isoul

In real life A-A engagements are a rarity for attack helicopters. Thats why most of them have barely a few choices for A-A weapons. The Jet VS Helo fights is even rarer. Almost all A-A kills of modern fighters are aircraft and not helos. Only a few kills have been reported against helos (one is a kill of an Iraqi helo which had just taken off... the kill occured with A-G ordnance). Why is that? The jets has advantages where a helo disadvantages and the reverse. For example, the jet is faster than helo but the last is far more manouverable. Putting yourself (jet pilot) in risk for shooting down a helo is plain stupid! The jet can overshoot quite easily and this would give the more manouverable helo a big advantage to hit the jet. In case a jet pilot attacks a helo (the opposite can hardly happen!), the helo's pilot should avoid it rather than try to engage and get into firing position. In case the jet manages to acquire a lock and launches a missile the helo's chances to evade it are quite high. More or less to shoot down a helo (as someone posted before) isn't something to be proud of... its more like a sign of stupidity for many reasons. In helo vs helo situations I would prefer the gun over the Vikhr. Put the gun to fire straight forward and select HE rounds. Try to attack the enemy helo from the sides or above. Hopefully the helos most sensitive parts(rotors) will take some damage and this will bring it down. The option of shooting down a helo with your Vikhr missiles is, in my opinion, difficult and expensive and so i avoid to even try it.

Is it supposed that someone in here should know that?

This thing is a radar which could lock many targets and engage them at once. Although it is said it was tested on real Ka-50s the BS doesn't implement it...

Spotting uncovered infantry and especially vehicles is quite easy at long distance... Thats why infantry, being the most vulnerable, learns to hide and move while drawing the least possible attention! In case you are a foot soldier trying to hide from the eyes one man, 30m above the ground moving at 100km/h, is quite easy. No matter what the difficulty to spot ground targets seems realistic to me.

Think of this... Shkval is an Optical Sensor. Which aircraft relies on Optical Sensor to acquire airborne targets? NONE Ka-50 is a ground attack helicopter, like most of attack helos! The Shkval is sufficient for ground attacks but is lacking for aerial combat. Even the AH-64 which may carry 2 Stinger missiles has an IR sensor in order to acquire airborne targets and still the Apache is considered a ground attack helicopter(or at least that its main role). In case you meet another helo you have a chance to lock it at some distance(which is quite difficult) and fire a Vikhr missile... which isn't a fire and forget missile and requires constant LOS to the target till impact. At close range I think that things are a lot easier! Switch your cannon to Manual Mode(?) which fires straight ahead and go for a typical WWII dogfight!!! Don't underestimate your cannon... Even a Mi 24 Hind is an easy prey for it! You may want to switch to slow firing rate to save ammo since a couple of hits can blast a helo out of the sky. JUST INFO : While the idea of Ka-50 to be equipped with only an Optical Sensor seems somewhat "old-fashioned" compared to AH-64D Longbow Radar(which increases the Apache's target acquiring/engaging capabilities way further) I found this on the net http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/1997/04/30/2309/kamov-flies-modified-ka-50.html According to it(article dating since 1997) the Ka-50N (the new variant of Ka-50) is equipped with a FLIR pod(thus making the use of IR AA/AG missiles possible) and Kamov is intending to equip Ka-50 with a Radar sensor (the Arbalet... which means Crossbow!). Lets just hope that this variant is under production and ED will implement it!

In trainning missions the flight model is set to EASY... its obvious to anyone who tried to fly in REALISTIC for more than 30 minutes. In training you ll notice how things are done smoothly and easily (for example the slideslip above the runway in basic flight lesson) and that includes the easy turning to whatever heading the trainer likes... this can't be done so easy in realistic flight model. To the original question... in order to manouver (especially when i am above target area or being attacked) I switch on FD. This gives me the much wanted freedom to turn to any way I think important in order to evade/acquire a new target/etc. The same goes when i am flying inside a narrow canyon... I think thats why the FD mode is there... it overrides AP augmentation for such reasons!

I don't think that anyone can place a non-portable SAM in dense forest, only portable ones are able to enter a forest but then if the forest is too dense then you can't fire. AAA can enter a forest and can fire thru trees cause high caliber rounds just cut all the tree branches in the way. According to my little experience (while in military serveice) while in a forest , with some luck, you can spot a target in the air as long as you see it from a distance (if it is flying in at a high altitude) or hear it (especially in mountainous regions the echo sometimes works against the helo and warns the infantry). I imagine that while flying a KA-50 its quite hard to spot anything inside a forest.Especially if you fly at 250km/h its even harder. Afteall if it was easy all infantry would fall prey to all airborne threats...

Actually if your speed was below 70km/h and you dropped collective then you 've experienced a vortex ring... The key to vortex ring is your (horizontal) speed, if its low then it will cause a vortex ring, if its not dropping collective at any rate will not cause it!

Guys, I can't understand one thing about the controls... How the "F1 Natural head movement works"? When I start an "Instant Action mission" I can't mouse look and pressing F1-LCtrl doesn't enable mouse look. Have I missed something?