Black Shark Helisim

Mark here from Rainman Simulators in Australia ,I design & build flight sim controls and cockpits for both the commercial and gamers markets ,my day job at the moment I am an industrial electronics technician/electrician some of my recent work has gone to the RAAF in Victoria and the Aviation High School in Queensland.

I have my web site at www.rainman.tv and Facebook page of Rainman Simulators ,both of which still need some more work.

Due to the overwhelming response I have had from the DCS forums I am seriously thinking of making a versions of my existing controls especially for the KA-50 Blackshark and the A-10C Warthog ,if anybody could let me know which features that you would want I can work out designs.

I can also offer the cockpit with an olive type powder coat along with bolt on panels and indicator lights.

A good thing would be to have collective with more functions. As the usual jetranger layout that you are able to get - mostly overpriced in my point of view and absolute insufficient when you want to use them with a military simulation as BlackShark.

Here some some pictures from goggle to illustrate my thoughts:

A small note :

You should edit your post with little introduction who you are and what you are making in your post -

Many people will step into this thread and have no clue what you are talking about.

Would you want that unit with or without a twist throttle?

The Black Shark use EEG for throttle control. ;) Only throttle setting by pilot is Idle, Normal, and Emergency.

Blackshark collective & cyclic

If I understand correctly there is no twist throttle on the blackshark but there is a hat switch and several other toggle switches along with a collective brake which has a switch connected to it ,I can get very close to the real thing including the brake handle and the flat black ripple powder coat.

I am also able to do the the same thing with the cyclic ,but the grip would be a US type B8 or similar

The end product will be similar to the micro class helisim on the web site at www.rainman.tv but with the changes to suit the blackshark combat simulator.

A feature that I am developing for the comercial version of my controls is a force trim setup that holds the cyclic in place when the button is released and I will probably use that method to do the collective brake as well as having it on the cyclic.

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/downloads/documentation/dcs_bs_manual_en/?

Dowload this and go to page 83. Gives you exactly what the controls are.

Thanks for the pointer to the manual ,I have had a good look at the details for the collective ,that will be the first unit that will be done as a Blackshark version

Blackshark grips.

If I get enough interest ,I will be able to have a very accurate either aluminium or heavy plastic replica of the blackshark grip made to fit to my cyclics ,so if anybody is interested if you either reply to this thread ,PM or email I can start the exercise of investigating the costs of the different versions

How much the cyclic and colletive ?

which one exactly?

the one which is in planning or the one that is available?

I think it's a great idea, and if the end product looks sturdy and reliable then I'd be interested in purchasing something like this.

Interested for sure as long as it's a very close representative of the Ka's controls

KA-50 collective

This is what the collective should look like. Since this picture I have added all the labels using dry transfer lettering. You can see the USB interface controller for all the switches and buttons on the underside shot.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=73807

Any news?

My awkward combination of a Saitek throttle quadrant, a broomstick and grip of a joystick could use a replacement for the next year...

Delayed reply.

Sorry about the late reply, my new job has taken a lot of time at the start, thankfully that is starting to change, I am working on a few options with the Blackshark collective that will reach the proto stage over the next few weeks, I will send you a PM as soon as soon as I have a complete proto.

Cheers.

Mark

:) sorry, couldn't wait any longer :P

>>> http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=86015

Nice work.

Peter

That looks great, I have had to divert my attention to the 2 place R22 setup, Australia is about to get some major rule changes with helicopter pilot training, all pilots as of 2014 will be required to do at least 10 hrs of IFR 1/2 of which can be done in a certified sim, I have cut the basic parts for a 2 place system

http://www.hovercontrol.com/cgi-bin/ib3/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=43;t=20964

I hope to have the basic system running in the next few weeks.

Hi Rainman, are you guys still looking into developing a Blackshark Collective. If so I would love to get one. Only one question and that is, do you ship to the UK, and whether you have any idea about a very rough shipping cost.

While the product would be perfect, I have no idea whether the shipping would be really expensive.

Cowboy10uk

Black Shark collective

I am still working on a few ideas with the collectives among them is an EM brake for the lift, a multi prupose version that will allow you to use it for flight sim as well as DCS and making the unit from aluminium.

Each with its own set of hurdles, the alloy version can't be folded the same as the steel version.

Another option I am thinking of to make the unit a little cheaper would be to have a counter weight and not fit a collective release as the standard collective already has an adjustable friction.

How many many would be interested in the multi purpose version or pure blackshark.

At this point in time I would be interested in what everybody would prefer ie cost versus features and which features as I will do the unit to suit what you want.

Something else to keep an eye out for is the sim rig from www.simroom.com that I am developing the flight controls for and the surround video projection systems that I am now dealing with www.rainman.tv

I am resigning my current job in the next day or so and taking one more local to me to allow more development time, hopefully this will allow faster turnaround on the flight systems as I am also starting to get a lot of interest from the commmercial training market.

A good thing would be to have collective with more functions. As the usual jetranger layout that you are able to get - mostly overpriced in my point of view and absolute insufficient when you want to use them with a military simulation as BlackShark.

Agree on PeterP points:

The Jetranger collective you can get on the market is outrageouly overpriced, but after trying several homemade solutions, I had to bite the bullet to avoid total nervous breakdown.

Second point, the Jetrnager collective is indeed totally insufficient for combat. So I had to modify it slightly and adding another USB card interface for the addtionnal switches and hat. Modification is quick and easy on this model, and I can't be happier with it, except if I had your collective PeterP!

So I went from this:

To this:

Blackshark collective prototype.

Finally I have managed to get enough time to do a modified version of my standard collective unit to accomodate the Blackshark extras, it is not assembled yet as I am also woking on several other projects including an AS350 deck that fits into a racing frame as well as a stand alone version.