RvETito

That's correct, the iraki planes are MiG-23ML's which Serbia has never had. Just to clarify my post above.

They are. Saddam's invasion of Kuwait has captured them in the overhaul factory.

Kamov says it's enough to record vibrations at hover to judge for weight imbalance. Experience proves that right. 1 day is the worst case scenario. If you don't screw up somewhere (like turning of the 6 rods in the wrong direction) it can take even less.

Unfortunately, I have only read about those...

You can say that again... One wrong move with a single rod and you have to start it all over. I've seen it happening. It sucks.

Sorry for being late with the answer but I'm abroad on a work trip and internet access is limited. Yes, I've done several times rotor balance and blades tracking on a Ka-32. I presume it shouldn't be any different on a Ka-50 but with the russian military you never know :) So here's the deal. It is more complicated than a single rotor design but it isn't a rocket science. Once you do it you realize it's pretty straight forward. Assuming that the flight controls rigging is done (Kamov uses the term 'static adjustment' of the rotor) which means with cyclic and pedals rigged in neutral plus collective full down the swashplates are perpendicular to the rotor shaft and the blades pitch is within specified limits (measured at scale fitted to each blade's feathering hinge) you can go ahead with the blade tracking and rotor balance for which Kamov uses the common term ' dynamic rotor adjustment'. Rotor weight balance. Since the two rotors together with the rotor mast assy form a single dynamic system it is possible to install balance weights pretty much anywhere. On Ka-32 that place are the upper rotor blades roots - each upper blade has a couple of bolts where you attach a set of balance weight. The lower rotor has anti-vibration pendulums approx. 1.5m on the blade span which you just lubricate, nothing more. It is considered that the upper rotor weights are enough to balance the whole rotor. The procedure is: - hover at 5-8m for 3-5min and record the vibrations amplitude without installing any weights on the upper rotor. For this purpose is used a mechanical vibrograph installed near the cockpit floor with the sensing element touching the floor. During the hover it draws a sinusoid line. You use a magnifying glass with a scaled ruler on it to measure the amplitude (the absolute distance between up and down peaks) in milimeters. Land and shut down the engines. - install set of balance weights with total weight of 1kg on blade #1. Repeat the vibrations survey and record the amplitude. - remove the weights from blade #1 and install them on lade #2. - do the same for blade #3. - depending on the results there are several ways to proceed according to the maintenance manual. In general the method is purely graphical - you draw a line proportional to the value of the vibrations amplitude of 'clean' rotor then you draw three circles with radius proportional to the amplitude of each blade. Depending on how the circles intersect with the line and with each other you define how much weight (represented as a line) you need to put on each blade. Blades tracking In russian terms this is also called rotor cone adjustment because you actually adjust how much the blade is flapping with centered and neutral controls. Here is the standard (as per the AMM) procedure which I have used. - apply a layer of slowly drying paint with different color at each blade tip, for both rotors independently. - position the standard mast with attached at it's upper end piece of thick paper (with rectangular shape) approx at the rotor diameter within pilot's FOV. Best is 10-11 o'clock. - start both engines and at idle trim the controls in neutral - a green light on the overhead panel indicates cyclic in neutral, the pedals have a scale on the cockpit floor. - carefully raise the mast until the lower rotor blades hit with their tips on the paper. - lower the mast and look at the marks - write down the number of the blade with the corresponding color (for example next to a blue mark - blade #2 etc) - remove the paper and attach it with the other (untouched) end toward the rotor. - adjust the height of the mast for the upper rotor. It is actually two tubes one in the other with the inner having two pin holes - one for the lower and one for the upper rotor. - carefully raise the mast until the upper rotor blades hit on the paper. Lower the mast and shut down the engines. - measure the flapping of each blade (the distance in mm on the paper). - adjust the length of the blade pitch links which are adjustable rods. One turn of the adjustable sleeve increases or decreases the blade track with 35mm. Usualy you adjust two of the blades to match with the one between them (on the paper). Lets say one blade is 35mm above the 'middle' one and the other is 70mm below. That means that you have to make 1 turn of the first to decrease it's flapping and two turns of the other to increase it respectively in order to match with the middle blade. One must keep in mind that the direction of turning the adjustable sleeve is mirrored for the two rotors because the rods are connecting from above for the lower rotor and from below for the upper rotor. So to increase the flapping of a lower rotor blade you have shorten the rod (pitch link) while for the upper you have to make it longer. - once the adjustment is done install a new thick paper and check again the two rotors using the same procedure. Apply fresh paint if necessary, using the same colors. - if blades tracking is satisfactory at idle tell the pilot to increase power to AUTO mode. Check the tracking again for both rotors. - if further adjustment is necessary (if any it would be minor) shut down the engines and proceed with the fine 'tuning' of the blades flapping - in this case, after high power tracking you use the tabs at each blade trailing edge and bend them at the necessary degree - if you need the blade to flap more and bend the tab up and vice versa. - once you're done with that you go ahead with the last (hopefully) check - rotors torque imbalance. Because there is now way of knowing how the torque between the rotors is distributed after the blade tracking adjustment (both rotors may be running at perfect cone surface but one could be at bigger collective than the other). For that initiate a hover at 5-8m and wait for pilot's report for yaw imbalance - if with pedals in neutral the helicopter tends to turn either direction the pilot compensates with pedal and trims it. The pedals have a pointer and like I mentioned above there is a scale attached to the floor in front of the pedals. So the pilot has to look at the pointer and report the needed pedal deflection (in degrees) to balance the yaw (torque) imbalance. - land and shut down the engines. Adjust all the rods of one (or both) rotors at the same length - for example if the helicopter spins to the right that means that the lower rotor has bigger torque which means that you have to either adjust all of it's pitch links length with the same value (to decrease the pitch) or increase the pitch of the upper rotor blades at the same value or change both rotors pitch with half of the value. That depends on the rotor RPM at hover - if it's on the 90% mark you'd better adjust both rotors - increase the pitch of the upper rotor blades and decrease it on the lower rotor blades with the same amount. If it's stable at 88% just decrease the lower rotor pitch, if it's 92% increase the upper rotor pitch. So, that's pretty much all. If you have to do all that from 0 than you'd be lucky if you manage in a day ;) But once done properly you forget about it until blades or rotor mast removal. Hope that helps.

1v1 dogfight Su-27SM - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9-gPXmDXCM&feature=related

What we can see on that picture are the two weapon bays between the engines. Rumors say that there are two more, much smaller, probably enough to house a single short range missile though their location is not clear.

I'm not sure whether this plane is powered by AL-41 but it obviously features a tremendous thrust-to-weight ratio. That climb with gear down and no A/B is really impressive. Also, from what I read it will get it's AESA radar onboard somewhere around september.

You don't expect much to be upgraded of a bomber's aiframe unless you want it to do something special. The americans are still running 50-years old B-52's quiet successfuly.

Although it may seem ready to fly from what I read the first flight will (eventualy) happen in february 2010. What is more interesting these days the announcement for PAK-DA project which should be the backbone of the russian strategic aviation after 2015. I wonder what they would need that for since the Tu-160, Tu-22M3 and Tu-95MS are continously upgraded.

As you can see from the HSD screen (left) I'm inbound to comrade Yoda :) We just ran a test session and I was hosting the LEAVU datalink. Everything went fine and I was pleasantly surprised by LEAVU's features trying it for the first time. It will significantly improve gameplay, but I found out that I can't use it properly with my current hardware, monitor-wise. A small touchscreen would be a neat solution and I just added it to my personal present wishlist.

S-37 with newly installed weapons bay. The plane flies intensively in support of the PAK-FA program.

Thanks Frazer, didn't think of it that way. Something to consider for the next year ;)

Although my demo was not so spectacular like Frazer's and Berkuts I thought I might share it. What I noticed after watching it from the On-demand recap is that from spectator's POV every time I'm "cutting" the roll e.g. 45-degree or 90-degree roll my plane actualy rolls back a little bit in the opposite direction while from my POV or external view of my plane while watching the track it's all good- the roll rate "freezes" where it should. I guess it could be caused by some mini lags or something... http://data.reservoirselite.com/=RvE=Tito VFAT 2009 Su-25.trk

Speaking about guns- FC2.0 will bring totaly diferent story in the guns only dogfights. Along with the advanced balistics the damage effect of guns is as it should be. No more few-hits-without-a-scratch thingy. One hit- engine fire, few more- wing is falling appart. So be careful ;)

Such type of systems are standart for russian interceptors since late '60s if not even earlier. They are semi-automatic i.e. the pilot recieves steering and other commands, sort of flight directors. On the MiG23MLD for example it can gives commands like "Kick the burner", "Turn on the radar" along with the flight directors which plot an optimal intercept profile for you. The idea is to intercept a target for a shortest time with minimum use of onboard sensors (hidden attack) in full radio silence. It's has worked quiet well but.. for a single target only. And of course the biggest drawback is that the pilot is left with SA close to zero. Most of the MiG-21 variants have it, MiG-23 and 29 as well. Nowadays it's found to be obsolete and is not used anymore though the onboard equipement is still there. In the Su-27, being initialy designed as pure interceptor in the late '80s, I suppose such system is more advanced than the MiG-29's though it still rely on GCI and AWACS mostly. AFAIK the most sofisticated russian data-link system from the Cold war has had the MiG-31 - it's the first fully airborne russian system allowing a wing of 4 planes to exchange what their radars see while typicaly flying line abreast. Thus they fully cover a corridor 800km wide.

Eventually any flight sim will become boring after a while. The best cure for this is to find a gang of people with common interests (read virtual squadron) and fly online with them. That's something that keeps my interest for LO for few years already and note- I've never flown LO single player except for some tests. On the other hand - can you say with your hand on your heart that you've been into every single corner of BS's single player? Have you flown in a mission where you have to plot your route on the ABRIS yourself? Or navigate in the night or fog with the ABRIS down? How do you perform in nght missions, even in 1.0.1 with the candle rockets available? etc...

- Laser On; - Airborne target and Head-on airborne target buttons pressed on the combat system control panel (on your left); - cannon slaved to Shkval; - Lock it up, I suggest minimal size of the tracking gate- if he's beaming you you mind have hard times puting the whole gate on him, so the smaller it is the greater are the chances of snap lock even of his rotor tip; - once shoot autorization appears - open fire. Your cannon outranges both the AH-64 cannon and Mi-24 machine gun. Of course, from 4km in maneuvering you can't expect to hit anything but if he's also engaging you it might work. It doesn't take too many rounds to down those aircraft.

Sort of. The governors are metering the fuel flow to maintain the required compressor or free-turbine RPM, the more the RPM the greater the fuel flow (fuel pressure) which means bigger servo fuel muscle pressure to the vanes actuating cylinders and they move: maximum compressor RPM- full open vanes, idle or less- fully closed.

The EKRAN warning keeps coming because it's activated by the ice detection sensor, the rotor anti-ice system has only manual mode so the sensor would not know whether you've turned the blades heating on. Same goes for the engine intake ice protection system. IRL ,or at least in civil helicopters powered by TV3-117VMA engines it's automatic - below 5'C it operates the anti-ice bleed valve. In case of failure of the automatic funstion there is always a manual mode available. In this case you have to pay attention on the ambient temperature since the system won't turn the bleed off if it gets warmer than 5'C and you might prety much overheat the intake. In BS the engine ice protection is only manual, I guess this is how it's done on the real thing. The "Electrics on battery" warning in flight means both generators off. This is most probably due to low rotor RPM- they automatically disconnect from the AC busses at rotor RPM ~75%. Once you increase the rotor RPM above 80% they will come online again.

The TV3-117 engine has inlet guided vanes and outlet guided vanes of the first 4 stages of the compressor and they are part of the physical model in BS. They are hydraulicaly controlled by two actuators operated by fuel pressure (non-nmetered) from the fuel control unit.

Not a fair question because the Ngg and Nft actualy could either cut or add fuel in order to maintain their settings while the EEG ang EGT governor can only cut fuel to prevent engine failure and extend it's service life.