OH-6A by Tobsen and Eightball

[Andrew8604]

This OH-6A is always about the most fun, fire-it-up-and-go, helicopter in DCS ...it's a mod-jewel!  The most fun you can have with your doors off!  To the makers:  Thanks!

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

Crazy idea -- could ED pick this one up and make it great again?

[tobi]

46 minutes ago, VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants said:

Crazy idea -- could ED pick this one up and make it great again?

?

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

Never mind. Just crazy talking

[Scarecrow84]

On 11/25/2025 at 1:13 AM, Andrew8604 said:

This OH-6A is always about the most fun, fire-it-up-and-go, helicopter in DCS ...it's a mod-jewel!  The most fun you can have with your doors off!  To the makers:  Thanks!

Agreed.

Here is a little WW2 Marianas shoot em up mission made with target zones to reduce range at which enemy units start firing. This makes them less lethal so the mission is more playable. It's a partial solution to the enemy AI problem. This really requires you to use labels, I think.

I have labels on, I recommend binding Labels All ON/OFF to a button. 

I used the Vietnam Assets Pack.

I will probably add armed fast boats and enemy choppers to this, but as it is here it is fairly faithful to Vietnam war targets and objects.

In the mission editor, if you select the #1 unit in an enemy group, you can hold down your left mouse button while scrolling out with your scroll wheel, and then drag the group to another location. This way you can shift the action around and make a different kind of experience quickly. The target zones are linked to the first enemy unit in the group, so they move with them when dragged.

VAP_OH6_COMBAT_WW2MRNS_3.miz

[SparrowLT]

One question about autorotation. to see what im missing

 

the other day i was flying a mission adapted from a Huey one of doing evac calls on Marianas..  in one return leg i overstimated my fuel endurance and about half way back fuel ran out and engine quitted (predictibly).. i tought "ok im gonna just autorotate it" but it fell off like a stone.. i inmediatly on the engine out alarm lowreed collective to minumun but the rpm just fell down like if it was hard tied to the dying turbine.. collective at minumun and rpm just plumeted and the OH-6 just became a meteor.

 

what did i miss? im i suposed to do anything else on engine failure besides keeping the rpm on the green?

[tobi]

6 minutes ago, SparrowLT said:

One question about autorotation. to see what im missing

 

the other day i was flying a mission adapted from a Huey one of doing evac calls on Marianas..  in one return leg i overstimated my fuel endurance and about half way back fuel ran out and engine quitted (predictibly).. i tought "ok im gonna just autorotate it" but it fell off like a stone.. i inmediatly on the engine out alarm lowreed collective to minumun but the rpm just fell down like if it was hard tied to the dying turbine.. collective at minumun and rpm just plumeted and the OH-6 just became a meteor.

 

what did i miss? im i suposed to do anything else on engine failure besides keeping the rpm on the green?

Collective down should be enough. What was your speed?

[SparrowLT]

2 hours ago, tobi said:

Collective down should be enough. What was your speed?

I was doing arround 100-110 in the runs.. i think i was 100ish when engine quited

[slghtlystewpid]

3 hours ago, SparrowLT said:

I was doing arround 100-110 in the runs.. i think i was 100ish when engine quited

You also need to roll off your throttle as you drop your collective.

What was your altitude? If you were 5 feet above tree-level, I'm not surprised it came out from under you.

[tobi]

3 hours ago, slghtlystewpid said:

You also need to roll off your throttle as you drop your collective.

What was your altitude? If you were 5 feet above tree-level, I'm not surprised it came out from under you.

The throttle does not matter if fuel is empty. 

[SparrowLT]

7 hours ago, slghtlystewpid said:

You also need to roll off your throttle as you drop your collective.

What was your altitude? If you were 5 feet above tree-level, I'm not surprised it came out from under you.

I was about 1000f high.. i had enough time when fuel ran out and the alarm began to sound to realize what had happent (embarrasing ok i might overstimate my fuel reserve) and check underneath for landing spot (over Guam so plenty forrest but lots of clear patchs too) and droped the collective to keep rpm .. then saw that the rpm kept falling , i raise and lower collective again and nothing.. no lift change whatsoever..it just droped like a grand piano on a Morris Marina.. didnt touched the throttle.. as tobi says fuel had ran out and turbine was dying so didnt even touched it..

 

I will try to reproduce the scenario again later.. but funny enough yesterday i was doing online CSAR in the Huey and we were interchanging a lot of text messages in the chat and one of those times i failed to hit tab before writing something that started with F meant i cut the fuel valve in the Huey... wich shutted down the turbine , rpm alarm... and i was like 500-700 high over mountains.. droped collective down to about 30% ..rpm stay high.. pressed fuel valve on and hit start and the turbine relighted.. kept the descend rate and rpm on green as kept droping but controled and when turbine kicked in recovered flight.. all this is what i asume should happen in the 6 too (in case of accidental fuel removal).. in the Huey i didnt touched the throttle when relighting ..wich i think may not be ideal

[tobi]

26 minutes ago, SparrowLT said:

I was about 1000f high.. i had enough time when fuel ran out and the alarm began to sound to realize what had happent (embarrasing ok i might overstimate my fuel reserve) and check underneath for landing spot (over Guam so plenty forrest but lots of clear patchs too) and droped the collective to keep rpm .. then saw that the rpm kept falling , i raise and lower collective again and nothing.. no lift change whatsoever..it just droped like a grand piano on a Morris Marina.. didnt touched the throttle.. as tobi says fuel had ran out and turbine was dying so didnt even touched it..

 

I will try to reproduce the scenario again later.. but funny enough yesterday i was doing online CSAR in the Huey and we were interchanging a lot of text messages in the chat and one of those times i failed to hit tab before writing something that started with F meant i cut the fuel valve in the Huey... wich shutted down the turbine , rpm alarm... and i was like 500-700 high over mountains.. droped collective down to about 30% ..rpm stay high.. pressed fuel valve on and hit start and the turbine relighted.. kept the descend rate and rpm on green as kept droping but controled and when turbine kicked in recovered flight.. all this is what i asume should happen in the 6 too (in case of accidental fuel removal).. in the Huey i didnt touched the throttle when relighting ..wich i think may not be ideal

I recorded a quick and dirty autorotation during lunchbreak. 

 

[tobi]

6 hours ago, tobi said:

I recorded a quick and dirty autorotation during lunchbreak. 

 

and with restarting the engine

[SparrowLT]

yeah i did some tests today and used the shut off valve as alternative to actually runing out and one of them i could control the rpm (much less gracefully than your atempts, specially the first one)

 

i learned a thing and thats when engine fails to also inmediatly reset trim.. as found out that when im trimmed for cruise you cant pull back stick nearly as much as for example you do in both autorotations.. wich might had something to do with my perceived lack of control during descend

[tobi]

12 minutes ago, SparrowLT said:

yeah i did some tests today and used the shut off valve as alternative to actually runing out and one of them i could control the rpm (much less gracefully than your atempts, specially the first one)

 

i learned a thing and thats when engine fails to also inmediatly reset trim.. as found out that when im trimmed for cruise you cant pull back stick nearly as much as for example you do in both autorotations.. wich might had something to do with my perceived lack of control during descend

Oh yeah the trim is a point i did not think about because i don't use it that way. 

Edited 15 minutes ago by tobi