The Rookie Thread

[Fishbreath]

Well, about half the time I die and read the briefing more carefully. :P

[Hunden Ynk]

What Fishbreath said. And for me, another recipe for disaster is any time I try being too fancy and/or too fast. Slow and dull is good for my virtual health.

[arkroyale048]

Is there any way I can crash stop a Ka-50 from 250++ kph to near hover state in a short distance and not much altitude change or gain ?

[Fishbreath]

If you chop the collective to nil, you can nose up about 20 degrees at 250+ kph without gaining altitude. (Feed the collective back in as your speed drops.) That'll slow you down fast.

 

It's important to remember the helicopter pilot's mantra: slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Only nosing up 20 degrees feels like you're not slowing down all that fast, but you have a lot of energy to shed from 250kph to 0.

 

There are also some tricks with using turns to buy you steeper deceleration, but I'm not qualified to describe those.

[Bushmanni]

The quickest way to stop is to make a hard break turn to reduce speed to about 100km/h and then stop using basic flare (flare = decelerate by pulling nose up). Easier method is to just make a straight flare but it will take a little bit more time and distance but it will be lot more safer and easier to do. I'll try to make a video of both maneuvers with Ka-50 today but here's a link to real life quick stop maneuver with NH90.

 

 

You can do this much quicker with Ka-50 and in simulator but the basics of the maneuver are the same. First make a tight turn to kill most of the speed and then stop using flare. The reason why you don't turn all the way until you stop is that you will enter VRS at the end part of the turn when your speed gets slow enough. As long as your pitch is less than 30 degrees and wings level when entering VRS zone you are going to be safe.

 

Flare stop is done first by lowering collective slowly enough that you can control altitude with pitch. When your pitch reaches 30 degrees you keep it there and start controlling altitude with collective gradually increasing it until you have stopped. Deceleration will be slow at first but when pitch angle reaches 30 your speed is dropping very rapidly. If you can't keep up with the collective you might want to use shallower angle at first to make the deceleration slower.

[tsumikae]

Bushmanni and Fishbreath described two tactics you should use to come to a stop fast. Here's another one you probably should not use (note the emphasis on "probably"): slam your collective to nul, and go for a cobra (that's 90°, nose to the sky) as fast as you can. Maintain the angle for 2 seconds or less. Brutal stop garanteed. Also, good luck with the aftermath :p

 

You'll gain altitude, albeit not much if you're fast enough. The success of the maneuver essentially rely on your ability to release the barbarian inside you. Think "Conan in a chopper".

[Bushmanni]

What Tsumikae described is the fastest way to stop if you don't need to stay low, but you might not want to pull full 90 degrees nose up, about 50 will do it just fine and hold it a bit longer. It's a good maneuver to have in your bag of tricks.

 

It's good to know and remember one important thing regarding hard turns and decelerations which is that rotor usually goes into autorotation during these maneuvers and soon after engines go to idle and when you stop the maneuver you will suddenly need hover power which the engines can't produce for a few seconds but until they spool up again. Rotor RPM will droop for a while and if you are at low altitude after stopping you will hit the ground usually hard enough to break something. To mitigate this you need to come out of the autorotation part early enough before stopping to have power available in the hover.

 

Now to the quick stop and flare maneuvers:

 

I managed to pull of good examples (well at least I'm satisfied with them) of said maneuvers and found out that fully loaded Ka-50 isn't able to pull 30 degrees pitch during flare without problems. Essentially the engine won't be able to catch up when stopping and you won't be able to keep the nose pointed forward during autorotation because of reduced yaw authority. The nose direction is more of a show-off problem as sideslip will just make the chopper slow down more effectively. About 20 degrees pitch was most that I could pull off. You might be able to go to 30 degrees with light load but I didn't try that.

 

When you start quick stop maneuver lower the collective about half way down and make a hard turn left or right. Control rotor RPM and altitude with bank angle and G-load. Don't try to make the initial turn too hard but gradually pull the aircraft in the turn. Altitude control is particularly hard with this maneuver as when you are sideways you can't control vertical speed with collective and it reacts only slowly to changes in bank angle. Therefore it's better to climb a little than to try to stay very low. If you really need to stay low you should make a more shallow (less bank angle) turn with lots of sideslip instead so you can control altitude also with collective. Rotor RPM will rise at the beginning of the turn(or engine RPM drop, depending on collective setting) but at some point when you slow down it will start to drop. After it starts rising again pull collective gradually as much as engines can handle. Don't look at the RPM needles but listen to the sound of the engines and rotor instead. Pulling collective will provide extra muscle to stop the aircraft and keep up the engine RPM for hovering after you have stopped. After your speed has dropped below 100km/h you should straighten the chopper and flare to a hover.

 

Basic mistake is lowering the collective all the way down when starting the turn and autorotating the rotor which just makes the deceleration slower and puts you into the "engines at idle" trap. Also if you don't lower the collective enough the rotors will clash when you start the turn. Other mistake is to make the initial turn too hard which leads very likely to either significant climb or crash as you have trouble controlling the altitude. One other mistake is to keep turning hard too long and entering VRS.

 

The flare stop is already described in my previous post, just change the 30 degrees to 20. The basic mistake is to flare too hard and get in to the "engines at idle" trap.

 

Examples of the maneuvers:

[arkroyale048]

I think I would avoid doing the cobra-thing :)

 

@bushmani

 

Ahhh kind sir... I was waiting for you to turn up here again. I actually saw your video first before I saw your post. Have subscribed to your channel a few days back. Love your Ka-50 videos. I can see that you're a truly pro pilot of the Shark.

 

I saw you pull the same first maneuver in another video of yours. I think it was the one where you shot down an F-15C using the Vikhr.... I was also wondering at that time... How the heck did you do a crash stop like that ?

 

Wanna talk about the first maneuver first.

 

So if I'm getting this correctly... You bank... Rudder in the opposite direction of the bank, while at the same time adjusting the collective to prevent any rise and dips.

 

Is there any danger in this maneuver to enter a vortex ring state when executed improperly ?

[Bushmanni]

If you look carefully my controls indicator you can see that first I apply rudder to the direction of the bank to keep the nose down as I pull back on the cyclic. At some point the nose drops a bit too low and I move rudder opposite direction to the bank to get it up again. You will have to start with rudder to the direction of the bank but after that you move it where it's required to control nose position. If I had managed to keep the nose at horizon at the later part of the turn I would have been able to stop even faster as I had nose down when leveling the chopper which means I was accelerating for a moment. Nailing a perfect max performance quick stop is hard and especially if you try to maintain your altitude during it. If you make it gentler like in the NH90 video it will be safe and even look pretty.

 

In order for VRS to develop you need to have fast enough flow through the rotor upwards and then apply power to try to reverse the flow. Instead of flow reversion a donut ring vortex develops. If the flow goes fast enough sideways the donut vortex can't form as the vortexes are swept away from the rotor by the flow. As long as you have enough lateral speed (>~50km/h) it's impossible for VRS to form. You can try to make the break turn all the way until you stop and see what happens when speed goes under 50km/h.

[arkroyale048]

Been trying to attempt the said maneuver with mixed results.... I'll let you know if I'm having any difficulties.

 

On another note;

with regards to the Vikhrs.

 

I just flew a multiplayer mission where I need to neutralize enemy units on an enemy airfield.

 

My Vikhrs seem to want to veer off target about 2 to 3 kliks short of the target (was watching the F6 view of the missile).

 

I am well within launch parameters of the Vikhr. 5-6 Km distance, stable hover, laser is on, waited for the launch cue, etc.

 

Is there anything I'm doing wrong ?

[GGTharos]

Is there wind? (Try to post a track of this happening too ... the shorter the track the better)

[arkroyale048]

No wind... Unfortunately it's a huge track... It came from a multiplayer server.

[GGTharos]

Can you make a short video or take a sequence of screenshots when it happens?

[arkroyale048]

Unfortunately not... it's way too long into the mission....

 

I might have a guess though....

 

Does this happen when your laser is burned out ?

[Yurgon]

Does this happen when your laser is burned out ?

 

Depends. Try locking the target again. If you get a range reading and the "C" launch authorization, then the laser still works.

 

If the laser is not available for whatever reason, there won't be any range information when locking (and therefore ranging) a target, and without range there's no launch authorization.

[tsumikae]

So obviously, if your laser is burned out, you would not know that you are at 5-6 km from your target by reading the Schkval only, and you would not get the "C" clearance. Hence your laser is not burned out.

 

I'll make another wild guess. Is, by any chance, the auto/manual switch for weapon release on "manual"? If it is on "manual", you'll always get "C" displayed and will be able to fire your missile, even if your firing angle and/or range is completely incorrect.

[Bushmanni]

I have experienced a mysterious Vikhr guidance failure once. There was no excessive wind and laser was working just fine. The missile flew as should for a few kilometers and then suddenly just flew off the beam like if the laser had stopped emitting but the range reading was still there and laser was working after this mishap. I tried firing more missiles and all of them flew all over the place after certain point. My friend hovering besides me was able to engage all his targets just fine.

 

I know from experience that this mid-flight guidance failure happens if you fire the Vikhr without lasing for range first but that wasn't the case. Maybe there's a bug that makes the laser time out as if there wasn't range reading in the first place?

[Bucic]

Don't you guys think the thread should be closed? I used to contribute to it quite a lot back in the day but I started seeing it as counterproductive. Forums are inherently inferior to Q&A sites (e.g. askbot based sites), but such forum threads move forums another level down in terms of usefulness.

 

Such a dump-thread serves three purposes:

1. It offers an easy way out of making an effort and using the forum search function before asking a question.

2. It makes answers to question obscure, buried in tons of posts of various subjects, i.e. makes knowledge harder to find for any future newcommer.

3. It diverts content from the properly titled and located threads to this thread.

 

Call me an eccentric but neither of those is desirable.

[arkroyale048]

I do believe my laser still works at that point since as mentioned, I have the C launch authorisation cue as well as the range to the target.

 

@Tsumikae

 

I have the switch set to Auto. Though I also did fire using Manual mode. Both veered wildly off target.

 

 

Is there any indicator at all that my laser is burned out ? Is it permanent ? Does that necessitate to going back to base and going for repairs ?

[Bucic]

I do believe my laser still works at that point since as mentioned, I have the C launch authorisation cue as well as the range to the target.

 

@Tsumikae

 

I have the switch set to Auto. Though I also did fire using Manual mode. Both veered wildly off target.

 

 

Is there any indicator at all that my laser is burned out ? Is it permanent ? Does that necessitate to going back to base and going for repairs ?

Exactly what I am talking about.

http://forums.eagle.ru/search.php

V

laser

V

Search titles only

V

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=119556&highlight=laser

[Yurgon]

Don't you guys think the thread should be closed? I used to contribute to it quite a lot back in the day but I started seeing it as counterproductive. Forums are inherently inferior to Q&A sites (e.g. askbot based sites), but such forum threads move forums another level down in terms of usefulness.

 

Such a dump-thread serves three purposes:

1. It offers an easy way out of making an effort and using the forum search function before asking a question.

2. It makes answers to question obscure, buried in tons of posts of various subjects, i.e. makes knowledge harder to find for any future newcommer.

3. It diverts content from the properly titled and located threads to this thread.

 

Call me an eccentric but neither of those is desirable.

 

You do raise several good points there. Yet I don't think this thread should be closed -- and it's not because I disagree with any of your points, I don't. But I think your approach is possibly too idealistic. In a perfect world, we wouldn't need this thread. But as it is, I'd rather have newcomers post newcomer's questions here and get a quick answer than having them start yet another "Help needed urgently!" thread, and possibly even in the wrong place.

 

When it comes to the bibliographical and/or reference value of the Rookie Thread (and similar threads in other sub-forums), their value is indeed fairly limited because good answers are buried in pages and pages of stuff. But I think that simple questions will get asked over and over again anyways.

 

Another aspect is that the forum's search function by default seems to search only posts that are no older than 6 months. With modules like Ka-50 and A-10C, most beginner's questions will have been answered longer ago.

 

Like I said, in a perfect world every newcomer would go to the advanced search and figure out how to find an answer, but since our world is not perfect, I think this thread is a good place for people to ask simple questions without fearing potential discouragement for opening a new thread when a quick search came up empty.

 

Also, with Rookie question in one place, mods have less work cleaning things up and merging threads.

 

In essence, my vote would be to leave this thread in place because I think it does a pretty good job of what it's supposed to do, and smart newcomers will always open new threads for new questions anyways.

[arkroyale048]

In the A-10C... If you designate a spot into a SPI, and then pull some wild maneuvers (i.e. evading missiles, AAA). Your SPI would shift a little bit; specially if you did a Gimbal Roll.. In the A-10 it is possible to designate that SPI as a markpoint and then have the TGP slew itself into that markpoint after pulling off some wild maneuvers.

 

Does the Shkval have a similar function ? I already know about putting marks on the map using the panel on the upper left. Is there a way for me to reslew the shkval onto the same spot, specially if I shifted position (and thereby facing the shkval temporarily away from the target), instead of me manually slewing it back according to the map ?

[TurboHog]

In the A-10C... If you designate a spot into a SPI, and then pull some wild maneuvers (i.e. evading missiles, AAA). Your SPI would shift a little bit; specially if you did a Gimbal Roll.. In the A-10 it is possible to designate that SPI as a markpoint and then have the TGP slew itself into that markpoint after pulling off some wild maneuvers.

 

Does the Shkval have a similar function ? I already know about putting marks on the map using the panel on the upper left. Is there a way for me to reslew the shkval onto the same spot, specially if I shifted position (and thereby facing the shkval temporarily away from the target), instead of me manually slewing it back according to the map ?

 

Create a Datalink, select it and select DL Ingress. Next time you uncage your skhval it will slew to the designated target.

 

Check the manual for information on the datalink system.

[arkroyale048]

Thanks a lot that helps a lot with reconnaissance.

 

 

Been trying to attempt the said maneuver with mixed results.... I'll let you know if I'm having any difficulties.

 

On another note;

with regards to the Vikhrs.

 

I just flew a multiplayer mission where I need to neutralize enemy units on an enemy airfield.

 

My Vikhrs seem to want to veer off target about 2 to 3 kliks short of the target (was watching the F6 view of the missile).

 

I am well within launch parameters of the Vikhr. 5-6 Km distance, stable hover, laser is on, waited for the launch cue, etc.

 

Is there anything I'm doing wrong ?

 

 

After a few more trial and error on this issue. I found out that it is indeed the laser being burned out. It was mentioned that an indicator of a burned out laser would be the countdown timer when you activate it. When it starts at 1 second counting down to 0. You know you have a burned out laser. Afterwards, upon firing a Vikhr. It would veer wildly a few kliks off the target. Same scenario as before.

 

 

Question for me now is. How does one take care in order to prevent a burned out laser ? I tried slowing down my vikhr shots. Even making sure that I let every countdown reach 0 before firing. I also shut down the laser switch while in transit to and fro the target area. Even shutting it off whenever I just shift firing positions. It seems that inevitably my laser would burn out.

 

Is there also, an indicator of what might be the current temperature of my laser ? As well as the limit before I should pause and let it cool down ?

[JuggernautOfWar]

Hello!

 

Brand new to DCS World and Black Shark 2. I just got a new X52 Pro and Black Shark 2. Tried the training in game and it's safe to say I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. Unfortunately I have a hard time learning complex systems by just watching somebody else operate them (training videos), instead I need to interact with them myself while being guided.

 

I'd love to start small and work my way up, but it seems to even start up and/or take off there are many challenges to newbies such as myself. Additionally I do not have my X52 Pro set up with any profiles since I (lack systems and KA50 knowledge) have no idea what keyboard commands to map to which joystick buttons.

 

TLDR: I have no idea what I'm doing and would like some advice. Thanks! I look forward to spending hundreds of hours learning to fly and having a blast!

Edited April 14, 2014 by JuggernautOfWar