Mi-8 Single Engine Training (Graded Mission)

[Hobbnob]

Hey guys, I've spent a couple of weeks getting comfortable with lua and now I've released my first training mission for the Mi-8.

 

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This mission is designed to get pilots comfortable with flying the Hip with only 1 engine, so that if they ever lose one in combat they can keep going effectively. This is also an experiment for me, as there is a system in place to monitor the pilot and give them an accurate grading of their performance upon the conclusion of the lesson.

 

The mission will guide you through the lesson just like an actual instructor, I would appreciate it if you guys let me know how your lessons went, and if you felt you were graded appropriately or if you think it should be more strict/lax in the grading :)

 

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[Martyn]

It worked well for me, although I was a little surprised on my A-rating! I landed over halfway down the runway due to coming in a little too fast and taking a long time to gently slow down, but it was smooth otherwise. The touchdown point is hardly the critical factor as it's not a fixed wing, so I suppose it isn't important anyway.

 

It was my first run in the Mi-8 for some months, and on my first attempt I managed to bump the ground hard whilst trying to switch on the autopilot channels with the mouse (I had forgotten prior to take off), causing the tail boom to break off and havoc to commence, and that triggered a message about me having an accident (I'll say!), so at least that event was covered too :thumbup:

 

Thanks for the mission! It's not something I would have considered trying with the Mi-8 otherwise. Now I have some idea what to expect if I lose an engine.

 

Perhaps some variations with heavier load-outs or an engine shutdown mid-flight would be nice follow-ups, if you were to make any.

[Hobbnob]

It worked well for me, although I was a little surprised on my A-rating! I landed over halfway down the runway due to coming in a little too fast and taking a long time to gently slow down, but it was smooth otherwise. The touchdown point is hardly the critical factor as it's not a fixed wing, so I suppose it isn't important anyway.

 

It was my first run in the Mi-8 for some months, and on my first attempt I managed to bump the ground hard whilst trying to switch on the autopilot channels with the mouse (I had forgotten prior to take off), causing the tail boom to break off and havoc to commence, and that triggered a message about me having an accident (I'll say!), so at least that event was covered too :thumbup:

 

Thanks for the mission! It's not something I would have considered trying with the Mi-8 otherwise. Now I have some idea what to expect if I lose an engine.

 

Perhaps some variations with heavier load-outs or an engine shutdown mid-flight would be nice follow-ups, if you were to make any.

 

Awesome stuff, thanks Martyn. Just to clarify, the mission did fail you when you broke the tail right? If it let you respawn with r-ctrl r-shift tab without saying anything then there might be a bug somewhere :)

 

The mission wasn't monitoring speed on approach (as you probably guessed :P) since I haven't worked out the disparity between speed on the F2-F3 view and the speed indicated in the editor. You would have gotten warnings if you'd dropped below the transitional limit in normal flight(that would increase in severity up to a fail if you persist) but I hadn't accounted for someone coming in too fast, oops.

 

I've actually started (nearly finished actually) a more complex mission along the same vein, which does a general assessment of the pilot's ability to fly the Mi-8 (hover precision check, orbital flight check, navigation test) but I'll definitely consider your suggestions for when I update this, as well as make it a little more strict if others report similar issues :)

Edited November 24, 2014 by Hobbnob

[Martyn]

Sounds good, look forward to the WIP mission. I doubt I'll fare so well! I've got some hours on the Huey but I'm a relative newbie on the Hip, despite owning it for almost a year now.

 

I can't confirm about the ending of that mission - such was my embarrassment at pranging the helo that I quit and restarted the mission in some hurry before the impending fireball erupted! :D

 

As for my approach, just for info, I think I was doing a steady 60-80kph or so over the threshold and losing speed very slowly, for the very reason that I wanted to avoid coming to an abrupt halt followed by an even more abrupt descent due to losing ETL! I thought about touching down at speed to make the landing zone (as if I was in a fixed wing) but had visions of the tyres catching at an angle and the thing rolling over, so took the safe approach instead!

[Hobbnob]

Haha don't worry about a little pranging, I've gotten so impatient when testing that I've rolled it on the taxiway!

 

I'll have to make some approaches and make note of a 'perfect' approach at some point, then I can use the framework to monitor for deviations from that and grade accordingly :)

 

For what it's worth, here's what happens when you fail :D