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DCS World - Huey Formation Flying Training with the 229th


Charly_Owl

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The virtual 1st Air Cavalry Division, 229th aviation battalion is the one and only international virtual huey battalion in the world. 229th leader and instructor pilot "Flyer" was kind enough to invite me to a training session on formation flying. As we will see, formation flying is a very hard thing to do, especially in helicopters.

 

I try to take each flight as if it was a real life one, so I tend to be overly cautious and get scared easily when we need to fly close. During the mission, I thought I was comfortable at first (hover, takeoff, landing and all that jazz have pretty much been mastered) but when it came to flying with other people as a unit... I saw that flying in formation is pretty much summed up in four Hs: Hella Hard, Horrifying and Humbling.

 

It's not easy to trust the guy in front of you when you haven't flown much with him. You need to get as close as two rotor disk lengths. Whether or not I stayed there was up to whether or not the guy in front of me slowed down or not. It's nerve-racking and very stressful; on one hand you want to do your job and get as close as possible, but on the other hand you don't want to mess up and screw the whole formation/mission, or even worse kill one of your buddies. It's very hard on the ego to see how terrible you can be once you need to do precision flying, and the whole experience made me respect even more the likes of Flyer and Six who did it in real life (as they are real-life helicopter pilots).

 

But I'm certainly not giving up yet. I'll keep training and try to get better.

 

Here is a (very instructive) video that we used during briefing. Our training was based on it.

 

 

***

 

Music:

 

Beyond Earth - Geoff Knorr, Sid Meier’s Civilization Beyond Earth OST

MI-8 Magnificent Eight Theme - Konstantsin “BTD” Kuzniatsou, DCS OST

The Seeding - Geoff Knorr, Sid Meier’s Civilization Beyond Earth OST

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Thank you Chuck...you are a great asset to the 229th...the 229th is dedicated to the UH-1H experience and we strive to achieve real world flight techniques. The 229th has quite a few real world pilot, both fixed and rotor and it is this wealth of knowledge that is used in our instruction. We have a great bunch of pilots who, not only fly together but appreciate each others company...a company of brother, if you will. We invite all who love helicopter flight and assure you that there is certainly no judgement. We take all levels of members, even pilots with minimal skills and turn them into combat ready helicopter pilots within a few months. If you fancy a challenge, then the 229th is the helicopter group to be part of. See you in the virtual sky's.

 

With that said...As a real world UH-1H pilot with over 2000 hours, I want to give a shout out to Belsimtek for the great UH-1H model that you have created. I can tell you that your creation is as realistic as it gets...You certainly have my endorsement.


Edited by flyer49
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[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

229th battalion, 1st Cavalry

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