Any advice for night missions / NV goggles?

[Snappy]

Hi,

don't know if this due to lighting issues introduced with the 2.5 /2.7 DCS version updates or just inherent in the module, but I find the night

mission very hard to fly with night vision goggles  . My current approach is, I  dim all the cockpit lighting almost down all the way , but

despite setting the lighting control for the Doppler/radar instruments behind the copilot all the way down,  the Doppler Off Light in the

top right of the instrument as well as the radar altimeter height warning light are still extremely bright , so much that they bloom bright in the NV goggles and make the surrounding cockpit unreadable and you have to look elsewhere or get white- out.

My only solution is to switch these instruments off completely, which makes hovering and landing much more difficult . Or to reduce NVG gain, but the outside world gets darker and darker , which isn't good either.

 

What are your settings  for optimal night operations in regards to cockpit lights and NVG?

BTW, not sure if it matters, but I have  global cockpit illumination set to "ON" in the DCS graphic settings.

Thanks a lot ,

regards,

Snappy

Edited November 16, 2021 by Snappy

[Lace]

You don't say what kind of mission - assuming transport as the Mi-8 was never intended as a night attack a/c. 

 

Take off the NODs, fly IFR.

[Hawk 09]

Hi Snappy,

I fly night missions quite often, Special Operations especially with low level flying. It´s not easy with the NVG´s of the MI-8 but it´s possible, even with GPS, if you turn all the lights down.

You have to use the three pairs of light controllers, which you know for sure and additionally the 5.5V controller behind the right pilot´s seat (see attachment).

I wish we had something like the UH-60 / MH-60 in DCS, but for the time being the MI-8 is the best compromise, I think.

I mapped the NVG adjustment to the toggle switch of my Thrustmaster F/A-18 grip. This is very useful.

Do you have any idea how to simulate an IR strobe for LZ markings? It is difficult to see green smoke at night...

Edited November 16, 2021 by Hawk 09

[Snappy]

3 hours ago, Lace said:

You don't say what kind of mission - assuming transport as the Mi-8 was never intended as a night attack a/c. 

 

Take off the NODs, fly IFR.

Basically just the missions the standard campaign that comes with the Mi-8 throws at you , i.e. night search & destroy and CASEVAC.
Sure you can fly initially IFR enroute, but in the target area you have to switch to VFR to find&attack the targets / identify the landing zone, the obstacles .

Unfortunately it is seemingly ill suited for that.

This is what I mean for example: This is all 6 (Commander, Copilot , Engineer ) light reostats, plus the Doppler light rheostat behind the copilot seat  turned down all the way.
Still the radar altimeter warning lights blooms like this:

The Doppler Drift indicator OFF light has the same effect, it's just off at the moment, otherwise the entire cockpit would be just a white mass.

This is an image from the Briefing of Campaign Mission 16. I don't know if Belsimtek edited it somehow, but I never managed to get even close the level of clarity and brightness

both inside the cockpit and outside at the same time, also the Dopper Drift OFF light is illuminating ,without the extreme bloom effect.

  

I also tried the NVG Gain adjustments, but it doesn't help with this.

 

@Hawk 09 Yes, I know about the light controls, like I wrote.The problem seems to be that the light controls only affect the instruments main indications, but not

their warning lights.

 

Sorry can't  help you with implementing IR strobes, cool idea though, I agree.

Regards,

Snappy.

Edited November 16, 2021 by Snappy

[Snappy]

Ok this is basically a shot, where both the radar warning light and doppler drift indicator OFF light are on. You can see the cockpit with NVG basically becomes

a bloom mess and unusable.
 

This is with all instrument lights set to lowest possible light intensity. The only way to reduce the bloom is by reducing NVG gain.But you have to reduce it so much

that the outside world is black again, so the NVG become useless.

Not sure if this is a graphics issue  introduced with lightning changes,or whether the MI-8 version modelled in DCS is basically not suitable for NVG operation, but then you gotta ask how are you supposed to get the campaign missions done in total darkness, where you have to find ground targets and land in obstacle rich environment.

[AlphaOneSix]

The items that cause the problems...can they be turned off...like via circuit breaker? That should turn out those cockpit lights. Of course you lose those systems, but may be better that way.

[Snappy]

51 minutes ago, AlphaOneSix said:

The items that cause the problems...can they be turned off...like via circuit breaker? That should turn out those cockpit lights. Of course you lose those systems, but may be better that way.

Yes, those two instruments can both be powered off completely, which is what I resorted to. 

Its not ideal. Main reason for my post was to find out if I’m doing something wrong in regards to cockpit setup for night operations or if this a bug/glitch ,from  ED introducing the lighting changes (it has other odd effects on the Mi-8 too) or if this is just not a helicopter really suitable for NVG operations. The manual makes close to zero mention of them unfortunately.

regards,

 

 Snappy 

 

 

[Sobakopes]

Sometimes I can barely see indicators on the countermeasure device. Something wrong with the lightning. 

[sLYFa]

The radar alt doesnt need to be turned off, just set the altitude bug to zero so the light wont come on

[Mavkruger]

just simply switch off the doppler system

[River]

A lot of weird answers, it's a lighting bug and nothing else. Turning off Doppler or Radar Altimeter during a night mission is insane. 

Edited January 20, 2022 by River

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

23 hours ago, River said:

it's a lighting bug and nothing else

It depends, really. People are weird and demand things that were not present in the real aircraft. NVGs were not used in the Mi-24 for example but we have them because a very vocal part of the community demanded it. If they end up not working as expected because the cockpit is incompatible, it's not ED's fault - they just modelled things correctly.

 

Or the airbrake indicator light in the Su-33: the real aircraft doesn’t have one but it has in DCS because people demanded it…

Edited January 21, 2022 by Raven (Elysian Angel)

[AlphaOneSix]

I have a lot of flight time (crew chief/flight engineer) in Mi-17s using NVG's with NVG-compatible cockpits...

Edited January 25, 2022 by AlphaOneSix

[admiki]

Deleted

Edited January 28, 2022 by admiki

[Art-J]

On 1/25/2022 at 1:14 AM, AlphaOneSix said:

I have a lot of flight time (crew chief/flight engineer) in Mi-17s using NVG's with NVG-compatible cockpits...

 

That's expected and OK then , but what would happen in non-compatible cockpit? Unless you mistyped and meant "without NVG-compatible"?

[AlphaOneSix]

Without an NVG-compatible cockpit, it's best to either not use goggles, or have the cockpit lighting all turned off...and just use a finger light or lip light as necessary to see the gauges. Obviously not an ideal situation.

[Nevyn]

For me overall the night lighting is poor in the hip regardless. I don't see them fixing it any time soon, maybe a modder could have a go.