britgliderpilot

Exactly. Dual control went out with the LAN code . . . . I did see one of the ED team muttering about an Internet Instructor mode, but to the best of my knowledge that hasn't been followed up yet. However . . . . there is an interesting point here. It might still be possible, through modifying view positions, to move a standard external view (say the F4 view) to a point inside the 3D model of another player's aircraft in MP. It wouldn't give you a cockpit or instruments, let alone control . . . . but an instructor on voice comms could watch and give some tips. It'd be of limited use, but it's about all we can do at the moment.

As I understand it, that scanned image is an accurate representation of the operational weapons available on the Ka50. And Black Shark is all about accuracy ;)

Promise? No. ED haven't promised that Black Shark will be out before the end of 2007. Like I said, they're optimistic about 2007. But please do remember that you can't predict these things absolutely . . . . IMO, though, 2007 is a very real possibility :) I'm very glad Vekkinho enjoyed his brief play with Black Shark, but without the complete featurelist and access to all the features, you simply can't tell what's completed and what remains to be done. Oh, and SimWare have no inside information and don't have a release date either. Whatever they say is their own speculation.

I don't know what kind of footage was shown . . . . possibly stock rather than live? In any case, an M61 will make a big enough mess of a Cessna without having to resort to missiles . . . .

Trust me . . . . it isn't vapourware ;) Black Shark remains under development and is taking shape very nicely - but plenty of bugs need to be squashed, and a couple of key features still need to be implemented, fixed, and tuned. The team remain optimistic that Black Shark will be completed before the end of 2007, but software development is a very difficult thing to predict.

Fair, but maybe of questionable use . . . You can argue that the forums don't represent the majority of simmers. Our little band of more vocal enthusiasts are very much dedicated to Lomac/FC and put a lot of time into it. The less vocal simmers, or those who don't put so much time in for whatever reason, aren't heard in polls like this . . . . so it'll inevitably be skewed towards the more hardcore simmer. Let's put it this way - it's all too easy to imagine a PC Gamer or SimHQ review including the line "I can't believe the developers didn't include a single mission generator . . . . " I might not use it, or if it's implemented well I might use it a lot to get fresh missions. But I think Black Shark would suffer from it's absence.

I love that. Any maneuvre that starts with the phrase "first, place your enemy directly behind you" . . . . .

Can't see why it'd be a secret . . . . unguided rockets aren't that dissimilar in the end. It's possible, but it's not exactly a standard load. The Ka50 is designed for tank-killing, precision strike, and CAS. The S-13 is designed for hitting hardened targets. If you want to go hit hardened targets in your Ka50, you can . . . but on a more typical tasking you'd be better off with the little rockets and/or Vikhr.

I never really use the Fast Battle Planner - but IMO that's a reflection on how well it works. If you just want to have a quick fly around or single mission, a campaign mission or quick flight isn't really suitable. And there's a limit to the number of single missions that can be supplied with the sim. It would be fantastic to have a mission editor which could generate single missions without having to resort to the mission editor. Problem is that the FBP at the moment isn't exactly very creative. You get your airgroup, some enemies . . . . and that's it. I honestly believe that Black Shark needs a single-mission generator, just to keep people occupied when they can't be bothered to build new missions themselves - after all, not everyone is going to want to dig into it. I just want it to generate slightly more complex missions than the current Fast Battle Planner. Missions with flightplans, and ground starts (if you want them, of course), and with more units . . . . But then if you think about it, this is the basic step required for a decent dynamic campaign - the ability to generate LOTS of groups, units, and targets, and place them sensibly. It's a bigger task, but I think it's an essential one.

Mmn. I'm not totally stoked at the idea of blowing up a DG-808 :P Black Shark will of course be better than that low down. Much better. The high-resolution terrain mesh, clouds, and atmospheric effects in FSX are very good indeed, but only really visible from altitude. For Black Shark, things are just fine. On the other hand, for the fighter projects in the far-off future . . . .

Easy when you know how ;) In the MiG-29, Su-27, or Su-33 . . . At less than 450km/h, press the K key and pull the stick all the way back. The way the aircraft reacts to this in the game is scripted rather than calculated, but it's accurate enough and produces a very nice-looking maneuvre . . . . Just don't try it in combat, it makes for a very big target!

Took off on Monday evening looking for sites suitable for an attempt on the World Land Speed Record - hasn't been seen since. The man's a living legend with records in just about everything - sailing, gliding, ballooning, of course the epic round-the-world flights . . . . I'm hoping for the best, but it doesn't sound too good . . . . fingers crossed for a brave man and an aviation pioneer . . . BBC link here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6978818.stm

I think the last post answered that . . . you're going to love it ;) There are some interesting phenomena specific to the co-axial design that are modelled as well, that you may not have heard of before . . .

Hmmn. So ArmA 2 is pretty much just an expansion pack? You can get an Mi24 in ArmA now, btw. It's from Flashpoint originally, but it's there. Now, Far Cry 2 on the other hand . . . . :D

I think you misread - the quote as posted says that the S400 has the ability to engage TARGETS travelling at that speed, not that the SAMs themselves travel at that speed. It's a theoretical thing, I think. Much like the latest missile destroyers are supposed to be capable of destroying a Mach 3 tennis ball - well I know Federer serves hard, but really . . .

The F/A-18 doesn't have the outright performance of the F-14. I don't think anyone can argue otherwise. What it does have is better maintainability, better avionics, and apparently better maneuvrability in certain areas. The new plan is to kill the enemy BVR through complex technology . . . . not through brute force and speed ;) The other really cool thing about the Hornet is that you can upgrade it's handling and control with a software update. Somewhere there's a press release saying they managed to increase the maximum alpha by two degrees just by changing the FBW software . . . . It's a shame the F-14 speed machine has gone - but the Hornet's cheaper to run and works just as well in the real world. Putting it in a photocopier and pressing enlarge didn't work too well aerodynamically for the Super Hornet, though.

That looks poor. That's not the subject of the topic is it? I think I'll be sticking with Black Shark for the moment . . . Oh, and unless I'm mistaken, the fastest chopper in the world is actually Airwolf :D

Oooh. Tempting! It goes on about the graphical effects, but I don't see much about the flight model . . . . hmmn.

Not being told about a feature doesn't always mean it doesn't exist . . . . ;) I don't know the radio features THAT well, but I'm not deleting teamspeak in a hurry. Quite apart from anything else, if you were unable to hear your teammates outside LOS but you could through TeamSpeak . . . an in-game voice radio system would probably get somewhat irritating!

The Falklands War didn't involve "a decent dogfight", but you can't deny it was a very serious air war . . . You're taking a fighter-centric view. No, fighters didn't take part in Afghanistan . . . but that doesn't in any way mean that airpower wasn't a major and decisive tactical tool. So while there may not be much for the fighter people to play with, the air-to-mud guys would have a ball with an Afghanistan sim . . . . Time to reiterate, perhaps, that ED IS moving towards air-to-mud . . . . at least for a little while.

Flaring is pitching up before landing with the general aim of decreasing your sinkrate at the point of touchdown - it's supposed to provide a more gentle landing. No-flare landings are standard practice on aircraft carriers - a flared landing, by virtue of a lower sinkrate, means you spend more time at a low altitude. Bad plan on a short carrier flight deck. You want to arrive at precisely the right place at the right time, with no hanging around. If you're flying the approach at the right speed, you'll be nose-high anyway and you won't need to pitch up so the rear wheels touch first. If you're flying the approach in such a way that the nose wheel will touch the deck first, you're doing something wrong . . .

I quite liked the R22 in FSX - although I did once try to fly it immediately after flying Black Shark. That didn't last long - the Ka50 is so much more powerful and agile than the R22 it's untrue . . . Tried the JetRanger yet? . . . . oh, and now go fly the Red Bull Air Race. That's fun :) I quite enjoy having the aircraft in ArmA, although I haven't flown the Ka50 yet. They're not desperately realistic, but then that's not the point of ArmA - good first-person-shooter gameplay is. And that IS superb . . .

They've moved on even from that - the Nemesis DIRCM turrent can burn the seeker out with a laser beam . . . .

The Russians lost three hundred helicopters in Afghanistan. And more than a hundred fixed-wing aircraft. . . . . I fail to see how that can in any way be described as a "boring" air war . . .

Sure, a general overall plan has been in the public domain for some time . . . . The Ka50 you know about, of course. The next project is known as Tank Killers, but is basically a mud-moving centred sim with more ground-attack aircraft at the Ka50 level of detail. After that, a very highly detailed F-16 and possibly MiG-29 sim. But look at how long the Ka50's taken to develop, and even with the code allowing new aircraft modelled at that level to be added, you can see that this is going to take Years. And it is just a plan at the moment . . . always subject to change.