Mi-8 Basic Flight Assessment(BFA)

[Hobbnob]

This mission is designed to test your precision and ability to handle the Mi-8. You will be given 3 tests to perform:

 

Hover Check: Hover the helicopter 3 meters off the ground, and hold it there for 30 seconds. You will be marked on your ability to hold your altitude, heading and position.

 

Orbit Check: Complete an orbital circuit of a marker at a distance of 0.5km. You will be judged on your precision.

 

Navigation Check: You will be given a town name, a grid reference and a terrain pattern. Use each one to reach the objectives. You will be judged on your precision.

 

After each test you'll be given a score out of 50 and a grade, which will go toward a final A-E grade.

 

 

Even though I've tested it, I'm not sure if I've got the difficulty and grading right. I've made it more difficult than my single engine training, so hopefully it's an adequate challenge. It's certainly a challenge for me, my best final grade is a B so far! Got a 46.5 on the hover check once though, pretty damn proud of that.

 

Post your results, and let me know if you think it should be easier/harder :)

 

You can download the mission here

Edited November 26, 2014 by Hobbnob

[Martyn]

I'll give it a go shortly and let you know if I end up with any points, thanks :smilewink:

 

Perhaps add the link to your original post though (or hyperlink the image), even if it isn't at all hard to find!

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/1072206/

[Hobbnob]

I'll give it a go shortly and let you know if I end up with any points, thanks :smilewink:

 

Perhaps add the link to your original post though (or hyperlink the image), even if it isn't at all hard to find!

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/1072206/

 

 

 

Whoops! Completely forgot to put the link in, it's been a long day

 

I'm looking forward to hearing how you got on :)

[Martyn]

Alright, I flew the mission and came back in one piece!

 

Bearing in mind it's only my second flight Mi-8 flight in the last 6 months, and that I never put more than a few hours on her in the first place, I ended up like this which is satisfying enough for me:

 

Hover: 38 / B

Orbit: 26 / C

Nav: 47 / A

 

And I feel those scores are spot on, based on my self-assessment as I was flying along. The hover wasn't bad but plenty of room for improvement, the orbit was sloppy but I was confident that I was within a few tens of metres of the nav checks.

 

I was doing more or less okay at hovering, but waiting an age (well, just over a min) for something to happen. Turns out I hadn't climbed high enough to start the test, although looking down at the guy on the runway, I felt I probably was high enough. I daren't jump to the external view as that would have ruined my hovering completely, but eventually the test began with a message after I drifted a little higher. Maybe a time-delayed message about climbing might help there for anyone else who's a bit too low?

 

The orbit was difficult! I think I didn't come in at quite the right angle due to a slow turn to the 50° heading, so as soon as I crossed the green smoke I was too close to the centre, but that's more my problem / lack of planning. I then lost sight of the central smoke plume for much of the orbit out of the right-side window and was relying on the too close / too far guidance messages to try to keep me on track! A left-hand orbit would have been easier due to better visibility, but it wasn't designed to be easy I think :D (I suppose I could have switched to the co-pilot seat in hindsight, but where's the immersion in that?!)

 

I noted the hover check had an option to retry by waiting around. I wonder if the orbit could have the same option? I feel it's the one area I'd want to retry a few times.

 

The nav check was good, enjoyed that. Although trying to read the map whilst leaving the chopper in a semi-trimmed cruise is always a scary prospect!

 

Overall, the mission ran nicely. Messages nicely timed and spaced and on screen plenty long enough to read. The scoring was well implemented. Took me 44 mins in total. My eyeballs were shaken to pieces though as I kept on overspeeding during cruise!

 

Good work and thanks, Hobbnob! :thumbup:

[Hobbnob]

Good to hear you got on well! I'll definitely be adding a time delayed reminder for pilots that don't get to the altitude of the hover test, good idea. Sounds like you got on (reasonably) well with the orbit, I hadn't considered it as something to retry actually so it's something to consider if I can figure out a way to do it without breaking the flow.

 

I wasn't sure about the nav check since I couldn't really perfectly test it myself (since I knew where everything was anyway) so it's good to hear you enjoyed it. Did you find it an adequate challenge though? I could have made it harder but there's a fine line between challenging and getting completely lost :P

 

Thanks for the feedback, I'll update this one and probably convert it to the huey as well, as I suspect it's a more popular aircraft ;)

[Martyn]

Yes, the nav test was an adequate challenge, especially the second part which required some close referencing of small map features. After years of flying IL-2 and FSX, I'm reasonably good at map-reading and dead-reckoning. It could be made harder with even more vaguely defined points to find, but there's a fine line between challenging and hugely frustrating :)

 

In terms of further development, I can only think of randomising the nav test by having a few different routes, although it would be quite some work to prepare and if you were given the same one by random a couple of times in a row, you might not go back for more. Alternatively, maybe include landings in relatively small places (car park of some key building in a city, or on a bridge for example) as part of the nav test. Again, it might be difficult to do - can DCS recognise when you've touched down on a 3D object as oppose to terrain? - and the buildings are so generic that finding the right landmark could be tough.

 

Just food for thought, anyway. It's a good mission with a nicely rounded set of tests. Some kind of landing check/test might round it out completely, or perhaps landing tests are a whole other mission to make! :D

[Hobbnob]

Hmmm random nav test locations is an interesting prospect, gonna have to look into that one. I did consider "find x building in the city of y" but like you said, there aren't any buildings that really stand out uniquely so it's not really that fair.

 

I actually have no idea if DCS recognises landings on 3d objects, I'm currently using a homebrew mix of triggers to verify landings and it's not quite perfect but it gets the job done. I might see about adapting it to buildings, as an orbit test on a block of flats before landing on it would be a nice challenge, if somewhat unrealistic :P

 

I've begun converting it to the Huey (with some upgrades in the scripting and a new slightly longer nav route) and found a bug in the hover test. I'm not that great in the Huey, to put this in perspective I got a 9.7 on my first hover test. It didn't give me the correct grade though, and I found that very low scores caused mismatches in the grading system. It's since been fixed and will roll out with the next update :)

[John C Flett]

No joy for me. I'm guessing this mission may have been broken with DCS updates. I get the first two instructions telling me to taxi to the runway, then to the green smoke. Nothing after that. I tried to edit the trigger and get the instruction to hover but again, after that, nothing happens.