britgliderpilot

If you heard it from Jim, you can pretty much take it as gospel ;)

IIRC the trigger space is a cylinder rather than a dome. So any altitude over a given circle on the ground . . . .

Yes and no. You cannot run BS under OSX - but since a Mac uses the same hardware as a PC these days, you can install Windows on a Mac. You can then of course run any Windows program you choose, including Black Shark. It's an expensive way of getting there, but if you already have a Mac . . . Regarding the original question - I know some testers are running Vista, but I don't know about the 64-bit question. Wait and see on that one. Are the driver issues starting to be solved with Vista 64-bit?

Not strictly true - as the link should explain. You increase torque by increasing the pitch of one rotor disc - if the other remains unchanged then there would be an undesirable control coupling whereby lift would vary with rudder application. If you balance them properly, you can cut out the lift change and create a greater torque imbalance (faster yaw rate) by increasing rotor pitch on one disc while decreasing it on the other. I understand this is that the Kamov system does.

I rechecked it, and it appears the original suggestion was right - the controls are hydraulically boosted rather than a hydraulic linkage. Your description of the resulting crash does sound very familiar to my experiences of battle damage in the BS betas, though :)

I don't speak Russian at all. I don't struggle with the Ka50's Russian cockpit ;) AlphaOneSix - I believe the Ka50 is offered for export - but nobody's bought one yet, and as such there's no definitive spec for such a machine. The Ka50 being modelled is the most representative version ED can get information on, which is one of the prototypes that's accepted as having the specification that will enter service in Russia. So just as the Apache or A-10 wouldn't come with Russian cockpit markings, the Ka50 is unlikely to come with English cockpit markings. If TekaTeka or someone else wishes to produce an alternate set of cockpit textures in English . . . . well that's fine. But I don't think ED are going to do it out of the box.

. . . I'm not an ED programmer, I really can't comment. I suspect it's a bit more complicated than that, though.

You can fly the helicopter with no trim, but it will be hard work - you'll have to have big control inputs on most of the time. For those without force-feedback, the trimming does still have an effect. Press the trim button, return the stick to centre position, and the input to the control system will remain at the position it was in when you pressed the trim button. It works, trust me :)

Yup. "Differential collective" is the key term here. You increase the pitch of one rotor disc while decreasing pitch on the other. Total upward thrust remains the same, but the torque imbalance between the counter-rotating discs causes a yawing moment. Magic. I'm not sure that's strictly the case. IIRC, the controls aren't hydraulically boosted, the control linkage itself is hydraulic - so a failure removes all control.. Will check and get back to you.

A range of weapons will have WAFM in Black Shark - not all of them, but I think those used by the Ka50 have had the treatment. I think the S-8 and S-13 are on that list. So yeah, if you were to point the nose above the horizon and fire, the rocket would follow a ballistic trajectory and come back down to earth eventually. Good luck aiming it, though ;)

Dunno how good your monitor is, but if I'm zoomed out to a point where I can comfortably fly the aircraft, I can't read the markings anyway. I've pretty much learnt the switches by location now, rather than markings. English cockpit would still be nice to have, though :)

Feel free to try in Black Shark - I'm just warning you, you're not likely to come out of such an engagement victorious . . .

That's certainly the best way to use the Vikhr - but then the Vikhr only occupies two of your four pylons. To get those S-8s on target you've got to get up close and personal . . . If you're on an antiarmour mission, though, forget it. Vikhr for heavily armoured stuff, cannon at standoff range if there's trucks or BMPs around. Then go home :P Otherwise . . . snipe any air defence stuff you can see with the Vikhr, then come in with the S-8s and appropriate burst settings and strafe to your heart's content . . .

I can't say for sure, but I imagine they'll engage their target regardless of what it is. The difference is that infantry played a major part in the life of the Hind - whether it was dropping them off, supporting them or extracting them. As a result, it had to be given some serious attention and development time. The Ka50 is primarily an attack/anti-armour helicopter. Infantry doesn't really play a big role in it's life other than calling it in for support. Infantry has been hacked into Black Shark at a relatively late stage by adapting the existing vehicle logic of the LO/FC engine . . . there simply hasn't been time to develop the AI to the level you're talking about there. So in BS, you should expect a man with an AK to behave exactly like a very small tank. This isn't ideal, and realistic infantry battles are probably out of the question. However, the addition of infantry can still add a great deal to mission immersion, even if just thrown in on triggers by a hard-working mission designer. You make an interesting point, though. A major flaw in the AI of the engine so far is that it does not know fear ;) For realistic combat, there ought to be a point at which the AI should find cover, disengage and regroup, or even retreat. With the AI currently being controlled on a waypoint system rather than autonomous thought, that just isn't possible. Their one goal is to get to that waypoint - and they pursue it fanatically even if that leads to total extinction. I'll be throwing that on the wish-list. Black Shark won't be perfect, but ED do intend to significantly develop the capabilities of the DCS engine as time goes on as well as adding new aircraft.

Unfortunately, that might actually be quite a high requirement. Infantry in BS is modified vehicle AI - and I'm not certain on this, but I don't think the vehicles are clever enough to fight a battle like that. Move, find cover, fire, move again . . . that's pretty serious stuff. Stalker and FEAR do it well and have been praised for it . . . but they're solid first-person-shooters, and Black Shark isn't.

To be honest, that first clip looks a bit like it's from a game anyway. No tracer, the reports are at the same time as the round impact, a bloke mysteriously appears next to the car . . . edit - that and the fact that I think I've actually seen the original footage. The audio's real, but I remember the video being more drawn-out and gruesome . . . ArmA? BF2? Anyway . . . Don't know how clever the infantry are. You could probably trigger them to panic and start running around as soon as you overfly a base or hit a target . . . . mission-building fun. But in terms of them panicking and dodging explosions, don't think they're that smart.

The full realism flight physics mode is more realistic than anything you've ever seen before. ED are pretty much aiming to deliver professional level dynamics and modelling to the private market with DCS. The kind of thing the military or an airline would expect for pilot training. With this in mind, I'd say the Hovercontrol chaps are going to LOVE the Ka50 ;) The missions are a bit more limited in scope, of course . . but the modelling of the aircraft physics and systems will blow your mind.

From the DCS Black Shark press release:

Can't see why it wouldn't run faster, or can't see why itd' overclock better? Black Shark doesn't use both cores of a Core 2 Duo - they work very well indeed with BS, but only thanks to the chip's raw speed. As for overclocking . . . I dunno, Im only going on what Ive been told. I'm intrigued as to how and why you all have such monster beast machines, too . . . . grin.

Black Shark won't use all four cores - so no, it's not worth it. Apparently the quad-core intels overclock even better than the dual-core CPUs, though . . .

Sofrash, you seem to know your stuff - have you got personal experience on the Apache? If so, I think Wags might be interested in talking to you . . . It'd be unfair to say the Ka50 could be built from scrap - in fact in that list of stuff you've given, the the only things I can think of that the Ka50 doesn't have modelled in Black Shark are the radar (not on the 64A either), the FLIR (should imagine relatively easy to tweak in, it's only imagery) and the IHADSS. Actually, the Ka50 has a simplified helmet sight already. No info display on it, but that's a small update. The controls . . . well what you've listed seems peanuts compared to what the testers have been learning in the Ka50 cockpit. You might be surprised when you get your hands on the Ka50 just how well modelled it is ;)

My understanding is that ED do now have some documention for the F/A-18A. I'm not certain that they have enough to model it to the requisite level of detail, though. And in any case, the -A model can only carry the Sparrow - not the AMRAAM. We'll have to wait a little longer until we find out what's happening after the Hog and the Apache, I think . . .

There are popular aircraft that have been declassified ;) My opinion - and this may be contentious - is that people who demand a specific aircraft often don't know much about it. It should be pretty clear that that's not the audience ED is going for with DCS.

I'm about 70% sure we're agreeing on . . . . something . . . :P

Well put. Fly a chopper in ArmA and watch the draw distance disappear . . .