Few questions regaring my track

[Newbie]

Hello,

 

I'm new to DCS' simulators (spent 16 hours behind Black Shark's cockpit and approximately two behind A-10C's). Do you think you could take a look at the attached track and let me know what are some of the things I'm doing wrong? It's from "Deployment" campaign and the mission's name is "Escort" (it's the second one in the chain). The joystick I'm using is Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 (I know I should be using Thrustmaster but want to make sure I'm going to play these sims for a long time before my wife finds out that her wonderful husband needs a new "toy" :) ).

 

Specific areas I have questions about are:

 

1. Trimming

Trimming's purpose is to make the helicopter's cyclic keep its position without having the pilot apply any pressure afterward, correct? And apologies for poor phrasing - English is not my primary language and I have no piloting background.

 

Shortly after taking off I:

- allign towards the first waypoint,

- reach desired speed and altitude,

- release the joystick (if I keep applying pressure to the stick AND press [T] at the same time, the effect will be greatly amplified, which is not something I think I want),

- press and hold [T],

- push the stick back to regain heading & speed

- release [T]

Am I doing it right?

 

2. Stopping that damn thing and hovering without ANY movement

This is a constant battle for me. I reach waypoint 2 and (cheating) want to take a position opposite the village. When the ambush takes place, my nose will already be pointed towards the enemy and all I'll have to do is fire away. This flythrough was actually pretty good - I was only moving at 10-ish KMH in autohover but in previous ones my helicopter kept "strafing" at 30-50 KMH despite my attempts to stop it. What am I doing wrong? I tried to trim a few times but don't think it worked as I would've wanted.

 

3. Rockets

I think I fired too many from too far away. And I definitely need to practice aiming - I know :(

 

4. Autopilot altitude hold

Just to make sure, the correct way to use it is to:

- Reach the desired altitude.

- Engage "hold altitude' mode ([LShift + A] in my case)

- Engage collective break [F]

 

I noticed the the helicopter will make attempts to return to set altitude in case the terrain changes (flying over a mountain, valley, etc.) but only by a few degrees, so if the difference is significant (e.g. I wanted to fly at 30 meters but suddenly I'm at 500), I'm better off disengaging the altitude autopilot, reaching 30 myself (quicker) and engaging it again once there. Would you agree?

 

Thank you for your time!

Campaign Deployment - Escort mission.trk

Edited May 8, 2011 by Newbie

[Bushmanni]

There's good threads about trimming, autopilot and hovering, read them. It's not rocket science but does take some explaining.

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=39015

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=33527

 

I noticed that you didn't use rudder much and when you did it was all or nothing style which made the chopper unstable. Try to learn to make smaller and smoother control movements. I would suggest you make a mission with only you in the sim world and practice getting into a hover, flying a little circle and getting into a hover again. After getting the bird stay still you could try to learn to get into a hover over a specific point. When you learn to do this your flying skills enable you to do pretty much all other things, maybe excluding loops and rolls.

 

When HUD is in NAV mode and speed is less than 50kph there's a velocity vector visible in the HUD that shows your lateral movement direction and speed. If it's pointing to the right you are going to the right etc. Remember that when you tilt the chopper it produces acceleration not speed, especially at slow speeds. So when you tilt to the right the velocity vector starts growing to the right. When you level it stays the way it is and when you tilt to the left it starts moving to the left. When the velocity vector is a dot you have stopped. When you are high and can't see the ground the velocity vector is the only way to see when you have gotten in hover.

 

While rockets are somewhat inaccurate it still pays to aim them as precisely as possible as they will miss less that way. It seemed to me that you were aiming the rockets at the blue mass of labels. The unit the label refers to is located at the bottom left corner of the label so if you aim at the label you will miss.

 

The autopilot has only limited control over the controls so any big movement is better done yourself especially if it needs to be done quick.

[Newbie]

Thank you!

[seikdel]

Definitely read up on the trimming threads. Just keeping the bird in the air, moving the right direction and pointing where you want it to point is a big enough challenge for starters. I'd recommend spending a lot of time at the shooting range just flying. Learn to get the bird pointed exactly where you want it to point and moving where you want it to move.

 

To this end, you've GOT to get some rudder pedals. Judging by the way you used your rudder, I'm going to guess that you have it mapped to a couple of keys. Get some pedals. They're cheap and they work wonders for your ability to control the bird. The rudder should be used pretty much any time you're turning, and you need to be able to control how much rudder you're using.

 

While we're on the subject of equipment, I'd also say get a head tracking setup. You don't need to spend the money on trackir; I took a $20 webcam and soldered 3 IR LEDs to my USAF baseball cap and voila! instant head tracking! This helps because you can then look around the cockpit and get a much better idea of where the bird is in relation to the ground and your targets. I didn't do this at first, thinking that mouse control of my viewpoint (lalt+c, if you're wondering) was sufficient. I was amazed at the difference when I first got freetrack working.

 

Weapons employment. Decent job with the rockets. If you're going to use the Shkval, point it exactly where you want munitions to land. If you can't keep the Shkval on target, then just turn it off (backspace) and use the pipper for the rockets and cannon. One problem you had was that you left the Shkval on and pointed elsewhere than your target. When you do that, the cannon tries to aim off wherever the Shkval is pointed at. If you're just going to try to point the bird at your target and pull the trigger, turn the Shkval off.

 

If, on the other hand, you want to utilize the Shkval, get it pointed on-target, then sit 2-3km back, keeping the nose of the bird pointed at the target (the arrows on the Shkval screen should be in the thick parts of the border, if that makes any sense) and take pot shots with the cannon from further back.

 

Also avoid flying over your target area. Had there been any manpads paying attention, you would've had a stinger rammed up your tail before you could tell why everything suddenly caught on fire. In general, stay further back from your target. You're using missiles and bullets, not bombs.

 

Also flares, but I have to go take a final right now, so that's for another time.

 

Good job overall! I think some decent pedals and a freetrack setup would do wonders for you. And please take my advice with a grain of salt. I'm a bit of a noob as well.