Night operations in Hind

[LuseKofte]

Is it possible to be effective at night at all. I have many hours in this and can’t say I am successful

[AeriaGloria]

45 minutes ago, LuseKofte said:

Is it possible to be effective at night at all. I have many hours in this and can’t say I am successful

Yes you are just limited 

1. You have NVG, set them to lowest gain, use cockpit lights at lowest setting, and if needed set auto range to manual source so that ASP-17V doesn’t light up. NVG isn’t so useful for targeting, but it is good for orientation 

2. You have illumination rockets. They will illuminate about 3.5 km away, and take 7.7 seconds of flight before they deploy the flare and 1 second to light the deployed flare. You want to fire around 10-12 degrees up at low altitude (0-250m), 5 degrees around 300m, and level at around 500-600m. It is most useful to have a wingmen use them while you attack, but you can also have your periscope open, fire illumination rockets then go back to MSL/OFF so you can fire ATGM as soon as they light up. If not just open periscope as soon as you fire the flares so that the 10 seconds for gyros to spin up are used while the flare is flying 7.7 seconds and the 1 second it takes to release and light the flare at the end of its 3.5 km journey. They will only light up for 35 seconds, and you may need to fire early and fire several in sequence until you get them perfectly over the target. If needed you can have illumination rockets on one side and regular rockets on the other and switch sides 

3. Full moon night is easiest. New moon is very difficult. It’s a bit gamey but you can also increase gamma to make it easier to see. Use your landing and taxi lights for takeoff and landing! Just turn them off while flying becuase it makes it easier for AI to spot you 

4. the only targets you can really attack are either pre planned targets, or targets that are shooting at you with tracers. Once you’ve blown up one target in the area, it gets easier using its fire and smoke as a reference 

It’s not easy or made for night, but using the above methods and other things you can be somewhat effective at night in the right situations 

Edited December 11, 2023 by AeriaGloria

[JetCat]

Hmmmm .... night operations with the Hind hmmmmmmm...... better not. The night illumination of the Hind is absolute gorgeous and it also has wingtip illumination which is the coolest light effect I have ever seen in a simulator! For some fun flying and enjoying the most awesome cockpit that was ever developed it´s great.

But doing missions, well as soon as I see that small night vision goggle green ring with no other better night vision options available I abandon every night mission, in the F-14 too. Of all planes and helis ony the Apache is the unrivaled night hunter.

[Squiggs]

I am working on a small campaign for the Hind in Afghanistan where one of the missions takes place at night, supporting a Spetsnaz ambush on a caravan. It's pitch black and you need to fly to the ambush site using the radio (F10 menu to get the Sptesnaz to transmit so you can orient yourself). Then in the actual ambush they fire illumination bombs every 120 seconds. But the bombs only last 90 seconds so you get 30 seconds of pitch dark. Have to time your runs with the flares otherwise you "black out" just as you are in full dive for a rocket run. Ends with having to pick them up using the landing light and fly back to the airbase. And no NVG because it's 1980. Fun little mission. Looking forward to getting this done for all the Hind afficianados.

[AeriaGloria]

12 hours ago, Squiggs said:

I am working on a small campaign for the Hind in Afghanistan where one of the missions takes place at night, supporting a Spetsnaz ambush on a caravan. It's pitch black and you need to fly to the ambush site using the radio (F10 menu to get the Sptesnaz to transmit so you can orient yourself). Then in the actual ambush they fire illumination bombs every 120 seconds. But the bombs only last 90 seconds so you get 30 seconds of pitch dark. Have to time your runs with the flares otherwise you "black out" just as you are in full dive for a rocket run. Ends with having to pick them up using the landing light and fly back to the airbase. And no NVG because it's 1980. Fun little mission. Looking forward to getting this done for all the Hind afficianados.

Ahh, too bad we don’t have the S-5 flare rocket 

Edited July 18, 2024 by AeriaGloria