Question about the Black Shark module realism

[fisadev]

Hi!

This is a well-intentioned question, not a rant or anything like that, I love the module and want to know more just out of curiosity 

How much realism and how much guesswork is there in the Ka50 module? Are stuff like the pages in the ABRIS known to be just like that in real life, or were they informed guesses? What about the functions of non obvios cockpit controls, like all the datalink and stargets storage stuff? Did ED have real life manuals or access to SMEs to get that info?

I've seen posts over the years specially with discussions about the changes coming to BS3, but I'm talking about the current BS we have. Has ED published details on this before? I couldn't find anything aside form an old post from Wags highlighting that they only want to do aircraft that they have access to good info, etc, but not details on what's real and what had to be guessed in the BS module.   

After flying the Apache and seeing videos of real pilots commenting on how real it is, and also comparing what we see of the systems vs real life videos, I started to wonder if the stuff in the Ka50 is at that same level, given how obscure the real life thing is in that case. And I love realism, it's the single most important thing that makes me want to fly stuff in DCS: the possibility of interacting with these machines, which I would love to but won't ever fly in real life.

I'm not looking to "validate" the module or anything like that, and I'll keep flying it anyway. But I would really love to know more about this   

Edited June 9, 2022 by fisadev

[AeriaGloria]

ED worked with Kamov, visited the company, had access to the specific prototype our Ka-50 is modeled after. I believe bort 26? I would assume they had all relevant manuals and technical documents. 

[fisadev]

Awesome! Didn't know that. And now I envy them for being able to do that too, hehe.

Thanks

[Volk.]

Bort 24 is the current BS2 module, with the laser designator upgrade & thus ability to guide in Kh-25s. BS3 is based off Bort 25.

If you look in the ED manual you'll see a bunch of charts and other details. In terms of public information, everything seems to check out on it's capabilities. You'll find the occasional IRL vid where the HUD behaved differently, but that might also be a different software version. It also goes into details on splitting every blade into 6 elements and handling it's aerodynamics, models a bunch of systems and effects. Some stuff isn't modeled like the electrical fuses & the IFF codes, but that gets more classified. Some of those KABRIS system pages get really in depth and obscure and doesn't appear to be guesswork.

I think they had SMEs back when saying it was a good representation, just that's almost 15 years ago, and likely those few pilots weren't as prevalent online.