that the kind of problems that come up when struggling to learn something as complex as this, will be handled in the new manual. It sure would save a lot of struggle time and would also increase sales. I'm still in awe of the programming and design talent that went into this. Things I thought were problems turn out to be real world issues with deep real world significance. The roots of a great sim. Anyway, all thanks. I've been chucking this thing around the sky thinking that the explosions were some malfunction. As someone said, maybe it's the jockey not the horse. Good cheer to everyone.

Yes, the idea of bus driver had sprung to my mind. I think that many NewB's are going to need this info. I didn't get it from the doco's that came with the DVD, nor from the various videos I've seen. I guess my experience with throwing Longbow around the sky and the Campaign 'familiarisation' video that urges flying at 250 km over an area because it's 'dangerous' contributed to my obviously slack attitude! Your description of a pig is helpful, as I can adjust my mental models from a high jinks machine to a bus full of queasy pensioners on a Disney tour. They must have lost a few in the field if it really had these characteristics. Who'd be a test pilot?

Very helpful. Thanks a lot. You've brought up issues that I didn't even know existed. I suppose I need to spend more time reading and less time flying - not easy with a sim like this to hand. I'm really impressed with the programming talent that produced something so clean and comprehensive. Thanks again. I'll keep studying hard

OK thanks, I'll check that out. At my stage of learning it's hard to believe that I'll get the hang of not crashing this beast so your description of your experiences is strangely motivating. Cheers

Eagle states 'model produces natural helicopter dynamics such as ...“vortex ring” phenomena, airflow stall from the blades, blades intersection (collision)'. I've been struggling to fly this fabulous program in sim mode and even with what I regard as modest flight inputs when turning, jinking or avoiding Shilka hits etc., I'm experiencing 'blade intersection' which means that the rotors suddenly hit each other and fly off in pieces in flight. This is catastrophic and usually involves my untimely death. Does anyone know what I have to do to avoid this catastrophic result? I flew Longbow for years but it only has a single rotor disk so this cannot happen. As it stands the KA 50 should be known as the widowmaker as I seem to get no warnings, nor is there a big red section in the manual telling me how to avoid this phenomenon. It's so dangerous and so prevalent that it really needs to be up-front I'd have thought. Surely KA 50 pilots don't need to behave like bus drivers to avoid this do they? A track file of the 'Shooting Range' mission showing the problem at the end of the file (about 7 mins into the mission) is typical. All help greatly appreciated. System is English DCS BS 1.0 set on simulation Win XP Home SP3 AMD 3700 1 Mb 2 Ghz 4 Gb DDR RAM nVidia 9800 GT 1 Gb What caused the crash.trk