Bay of Hogs - New Huey Campaign

[SFC Tako]

Hi, everyone!

 

The Huey was the first DCS-aircraft I bought and I felt it needed another campaign. The thing is, I pretty much gave up on the Huey after they killed the troop embarking system.

But then after having flown Mustangs and Sabres for a very extended period of time, I just had to try the Huey again...and then I realized what a great machine it is!!!

And that's what this campaign is all about - flying a great machine. Look for it in the "user files" section - there are two versions of it, made for whether you have Starway's Vietnam Mod or not. They can also be installed together if you like, but they are exactly the same except one of them is made to use Starway's Vietnam terrain files (with season set to "fall", thus enabling the jungle files) and the other just to use plain vanilla summer scenery.

And that's it really - no other differences.

 

Forward thanks to upuaut (brazilian Huey artist), Beefdork (slovenian Huey artist) and finally one of my old favourite artists, nhenley85 (Sandy camo for the P-51).

Yes, I've stolen their beautiful work and added som roundels, tail-fins and the like...like the semi-pro I am!

I hope they feel honoured (and not robbed). After all, I'm VERY picky about whom I steal from ;)

 

Have fun :joystick:

 

EDIT: I did not steal upuat's brazilian Huey...I changed my mind actually and stole the original Belsimtek french Huey for the Free Cubans. Well well, not that it matters much now ;)

Edited April 28, 2015 by SFC Tako

[John C Flett]

Thanks for the campaign. I love the Huey so I was happy to have an excuse to fire it up again.

 

Sadly, I've already come unstuck. I can't hit the first trigger on the first mission. Checking the triggers I'm supposed to be doing 60 at less than 25ft. I've broken 80 at under 20 and yet nothing is happeing. I've looked in the editor and can't see any problem.

 

Anybody have any thoughts or ideas?

[SFC Tako]

Well dang!

 

I had problems getting up to speed myself ;)

Forget about the trigger numbers, go the whole runway and come in at a gentle dive into that blue smoke. You oughta make it that way...

If you check them instruments: the digital radar altimeter should be 30 or less and the analog speedometer should be over 110mph.

 

Give it another go...go nuts!

If nobody makes it, then I'll have to redo the mission :(

 

Check this here!

SPEED!

[John C Flett]

Thanks. I had wondered last night if a power dive was in order rather than a low, level approach. It had occured to me after posting that the speed set in the editor didn't translate well to MPH ( or whatever the Huey uses ).

 

I'll give it a shot again tonight.

[SFC Tako]

I'll be rooting for you!

And remember, this whole evaluation isn't supposed to be all logical and flight sound...you're in macho-country now ;)

 

EDIT:

About speed and altitude in Mission Editor: It's russian so it uses scientific units (metric system). Altitude is meters over sea level, speed is meters per second. I learnt this the hard way when I did the Outremer-campaigns. But as it is now, I've come to like russian logic. It's consistent - like a Kalashnikov ;)

Edited April 22, 2015 by SFC Tako

[John C Flett]

Right, just finished the first mission. Really good, I'm looking forward to continuing with the campaign another day.

 

A couple of brief thoughts; you really need to red-line it at the first objective. I've no problem with that but can I suggest if you do any revisions making that clearer in the briefing.

 

Landing on the roof. No real problems but you do realise that we're landing in a tree? Lucky trees can't kill us.

 

Lastly, and about the Huey rather than the mission. I'm rusty but during my attempts I managed to break my engine a few times. I don't remember that happening before. Am I just being ham-fisted or is engine stress something that has been added?

 

Again, thanks for this great mission and I'll keep feeding back as time allows me to continue the campaign.

[SFC Tako]

GREAT! I was quite keen to know actually :)

 

Red-Lining? To be perfectly honest, I haven't even thought about that. To be even MORE honest...what's red-lining? :lol: No, seriously - I really don't know. I just zoom into that smoke from say about 50 feet or so, descending to below 30 and voila! I have made it without diving as well...but I've pushed the collective pretty hard. Is that red-lining?

 

Trees yeah - not bothered to much about them. I'd say they are very very thin and since this is a dumb/macho-campaign...well I've heard about dumb/macho pilots who cut their own LZs in Nam ;)

 

But I haven't had any engines broken yet (only from AAA, not from my flying)...so I can't tell. I've never bothered with any special settings or such and I play with the sim flight model. And I'd rather not call you ham-fisted either, you'd never be able to finish the first mission if you were.

 

Anyways, great update :thumbup:

[John C Flett]

Red-lining is pushing it to the safe limits. Usually indicated by, you guessed it, a red-line. Most aircraft have a "Never exceed speed" marked by a red indicator on the scale, on the Huey its about 120 MPH.

Take an aircraft beyond that speed and you run the risk of breaking things, like rotors.

[SFC Tako]

Ah, THAT red line! Well, flying gets a bit scary after that :)

[John C Flett]

Tako, I've tried the second mission three times, all failed. First time clearly my fault, I got over excited at the first LZ and dusted off too soon. My bad.

 

Second and third time though were a bit strange. I approach the airbase, the alarm goes off, I approach the first target and my engine fails. I've watched two Tacview replays and both engine failures were within a minute of each other and both helos went down with a few metres of each other.

 

Debrief seems only to show damage after I hit ground. In both cases I had stopped a few rounds enroute, the first time damaging my DC convertor.

 

May be pure coincidence and I'll try again in a day or two but I thought I'd report it.

 

Otherwise the mission seems again very good and I was enjoying it until my engines let me down.

[SFC Tako]

John, I think we'd better get a third opinion on the engine status. I remember you had engine problems in the first mission as well. This IS strange because I haven't had any engine problems at all, well apart from when I get hit really bad by AAA. But your problem seems systematic, I mean there must be a logical explanation as to why you have re-occuring engine problems while I have the nicest of engines. It's like you have a Morris Marina and I have a Mazda MX-5. It's not fair :(

 

Anyone else out there who've made it to the second mission with or without engine failures of this sort?

 

And John - it's not so that you're running the game with "Random System Failures" under Options-Misc? Sorry to ask, but we'd better get this sorted for you. If this comes back all the time for you, then your experience is ruined.

 

I'll post a video of mission #2 tomorrow, but if you have the time for it you could watch how I

. As you'll see, I'm abusing the machine in a very rough manner...and I get away with it too. Maybe I'm doing something "right" without knowing it? Also, I'm not flying in "Game Flight Mode"...I had to double-check 'cause now I'm getting paranoid ;) Edited April 27, 2015 by SFC Tako

[John C Flett]

I'm off to work now but I'll take a look tonight. It did occur to me that I may have set something by accident and certainly I don't remember having engine problems before though I am also rusty with the Huey so I may be pushing it too hard.

 

Really I wish there was a proper black box on these things as the mission log just doesn't give enough info.

 

It may have been a pure coincidence but it was just so strange that for the time and distance the failure happened at so close to the same point.

[John C Flett]

Good news. It is good old fashion pilot error. I told you I was rusty.

I've included a track. Please forgive the rubbish flying, that's rather the point. It seems I can force an engine failure very easily running the collective quickly up and down and I think I just misjudged the approach to the AA position and overcompensated. I then repeated the same error on my next flight. Simple.

 

I have been playing a bit further and I am going to have to practice my approaches before I can take both those AA positions. Actually, I think it would be a good idea to do a full refresher on the Huey but I'll feedback as I get further with the campaign.

Engine fail2.trk

[SFC Tako]

ALL THIS BELOW WAS WRITTEN JUST BEFORE I READ YOUR STATEMENT ABOVE! YOU GO, JOHN! FLY WITH THE WIND! :)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey, John!

 

I've put together a clip from Mission #2 (you don't have to watch it all, but do watch on the special manouver at the airfield). I've added the controls indicator as well for comparison. The thing is, either you're somehow better at abusing your bird than I am (not very likely, I excel at abusing aircraft) or you're just very ham-fisted on the collective (not very likely again)...but I've given this some extra thought and checked on a thing as well:

 

Firstly, the ONLY thing I do in the chopper from the get-go is to turn off the dome light and instrumentation lights. After that my hands are only on the stick and collective. I just fly that way. No trim, no emergency-governor (unless there really IS an emergency), no fooling around with the engine-RPM/throttle or the like in any way. I hope you do things my way as well (just on this instance).

 

Secondly, being a bit paranoid, I downloaded my own campaign files from user files and did a full compare of them against my uploaded files with "Beyond Compare 3" (a very useful tool). And no, nobody has messed with the files. "They" have not tried to sabotage anything! ;)

 

I don't know what else to do here - please watch this clip of mission #2 and see if there's any major differences in our way of handling the collective. Or anything else that might strike you as odd.

On a final thought here...what if you have some kind of weird setup regarding the engine?

You're not having some button do two things at one time or something like that? (Yeah, I'm grasping here). Me, I just fly with an old MS-Sidewinder2, collective pushed pretty hard most of the time.

 

ANYONE ELSE HAVING THE SAME ISSUE OR NOT - FEEL FREE TO COMMENT.

Edited April 28, 2015 by SFC Tako

[SFC Tako]

Watched the track now - OK, I guess I've met my match :megalol:

Thing is, when I nose up and drop the collective all the way - I get a lot of free energy and have quite some time to slow the bird down.

THEN as the vertical speed upwards start slowing down and begin to drop, I apply collective smoothly (I've never considered my flying smooth, but OK then, I guess on this I am smooth). I do this to "meet up", steady things so to speak.

 

I'm happy you sorted this one out :thumbup:

[John C Flett]

In my defence I'd like to say that track was intentional bad flying and I'm not usually that rough. Though several dead engines might disagree.

 

Ah well, this is why pilots have to keep flying to stay qualified.

[SFC Tako]

I was too tired last night to understand. But anyways, this flight really cleared things up! :)

Edited April 29, 2015 by SFC Tako

[John C Flett]

Just finished the second mission.

I found knocking out the two AA guns and not losing control of the helo REALLY tough but that's about my skill. I don't think it was unfair. After that all went smoothly. Again, a very enjoyable mission.

 

You pack a lot into your missions and they're pretty intense which is a lot of fun. Loved the music at the end though it took me a moment to realise it was ingame and not something my media player had fished out. I have plenty of latin music of my own.

 

Thanks again and looking forward to mission 3 when my nerves are recovered.

[SFC Tako]

Thanks, John!

 

You know, I actually came to think about that yesterday when I tried it out again. It's one thing to design a mission yourself and then test it over and over again until everything sits deeply embedded in your spinal cord...but then it must be completely different for a fresh pilot.

Add to that, as I haven't flown mission#2 for over a couple of weeks, I myself found it very hard yesterday and I was already shaking when I tried to get the migs sorted :megalol:

Thanks for not giving up! Keep going, never surrender!

 

And yeah, latin music...I didn't know it could be that good. It's a new genre for me :)

[JLX]

I know this is a necro thread but figured I'd revive it rather than start a new one.

 

I've just tried The Bay of Hogs first mission and my monitor literally blacks out at the 5th waypoint when the bridge has been marked with red smoke.

 

I figured this was just a glitch in my system (I just put in a new 1070) and tried it again today. Exactly the same things at exactly the same point in the mission. This can't be a random glitch.

 

Perhaps something in the mission scripting is triggering a DCS bug? I have no idea but figured it post in hopes someone else might have some insight.

 

My monitor literally goes black and shuts off until I crash (I can hear it) and then it pops on again. Super weird I know but it is what it is.

 

BTW, all mission triggers and success messages worked just fine until that point. The last thing I heard was the doors opening and the smoke being fired. I saw the red smoke on the center of the bridge just before lights out.

 

I don't have time to fly it again right now but I'll give it a 3rd shot another day see if I can get any more info.

 

If anyone can help with this - please do. Thanks!

 

EDIT: Ok, I'm an idiot. What was happening is that my screensaver was kicking in! I guess I flew that mission very efficiently so that I'd arrive at the bridge at exactly the same moment. Crikey. That was a weird one. Looks like in Win10 (prob after many complaints) the joystick doesn't prevent the screensaver from coming on anymore. As I use a HOTAS and Voice Attack, I don't touch the keyboard or mouse. Well... problem solved anyway.

Edited July 29, 2016 by JLX
Found the problem (and I am an idiot ;-)

[sublime]

Again yes old thread but questions. I literally cant even get past the test in the first mussion let alone go to the actual fighting. It never works. And in no slouch on the huey i completed the medevac campaign and most the UN missions..

[SFC Tako]

Sorry for not attending this thread in a while - the first "test" in mission #1 is tricky for a lot of pilots so you're not alone.

But you gotta go all macho on this:

Get some altitude, use that to dive in and fly into that blue smoke, below the altitude stated.

If you can't ace it, report back and I'll try it myself.

 

EDIT: Here are some highlights - compare the flying to yours and let me know where the glitch is.

Edited August 4, 2016 by SFC Tako

[SFC Tako]

UPDATE: Just tried it myself and aced it on the first try. Now I DO have some training on this very mission as I've probably flown it like twenty times or so. But the bottom line here is that it's fully doable.

[sublime]

Look. I can competently fly the huey.. im no ace but i can land hover and take off no problem. The vietnam dust off campaign was no problem.. but i can nwver get past your first mission in this campaign where your supposed to fly thrubthe smoke at the end of the run way. For one if you mess up it says go around again. Fine but i notice the smoke disappears after 2 go rounds. Also i for sure was in the parameters to succeed more than once (10 ft altitude about 70 knots thru the smoke) and never got an ok or proceed. What gives? Can i skip the first mission?

[Sandman1330]

SFC Tako: Just recently finished this campaign, and I have to say it was my absolute favourite campaign so far out of any module, bar none! Loved the scarface clips, and the mission where you pick up the commandos had some great Easter eggs by one of my fav action stars!

 

I loved the hands and feet flying. As someone who flies a variant of the Huey for a living, it was a lot of fun to do things with it I wouldn't dare, or be allowed to, IRL!

 

Only had trouble with one mission, the one where you dodge the AAA to take out an OP on the building in the city. I had to remove some of the AAA in the ME, the city and trees just didn't provide enough cover given the see through object problem we still have, and I never even got close to the building before being shredded. Otherwise, all good!

 

For sublime: it was a long time ago I did that mission, but I remember going well over 100kts through the smoke, and activating the trigger without a prob. Give yourself a long run at it from altitude, and dive with the cyclic while still pulling max power to get your speed up.