NeedzWD40

George now defaults to only using the laser. Use AI helper short press left to cycle his weapons.

If as the pilot: it won't be possible to action the RF missiles until the FCR or datalink are in place. You will have to rely on George/CPG to shoot the RF missiles.
If as the CPG: Sight select TADS, then action missiles, then on the WPN page, select where it says "TYPE" to toggle between RF and SAL missiles.

First column is frequency callsign; second column is cipher, crypto variable, and power.

SAL HELLFIRE requires a terminal designation that must be held until impact, but it isn't required for the entire duration unless launching in LOBL. That's why without an initial lase, you get a "Lase" message on the HMD, indicating that laser energy should be on by that point for missile acquisition. There are nuances that aren't reflected in the game, particularly the advantages of the 114K we have modeled, but those are negligible within the current iteration.
If you launch with laser energy detected by the missile (LOBL), then you must maintain the laser for the duration of flight. Otherwise, LOAL will allow you to only lase in terminal. Technically speaking, even with LOBL, the missile should reacquire, but I've found this to be spotty at best.
TL;DR: Yes, George must stay on target until the missile impacts as he will shut the laser off when you ask him to scan again.

I believe it's linked to the TSD autopage functionality. The default setting is "search" so anytime a searching radar is detected, it's supposed to autopage up the TSD. I don't know if the alternate settings work yet or not, but you can find them under the TSD UTIL menu.

Is the game flight model enabled by chance?

I rarely need pedal at all when initially taking off as the yaw SAS normally handles that well enough. Right pedal for nose to tail trim at speed.
Depending on conditions, you won't be able to hover near or at max gross weight. If both engines are operational, then 100% is your max torque; beyond that is a few second limit, then after that your transmission will be wrecked. This is not currently modeled, but it's not a good habit to be overtorquing the engines anyways. Your sea level restriction is about 20000lbs for standard conditions, give or take a couple hundred pounds and this does not give you much room to maneuver: you're pulling 100% to make it hover in that condition.
For 1500ft you're looking in the realm of 18500-19000lbs for max hover IGE.

The TSD autofills all the control measures in complex scenarios, so you'll have to delete a few to add others. You can tell it's full if there's a solid green bar across the left of the CM option.

I just found out you can simply change "Tones/flt-ctrl" to "" on the 5th tone line and you don't even have to comment out any other lines.

If all the slots are used, you'll have to delete some and manually add the ones necessary for your sortie. The mechanism employed seems to be friendlies > range > neutrals > range > enemies > range.

If you're taking 8xATGM and have anything but S-8 or S-5 rockets loaded on the inboards, you won't be able to shoot all missiles. Gunpods, S-24, and bombs will mess up the firing circuit.

I've had this happen when the Copilot/Operator jump into an already started helicopter, there's a desync with the state of the RWR sound switch. If the Operator seat is occupied before the aircraft is started up, then it's synchronized properly, but the game assumes the RWR is on and the RWR audio switch is on if you occupy the seat in a hot aircraft.