britgliderpilot

Only to a point. I wouldn't wear one in public, anyway ;)

Really? I've been considering the Acceleration pack . . . think I'll pick that up soon instead of CoD4, then :) Will report back when I've got a comparison.

The Tornado's not actually that good an aircraft . . . It's a low-level strike aircraft adapted to be an interceptor - maneuvrability isn't that great, top speed isn't brilliant, maneuvrability is poor and if you model the original Blue Circle radar . . . . . ;) It's designed to loiter. Not fun. Sea Harrier FA2 all the way!

I'd go along with that :) I'd defend the graphics a bit - when you've got this large an area to cover you can't render it all in perfect detail. ArmA's pretty good at ground level, but if you get up above it in an aircraft, you see how much they've had to limit the view distance to get any semblance of decent framerates. I suppose you could get around that - you could set up the install to choose some very highly detailed textures and 3D models for the ground modules with a very short draw distance, but less detailed textures and 3D models for the air modules with a much longer draw distance. Now that, in theory, could work. Would need a lot of effort by skinners and modellers . . . but as long as the terrain map's highly detailed enough to be common, it'd be the same engine. I still think they should do aircraft first. And against an aircraft with guided missiles you'd be screwed. But anyway ;)

Dude, you're turning this into a crusade ;) So will we get a full dynamic campaign? You know the answer to that perfectly well. The question about automatic generation of missions is quite a good one, and I'd be interested to know the answer. A campaign generator that can produce it's own missions is of course the Holy Grail of flight sims. But remember that no bugger's ever found the Grail :P I don't know the answer, I don't know if ED do either. If it WAS planned, I'd keep it firmly under wraps until I knew it'd happen and it'd work properly . . . which would probably be a Very Long Time. Just out of interest, does anyone know how long Microprose took to produce a DC that didn't quite function? And then how long it took to be fixed?

The differences? Flying the Ka50 after the R22 and the Jetranger is like going from the Cessna to the Extra ;) It's much more powerful, much more maneuvrable, much more responsive . . . which is a bit of a mixed blessing, really. Yes, you can do a lot more, do it much faster, and throw it around a lot more. But you have to be a lot more on the ball - the aircraft is very twitchy, very fast to respond, and potentially gets you into trouble a lot faster as well. What exactly are you finding difficult about the FSX helicopters? Two things I'd recommend if you've got FSX, though: Firstly, fly all the helicopter missions and training missions as fast and precisely as you can. Load up the Jetranger into training mission 12 and fly it flat out - I think you can actually dive straight off the cliff and still make the last gate if you're careful. Then practice until that's second nature. The second thing is to practice with the Extra. No, it's not a helicopter . . . but it'll probably teach you something about controlling a very high-performance aircraft accurately. The Red Bull Air Race course is the most obvious test for it, but I quite like loading it into the last helicopter tutorial. See if you can fly both courses flat out ;)

Never heard of search and rescue? . . . now THAT would be cool! Get shot down, eject, then three hours later a Mi8 appears over the hill to extract you. I'm guessing most wouldn't wait that long, though :P

I run Black Shark with an X45, and it's perfectly playable with the throttle, axis reversed or otherwise. Collective mod would probably boost the fun value, though :) Actually, at the moment I'm flying with a Logitech 3D Pro twist-stick thanks to limited deskspace - it's actually easier to control with that, mainly due to Saitek's clunky rudder rocker. Moral of this story - get a decent yaw control device LONG before worrying about collective ;)

There's another twist to that as well. If the majority of Lomac/FC players are A2A-focused, there's probably just as large a group of people out there who are A2G-focused. And who deserve a decent flightsim just as much as anyone else. Rotorheads have been starved of good sims for a long, long time - get them onto the DCS bandwagon as well and it just makes for more enthusiasts in the long run :) It's not as if ED have turned around and announced they'll never make an A2A simulation again, ever - in fact I'd probably make a sizable bet that they won't.

That's what I was thinking!

You forgot one big thing - the radar model. None of the announced DCS aircraft have radar, they all use electro-optical targeting systems. As such, if ED were so inclined they could produce all three without major advances in the underlying code - however, to produce an aircraft with well-simulated radar (suspect AI use a simpler approximation) is probably going to require a big under-the-skin effort. It's probably something ED will have to do at some point, but it does mean that adding a Longbow isn't a simple task.

First man to suggest Iron Eagle . . . . :D

I'll have to disagree on that one. You are really, really going to need the manual for this. REALLY need it. Printing a manual the size of the current Black Shark manual isn't really an option. I did once print a Falcon 4 manual, and swore I never would again. ED currently sell a printed manual for Flaming Cliffs, so there's no reason why they couldn't produce one for Black Shark as well. Whether they sell it with Black Shark as default is up to them . . . personally I'd make any buyer voluntarily delete it from the options list if they wanted to save the money. It really is that crucial.

Odd, that - I actually quite like Steam, not had many problems with it. . . . I say many . . . activating HL2 without an internet connection was a real pain . . . Having said that, I do buy and download games directly from Steam. Might make life a bit easier.

I'd be astonished if the final install is only 1.2Gb - but the compressed installation files might well weigh in around that much. Certainly it won't fit on a single CD.

The Mission Editor is not yet fully implemented - as such, it doesn't make much sense to talk about it's features for the moment. It'll be much, much more powerful and flexible than the Lomac mission editor, and scripting capability will be present . . . but further specifics probably won't be revealed for a little while yet.

More like idle, automatic, full, and oh-crap-failure-panic ;)

Two more recommendations - Armed Action, by James Newton; and Snake Pilot, by Randy Zahn. The first is an account by a Royal Navy Lynx pilot of his time flying in the Iraq invasion, the second is an account of an AH-1 Cobra pilot's tour in Vietnam. Both fascinating, and of very different wars. Bits of both have been applicable to Black Shark so far - of course complete exhaustion, PTSD, tragedies and watching your friends get killed for something you don't believe in has thankfully not been part of the experience They do cover that side of war.

Really? The info might be available, then . . . At the moment I only know what I've been told - AH-64A and A-10. I'm not privy to the decision-making process for which aircraft comes next ;) The F-16 was mentioned as a possible future project, along with an advanced MiG-29 variant . . . but that was some time ago, long before the DCS announcement. Having said that, the Project Temporarily Known As Tank Killers turned out to be very similar to what we know about DCS. So hey, maybe that plan is still alive :) Isn't Fighter Ops planning to model the F-16, though?

I'm really glad there are people who can predict how many people will buy rather than pirate Black Shark - now ED know that nobody will pirate BS of course Starforce isn't needed! ;) It's a tricky decision to balance. You lose revenue from people who won't buy the sim due to Starforce, but you lose revenue from people who won't buy the sim because it's easier and cheaper to pirate it. Trying to figure out which number's likely to be bigger, and which antipiracy software to use is witchcraft. I don't pretend to understand it. But apparently ED have a man doing the voodoo stuff and rethinking it all. At this stage, no promises either way.

From 200 metres? I can't test it right now, but from memory I wouldn't foresee a problem with that. I reckon sufficient altitude at that point to recover some blade energy, too. However, from the flying I've done so far that's an unusual situation. Practice the drills, sure . . . but if you lose both engines you've likely suffered some rotor system damage as well, so you either try and land with huge vibrations (see the clip of the Apache not making it through the trees), or try and eject before your sinkrate builds and hope you're the right way up. It's very useful to practice, but generally I'd recommend not getting hit in the first place ;) It really does add tension to the experience, though. The other day I got hit by machine-gun fire, lost an engine, was running away, got hit again and lost the other engine at low altitude. Making a successful autorotation into a little Russian village was fantastic - was grinning from ear to ear.

DCS makes no promises ;) The basic idea is to add new aircraft modelled to as high a level of detail as possible. When Black Shark's released you should get a better idea of what that level is :) No time limit has been set - it's almost impossible to avoid disappointing people one way or another if you do - but nine months between modules has been bandied around as an aiming point. That may or may not be achievable, though, so take it with a pinch of salt. As to where it ends up? Well there are certainly plans for three aircraft, and that'll take several years. Don't know how long it'll carry on for. Don't figure on it taking terabytes - see the incremental increase in install size of FC over Lomac for a rough guide. The AH-64D would be a very desirable aircraft to have, but I'd imagine there's still some classification issues with the radar. You're probably better informed on that than I am - is the information in the public domain yet?

Does the pilot get a helmet-aiming device on the Apache as well as the gunner? If so, I guess you could scratch the workload issue as workable :) Still, I remain unworried in my Ka50. If a Stinger does pop up and I see him . . . it's flare-spamming time, you carry enough of the things. Is it just me, or is the theme of the day finding ways to get shot down in your Ka50? ;)

NOE is an ideal solution to avoid radar-guided weapons systems! And if you're exposing yourself to radar-guided weapons in your battle position, again, you're doing something very wrong. . . . basically, you're worrying about Hawks and Patriots far more than is actually necessary ;)

I'm not sure I could maneuvre the helicopter out of the way AND aim the turret at the same time . . . . Kamov have done a lot to ease pilot workload, but there's only so much you can do on your own. Bottom line, if a Stinger magically appears next to you, you've more or less had it anyway.