The Rookie Thread

I have to add that your speed of operating equipment and weapons is critical in combat. You need to be able to do what you need to do as fast as possible without error. Every moment spend looking down and searching for a switch or gauge or trying to remember how to do some task is away from keeping up SA and planning ahead. All kind of combat is a game of stategy, be it swords, rifles, helicopters or divisions. AI opponents are usually lot more forgiving compared to human opponents. Agains humans, you really need to memorize buttons, switches and solving problems that might arise with equipment if you make mistakes so that you can keep thinking the battle instead of equipment. It pays off massively when you memorize equipment and weapons operations and get really quick at it. I can do some things quite quickly and it has helped a lot, though there are still a lot to learn.

That's why hotas is a must. I also mounted two joypads next to throttle and joystick, for weapon stations, shkval control, abris and datalink. Having all important buttons at your fingertips really makes the difference.

thats awesome bushmanni! exactly what i was looking for :)

thank you sir.

New and improved helicopter combat task analysis:

-Flying

-Operating sensors, weapons, radios, etc. equipment

-Keeping up situational awareness, looking around, listening to radio traffic, thinking about what's going on, what will happen, etc.

-Planning ahead

Flying:

-trimming

-utilizing autopilot functions

-keeping straight flight

-coordinated turn

-break turn

-slowing down

-quick stop

-quick descent

-maximum acceleration

-hovering, (getting into, staying in)

-flying sideways and backwards

-precision hover landing

-rolling landing

-flying very low (under 10m)

-over speed dive

-auto-rotation

-maneuvering at high altitude and not hitting a mountain

-instrument flying

-navigation

-flying in confined space, precise flying

-aiming rockets and gun

-pointing nose quickly to target

-flying AP off or damaged

-flying with one engine

-recovering from VRS

Operating equipment and weapons:

-Basically everything that you can do with every equipment (read the manual)

-scanning with Shkval

-locking targets with Shkval

-adjusting lock point for Shkval

-selecting and arming weapons

-selecting correct settings for weapons employment (missile modes, weapons computer modes, gun ROF, gun ammo, etc.)

-aiming gun and Shkval with helmet sight

-choosing correct autopilot modes for situation

-designating data-link targets

-sending data-link targets

-erasing data-link targets

-slewing Shkval to data-link target

-setting up missile shot

-setting up gun shot

-setting up rockets shot

-setting up bombing run

-programming flare dispenser

-changing data-link settings

-changing current PVI-800 way-point

-adding or replacing PVI-800 way-point or target point

-zooming ABRIS map

-changing current ABRIS way-point

-editing ABRIS flight plan

-adding graphics to ABRIS flight plan

-finding locations from ABRIS map (airfields, towns, FARPs, etc.)

-using de-ice

-adjusting external lights

-adjusting cockpit lights

-emergency procedures (engine fire, mid flight engine start up, fault detection, equipment use error troubleshooting, etc.)

-sending radio traffic (transmitting sensible and comprehensible stuff)

SA

-keeping look-out, visually scanning environment

-spotting targets

-spotting missile launches and tracers

-keeping track of friendlies

-avoiding collisions with ground and airborne objects (power lines, wingmen, etc.)

-recognizing targets, knowing their capabilities

-looking terrain, understanding it (cover, concealment, avenues of approach, avenues of attack, kill zones, good defensive positions, good ambush positions, etc.)

-recognizing enemies current actions and intentions (like is he preparing to shoot or is he unaware of you)

-recognizing the threat direction (from where is the death coming from most likely?)

-having weapons and sensors configured to respond to likely threat ASAP

-listening to radio traffic

-knowing you own visibility to enemies (background, silhouetting, distance, dust clouds, external lighting, etc.)

Planning ahead

-thinking through enemy eyes

-considering what is important, prioritizing

-considering constraints to friendly and enemy actions (what is possible, what is likely, what is certain)

-avoiding fatal tactical mistakes (getting trapped, ambushed, overwhelmed, snuck upon, etc.)

-weighing risks and benefits of possible actions

-guesstimating enemy reactions to own actions and planning counter actions to them

-figuring out how to surprise enemy, how to be unpredictable

-planning how to sow chaos amongst enemy

-planning immediate actions if fired upon, updating as situation progresses

This is not complete list, but I think it covers pretty well everything important. Some tasks are broken into so small pieces, that just training that one thing might not be very useful. Most of the tasks are better trained in combination with some other related tasks. I made it like this so the person reading this would gain a better understanding and awareness of the tasks he is doing.

The SA and Planning ahead tasks are better trained during combat missions but not all at once. Focus on one or few of them at once and do a review after the mission how you did. It shouldn't take long, most of the mistakes and successes are pretty obvious, the important thing is to take a mental note so you remember them. Take into account what you knew at the moment. Even if something turned out to be wrong action or impression afterwards, only the information what you knew counts when you did what you did. Blaming yourself for things you possibly couldn't know at the moment leads only to second guessing yourself and indecisiveness.

When you choose what you are going to practice, make sure to pick a mission that challenges you in that certain task. Trying to surprise AI is pretty useless for example.

Remember not to think about these task-analyses when in combat. It won't help you a bit. This is a tool for planning training and improving your thinking ability, not something you worry in combat.

Here are some small exercises that I have found useful:

Quick stop. Take-off from FARP, get about 250km/h speed and head back for FARP. Try to fly with speed as close as possible and then do a quick stop that leaves you over a landing pad of your choosing. Try to stay under 30m radar altitude. I can only make it close enough to land quickly but the point is not to be super precise but have a clear reference to aim for. Stopping quickly is hardly ever enough but you need to stop also into the right spot. Other variation is to select a building and make a quick stop right next to it, to practice getting into cover ASAP. Harder variation is to stop behind(from your viewpoint) the building as if the threat is behind you and you need to get in cover fast.

Precision landing. Land on a FARP or ship so that your rotor hub is exactly in the middle of landing area. Use F2 view to check your location after landing.

City flying. Fly under rooftops along city streets. Try to turn corners as fast as possible. Also fly slow and do the "slice the pie"-maneuver at building corners.

Aerobatics. While useless in combat, they do improve your control of the craft. Focus on smooth, fast and controlled flying. Avoid pilot induced oscillations. Changing direction quickly at slow speed is especially important. Everyone can make fast turn, but stopping the turn quickly at the exact direction you want takes practice.

SAM hunting. This is great for practicing spotting missile launches and targets. Put SAMs in places where they are hard to spot but still visible. Don't put many in group but preferably just one so they are harder to spot. Add some randomness. Do lots of different variations in different locations so that you can't just learn where they are. Mix in different kind of SAMs and MBTs and IFVs also.

Transmitting in radio felt like a public speaking situation for me for a long time. Only after some practice with friends I got over it and it has made me much more effective in communicating. Communication in multiplayer is extremely important and you should not be afraid to speak or unable to get a clear message across when you need to. Speaking to someone who's next to you is very different from speaking through radio because you cant use body language and facial expressions to enhance your message. Often you can't use environment as a reference either if you are far apart. I used to play Secret Agent Game that I invented with friends in my city's central. Two of us would be agents and rest would try to covertly tail them. Tailers had radios so we could coordinate our movements and report what agents were doing and where they were going. It was exellent training for radio communications as there was constant need for listening and transmitting and we would sometimes have bad reception because of buildings and distance and had to apply correct procedures to deal with it.

Setting up the Joystick commands

First let me apologise if this has already been covered elsewhere. I set up my SaitekX52 and assigned every thing I would need but within the game none of them worked#. Is this game setup like Lockon, where you delete all the assignment already made for joysticks and start from there? :book:Also having made the aforesaid assignment I couldn't make the game save them! Any help please.

If you intend on using Saitek SST mapping instead of ingame mapping, then remove all key bindings in game. This does not include axis commands. I think they must remain mapped in DCS:BS.

After you have set up your SST mapping, save, close the SST editor, then rightclick the Saitek tray icon, and reload your profile. Start DCS:BS.

This is the only thing I can think of. It's not simply a matter of mapping the keys in SST. You must initialise the FCS to that profile. Also, check that the startup profile is DCS:BS (or whatever you have called it). Otherwise you will have to reinitialise before every game.

Can't think of anything else, Mike. I hope it works for you. :)

No, thanks but I know how to make and use SST profiles. I'm talking about simple in game mapping. The commands I have changed simply do not work. The axis commands do, except where they conflict with a default command eg; Slider to zoom view. It's got me scratching my head knowing what to do next. Even using the trigger to fire the cannon,doesn't work. I made the changes, saved and then loaded the changed commands, no dice.

I have had some issues with input lag mapping everything thru SST, so I have mapped a minimal amount of commands thru it and instead, use ingame mapping for the rest.

The only changes made are mapping 2 modes for firing thru the trigger - mode one for canon and mode 2 for hardpoints. This is so I only have to use the one input for different weapons.

No, thanks but I know how to make and use SST profiles. I'm talking about simple in game mapping. The commands I have changed simply do not work. The axis commands do, except where they conflict with a default command eg; Slider to zoom view. It's got me scratching my head knowing what to do next. Even using the trigger to fire the cannon,doesn't work. I made the changes, saved and then loaded the changed commands, no dice.

Hmm, well, be sure to check which ingame "mode" you are setting up for...there is a "Game" mode, and a "Simulator" mode...these are two seperate binding setups, and if you are setting up one, then running the game in another, this coukd account ofr the issues you are experiencing?

You can see what Binding set you are currently manipulating by checking up top, there is a drop down that can be changed between the two.

well i've started reading a real life helicopter training manual because i have no idea how to fly, it reckons its about 1-2 months of solid practice to learn to fly correctly! (about 60 hrs total)

So I've been practicing gaining speed and slowing down - without changing altitude to much, bit tedious to practice, but it certainly gives you a feeling for the aircraft!

Then I think I'll practicing flying in a straight line - even when using trim it always takes me a few attempts to fly forwards without drifting. I'm guessing being able to fly in a straight line is more or less a must when you want to use the rockets or unguided cannon.

It is hard not to drift and something I am still working on myself. A tip is to pull up the control indicator (right shift + enter) and set the rudder slightly to the right and the cyclic slightly to the left. As speed increases these will need to be further from center. Watch the "ball" to see proper rudder displacement while the cyclic keeps you tracking forward.

Also there if a waypoint is selected in the pvi 800 and HDG hold is on and flight director is off, the augmentation is going to keep pulling you towards the waypoint, so be mindfull of that as well.

I have a doubt about that question of the ball. It's several pages before.

Now I understand why the Ka-50 slips a bit when flying at high speed in a straight line thanks to the thread that was linked before as an answer: (http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=35023)

What I don't understand is, if the ball is an indication of the lateral acceleration, why is there lateral acceleration when the aircraft flies in a straight line. Or, another way to say it, what force is pushing the ball to a side when the aircraft is not doing any kind of turn and flies at constant high speed.

I was afraid of being asking a very silly question due to ignorance, but this thread seems to be the place to ask. Great thread, may become a separated forum in the future.

I have a doubt about that question of the ball. It's several pages before.

 

Now I understand why the Ka-50 slips a bit when flying at high speed in a straight line thanks to the thread that was linked before as an answer: (http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=35023)

 

What I don't understand is, if the ball is an indication of the lateral acceleration, why is there lateral acceleration when the aircraft flies in a straight line. Or, another way to say it, what force is pushing the ball to a side when the aircraft is not doing any kind of turn and flies at constant high speed.

 

I was afraid of being asking a very silly question due to ignorance, but this thread seems to be the place to ask. Great thread, may become a separated forum in the future.

My style is - conclusions first, then the BS ;) (if I'm wrong here, correct it ASAP)

• AC flies in a straight line, there is no lateral acceleration and yet the ball is off center - gravity and AC bank is to blame
  
• the "ball in the center" is not your goal. Coordinated flight is. The ball is just a flawed instrument which might help you achieving coordinated flight.
  
• coordinated flight prevents excessive drag and all of the bad things which follows higher drag
  

Now the BS:

Gravity is the only thing I can think of :) The ball channel is U-shaped so if it's tilted to a side (AC flying with slight bank angle) even by a little it will be off center even when there's no lateral acceleration.

Also recently I asked myself "WHAT'S THE WHOLE THING WITH KEEPING THE BALL CENTERED?!" - in any AC. Certainly not to have all the instruments looking symmetrical and nicely. Let's do this on a fixed wing AC. Let's also ignore the details of what's happening when you just started moving the control stick to side. Let's say you are already in a turn. Now when you don't fly by the book you are either in skidding turn or slipping turn. In both cases you are simply facing the airflow with much greater fuselage cross section than in coordinated flight thus suffering from increased drag compared to the drag value in coordinated flight.

You've observed yourself that the praised ball has its flaws. What I would recommend is to, after you explain to yourself all the aspects of using turn coordinator, do some reading on this little fella on the windshield (Wikipedia calls it "yaw string" ...:smartass:)

... and compare it to this slightly bigger fella (the vertical one *) ...

And now here

IMO these fellas show what's important in coordinated flight better than the ball.

Finally you don't realize how much you missed if you haven't read this book:

* which do its job for horizontal plane obviously :D

[...]

With the only exception that you can't keep the big fella centered in straight flight with a rotary wing A/C at higher speeds.

With the only exception that you can't keep the big fella centered in straight flight with a rotary wing A/C at higher speeds.

As per what AirTito said - you can't have neither slip nor bank. One of those is required. IIRC.

Edit:

The Black Shark manual calls the bigger little fella side-slip vane sensor and the whole assembly is angle-of-attack (AoA) and side-slip vane sensors.

Lesson learned - computer uses the real device for side-slip awareness while pilot is left whit a ridiculous ball ;)

The slip-ball can be confusing, because what it actually shows is the acceleration experienced

by the AC. Thus you can be momentarily flying in a straight line without sideslip but having

sideways acceleration. The ball will show drift because you are very slowly turning. Observe

your exact heading and you will see it change. You are flying in a huge circle :)

I didn't understand this at first and thought there was some bug to it, before I realized it had

to do with the Ka-50 being assymetric.

Additionally it is almost impossible for a freshman to use the ball correctly straight away, even if he was an avionics specialist. Not until he starts to develop some "motion sense" of the ball-yaw-rudder pedals coupling. Say to student that he will be kicked out of the course if he lets the ball off center for more then half a second and he will either loose after the first rudder kick or crash the AC :)

The slip-ball can be confusing, because what it actually shows is the acceleration experienced

by the AC. Thus you can be momentarily flying in a straight line without sideslip but having

sideways acceleration. The ball will show drift because you are very slowly turning. Observe

your exact heading and you will see it change. You are flying in a huge circle :)

 

I didn't understand this at first and thought there was some bug to it, before I realized it had

to do with the Ka-50 being assymetric.

Thanks for all the information, guys. :thumbup:

But another question comes to my mind, now.

I didn't expect the forces of my FFB joystick to go away the first time I pressed (and hold) the trim button. That was a surprise to me. I expected the center to change in the moment I release the button, but didn't expect anywhing in the moment of pressing it.

The question is: that's what it happens on the real ka-50? This is something I don't understand because it's counterproductive control wise.

That sounds like correct.

Thanks for all the information, guys. :thumbup:

 

But another question comes to my mind, now.

I didn't expect the forces of my FFB joystick to go away the first time I pressed (and hold) the trim button. That was a surprise to me. I expected the center to change in the moment I release the button, but didn't expect anywhing in the moment of pressing it.

The question is: that's what it happens on the real ka-50? This is something I don't understand because it's counterproductive control wise.

From the principles of forced trim one may deduce that it is correct. The important difference is that your joystick becomes completely loose while the real cyclic stick will fill completely different. It's own heaviness will give a different feeling, then it's massive (compared to plastic joystick) gimbal mechanism, then you have a system of pushrods and even a hydraulic device!

So real pilot feels something completely different. I'm not a heli expert but I'll risk to say that after pressing the trim button real pilot feels the helicopter rotor swashplate

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/design/helicopter/cyclic.shtml

usually with an hydraulic actuator in between. So it's a lot more to feel than in your pathetic sticky :D

So, it may be like that the system stops doing the centering force but still you feel the resistance of all the rest.

So, it may be like that the system stops doing the centering force but still you feel the resistance of all the rest.

If you still have doubts look at all the junk at the figure I posted :D

mouse

Hi total newb at helo sims.I need help with using the mouse to look around I cant find a setting in controls. also in outside view my mouse is backwards

up is down left is right.cant find the setting to correct that either.

any help would be appreciated.

rivit.

You have to assign axis. This is done via otions->controls and then choose category axis commands from the dropdown menu.

Hi total newb at helo sims.I need help with using the mouse to look around I cant find a setting in controls. also in outside view my mouse is backwards

up is down left is right.cant find the setting to correct that either.

any help would be appreciated.

 

rivit.

There are 3 mouse modes in the cockpit, use LAlt+C to switch between them.

Outside mouse look:

Your mouse is your end of the stick - the chopper is in the other end of the stick.

When you move your mouse to the right, it'll pivot the view in that direction.

That way you will easily control the outside view. :)

Thanks gentlemen a big help.