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BaDCrC created new topic Debrief Prison Break mission and welcome to -Smil-!.
October 20 at 5:14 am
Angels and Redwolves ready to take off from FARP early morning. Pilots: -smil-, BaDCrC, BlackWolf, Eagle-RisingFlight time: 3 hours Mission:This mission combined about all the difficulties you can face in a chopper mission: high altitude, cold, heavy load, mountain flying and lot of bad guys around each corners. Congratulation to -Smil- for his first flight with BSD. Usually, we have a quiet evaluation one with no threats, next to the sea on a flat area. Today was the toughest introduction flight ever so far and you did great. Very happy to have you with us. You are now a trainee. I am looking forward to fly again often with you. Some technical problems with BK's Mi-8 delayed a bit the mission but once the mechanics finally gave him a new aircraft, BK was back on track.We got the first village handled all right with one Shilka down. But I missed the Zu-23 on Ural a little bit further and sent -Smil- at canon range to deal with the remaining infantry. Luckily for him, he escaped the Zu 23 shots and I could cover him quickly by taking down the Ural. We then moved to the East-West valley and got engaged by another AA. Eagle did the right thing and moved back to the green sector while Redwolves headed to the west side of the valley and got engaged by another AA unit that shoot me down and damaged -Smil-. Eagle tried to cover us but got damaged too and beautifully handled an auto-rotation down the valley. Remember to scan around the threat area before closing in. Eagle is heading back to green sector after being shot at by a AAA unit. Reds heading straight into another AAA unit to avoid the first one. Big mistake! We all had to start back from the FARP, which is good since it allowed BK to rejoin the flight as he got lost in the mountains. If you got lost, remember to use the F10 view. If you are loosing sight on your leader in a formation , tell him immediately. Don't wait for him to loose sight on you too. We all took off back to EA. Reds were able to take down the AA unit on the Eastern part of the valley and we all moved to the training camp up the plateau in the middle of the Bzib mountains. Sadly, BK didn't managed properly his speed/rate of climb ratio and crashed into a slope while attempting to fly back down the valley. There's always a trade off to find between forward speed ad vertical speed. It is called the max climb rate speed and varies according to the chopper used. We had to finish the mission with 3 aircraft as it was too late for BK to start over again. The camp was quickly spotted and we were able to neutralize with the Reds the guards and watch towers around the prison cells pretty quickly. The east wall was then breached by the POWs and 5 of them escaped the complex to an extraction point a few hundred yards from the camp where Eagle picked them up under cover of the Reds. Primary mission successful.In the mean time, a reinforcement convoy showed up 5km south west of the camp and damaged -Smil- helicopter while he was taking out the Shilka at the end of the convoy. I was able to take out the rest of the convoy as -Smil- lost Shkval and HUD. The VIP target used this moment to jump in a car and drive through at high speed. No Reds were able to find him once outside the camp and he successfully escaped. Secondary assassination mission failed. Eagle and myself made a few rockets and gun pass on the camp to inflict maximum damage but someone in the camp was able to jump into a T55 which started to shoot his .50 mm caliber machine gun at us. We both took some hits as we took out this tank. My Ka-50 started to progressively loose the SAS channels one by one then the main and common hydro. Since Eagle was winchester and -Smil- not able to contiue combat, we decided to RTB. Unfortunately, the too heavy damages of -Smil- chopper made him ejected over enemy territory. The end of the mission became a SAR mission to find the crashing site and where -Smil- ejected. From the ground, he was able to give us directions and Eagle's Mi-8 was able to pick him up in an incredible slope landing. Fun fact if we were using UniversRadio: when ejected, the pilot can only communicate to the aircraft through his emergency portable radio on 121.5Mhz We were starting to run low on fuel. We took a direct route to the egress one (Delta checkpoint) and made it back to the FARP with only 3 to 5 minutes left of fuel on board the Mi-8 (Eagle kept flying once the POW safely disembarked, and finaly landed back with only one engine still running on fumes). It was really fun. The mission overall worked great. There are room for more choppers, up to 3 angels and 5 Ka-50. This could give us a very nice firepower that we didn't have completely this evening with only two Ka-50. I had a lot of fun flying it with you guys. Thanks for your cooperation. Please share YOUR experience in this thread. BaDCrC -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Gazelle Weapon Expansion Mod.
October 20 at 12:39 am
Sure. I think we'll have a Gazelle week next week with one fun flight and one mission. Probably back to Gelendzhik. -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Gazelle Weapon Expansion Mod.
October 19 at 9:01 pm
Here is a OVGME link or JSGME if you still use that. Tested and works. HERE Bad, if you can load it up to the Mod section..Test it first make sure I did it right! :P I think its ok. Works for me. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Cool/Interesting pictures.
October 18 at 3:14 am
My new patch for my pilot bag. Made me think about you Eagle! -
spiderpig replied to the topic Mission Editing: Full video tutorials by Ranger79.
October 15 at 3:21 am
Very nice! -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Mission Editing: Full video tutorials by Ranger79.
October 13 at 10:20 pm
Love Rangers video's, that's what I used to "remember" how to use the ME. -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Gazelle Weapon Expansion Mod.
October 13 at 10:14 pm
Ah, crap..now I have to learn to fly this thing! I saw the thread over at ED while ya'll were working on it. As if its not hard enough to get used to.. here is more weapons and weight! :P It look like a blast though. Ok bad pun, I know. BK -
spiderpig replied to the topic Gazelle Weapon Expansion Mod.
October 13 at 9:40 pm
So hook actually used to load hellfires on apaches so he actually corrected the weight in Dcs to reflect real weight. And while it would be awesome to carry 16, the gazelle wouldn't get off the ground. -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Gazelle Weapon Expansion Mod.
October 13 at 3:43 pm
As long as weight is properly simulated for the extra weapons. Even though they probably never flew with tows or hellfires I wouldn't be surprised. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Cool/Interesting pictures.
October 13 at 2:20 pm
Impressive work. One can feel the love and commitment put into this :) -
Brain replied to the topic Gazelle Weapon Expansion Mod.
October 12 at 5:40 pm
As I see it this is the mod for people who define success by numbers. More missiles -> more kills -> more success.The Gazelle might not have the fire power but it has a 2nd seat, thermal imaging, useful RWR and IR a2a missiles. It's a very different flavor compared to the KA and as such missions should be designed to take advantage of these features.I had a night mission once with a random Gazelle pilot doing an excellent job detecting targets and relaying their position. Only one example of how the different pieces can fit together.Only for training to reduce the amount of trips back to the FARP I'll make an exception. -
spiderpig replied to the topic Gazelle Weapon Expansion Mod.
October 10 at 11:19 pm
The weapons are all rated to work up to 4300 meters. But some can work at rarther ranges at the right scenarios. The TOW4 is limited by the wire to 4300 though. The hellfire seems to have issues beyond 4500. The vickers I've had success with firing a little beyond 5000 by aiming at the base of the vehicle. More work is going to be done to improve these in the future. The initla goal goal was to get more weapons on the gazelle that will work within it range. If we can extend the range in the future we will. -
BaDCrC created new topic Mission Editing: Full video tutorials by Ranger79.
October 10 at 8:47 pm
Pretty awesome job available on youtube from Ranger79. Everything you need to create great missions. No more excuses! DCS World Mission Building - Tutorial Video #1: Getting Started {artsexylightbox youtube="nyqLRnY8yuI"}{/artsexylightbox} DCS World Mission Building - Tutorial Video #2: Mission Editor Interface {artsexylightbox youtube="K8RB-AhUUZ8"}{/artsexylightbox} DCS World Mission Building - Tutorial Video #3: Unit Placement {artsexylightbox youtube="NEHNEzZcBng"}{/artsexylightbox} DCS World Mission Building - Tutorial Video #4: Trigger Movement; Vehicle Movement {artsexylightbox youtube="3n9Whx1xL28"}{/artsexylightbox} DCS World Mission Building - Tutorial Video #5: Add Radio Item & Mission Goals {artsexylightbox youtube="vua4qH4Fv2c"}{/artsexylightbox} DCS World Mission Building - Tutorial Video #6: Randomization & Emission Trigger {artsexylightbox youtube="QRKdRFuNhe8"}{/artsexylightbox} DCS World Mission Building - Tutorial Video #7: Mission Testing and Final Adjustments {artsexylightbox youtube="QlHs5KYDxOY"}{/artsexylightbox} DCS World Mission Building Quickie Tutorial - Converting Voice Files for DCS {artsexylightbox youtube="Aa_L40JPFzM"}{/artsexylightbox} -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Gazelle Weapon Expansion Mod.
October 10 at 8:10 pm
I can see a lot of benefits from having the smoke rockets indeed, for a recon chopper.As for the other weapons, although it is certainly pretty fun, I understood the weapons limitations are still the same ones than the original weapons, i.e you can't shoot a hellfire or a vikhr beyond 4300m? But having 8 or 12 missiles will certainly help to stay hot a little bit longer than with 4 TOWs. I'll upload the file on the BSD repository for ovGME. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Gazelle Weapon Expansion Mod.
October 10 at 8:06 pm
SA342M -4 to 8 AGM-114 Hellfire Missiles (Outer stations 1 & 2 only) -6 to 12 VIKHR ATGMs (Outer stations 1 & 2 only) -4 to 8 BGM-71 TOWS -Lau 7 Smoke rockets -FAB-100 Bombs (all stations) -SAB-100 Flares (all stations) SA342L -M151 Hydra Rockets x 19, HE -M151 Hydra Rockets x 19 WP -S-8 Series rockets -UB-32 Rocket pods SA342 Mistral (Positioning of these stores may have some clipping, and this is meant to be mostly for fun -AIM-9X -Magix II -R-60M -R-73 Additional goodies: U.S. Army OH-16 Arapaho Livery (Thanks to Skyknight) FALCON Defense Livery (Fictional Defense Security Contractor) -
spiderpig created new topic Gazelle Weapon Expansion Mod.
October 10 at 10:15 am
Been working with community members to create this mod and it's in it's first release: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=175353 Should make the Gazelle a little more powerful when flying with the KA-50's. -
-smil- replied to the topic Application for -smil-.
October 9 at 12:00 pm
Bad CrC, I'm trying to learn my way around the site here, but I am locked out of the Library and training info. I truly miss flying with humans. :) Cary -
-smil- replied to the topic Application for -smil-.
October 6 at 12:39 pm
Thank you Eagle Rising. Good to go now. -
-smil- replied to the topic Application for -smil-.
October 4 at 5:38 pm
Can you please PM the TS info to me.... want to get it connected to the server. thanks -
Brain replied to the topic Debrief Hostages Rescue mission.
October 4 at 2:24 pm
First thing: I missed the briefing because TS was muted (habit, was warming up) and only then somebody dropped me a message. I did read the briefing hours before and it wasn't anything complicated but a quick refresh would have been nice. People on TS are probably waiting for something, so just poke in the future.I was hoping for a more experienced No. 2 so I could observe and learn, that's why I asked for a slot in the back. It was up to me to take the initiative and respond to a fuel call later, responding in sequence mostly wasn't a thing. On the other hand I missed the call to fan out and recon the LZ (not to mention my issues on the ramp and forgetting the de-ice). Shu lifted most of the weight here and recon + planning went smoothly.No.2 was probably going in too low for the initial strike, a mistake I would be making later as well, because NOE is what choppers are made for .. right? Still, the attack went rather smoothly. I was terrain masked on the MANPADs which Red 1 took care of. Shortly after I was cleaning up small arms on the surrounding hilltops. In the process Red 3 got shot down and Red 1 had to fall back to the FARP, which left me in charge.There was some confusion about some triggers not working so I wasn't sure about the gameplan. Angel was falling back so my instinct was to stick to them, even after the refugee convoy was spotted. "RTB, don't crash and hope somebody else takes command". When the first wave of vehicles appeared I rushed back but had already lost some altitude. I did find them very quickly ... when they popped over a ridge a few KM in front of me. Loosing engine power I had to fall back as well but wasn't able to repair. I did eventually respawn but only to clean up from a save distance.I think it's a really nice mission. Flight conditions are a bit challenging and you end up flying circles in this cauldron of mountains. Shu did a really good job getting us through. It was a failure in the end but at least for me that's some lessons learned. -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Debrief Hostages Rescue mission.
October 3 at 10:39 pm
Looked like fun I'm wish I could have made it but you can't really pass up flying for especially when you're getting paid for it ? I'm not flying this week so I need my fix so hopefully we can do a mission even though Bad isn't going to be here. -
spike replied to the topic Debrief Hostages Rescue mission.
October 3 at 8:43 pm
It was a fun flight, even if we failed miserably, died, and caused the deaths of all the hostages. I probably shouldn't have flow the Mi-8 since it was only my third time in the cockpit, but trial by fire is the best way, right? Nothing like setting up the HOTAS in mid-flight and googling the anti-ice switches in this Russian cockpit (and that's my excuse for my sometimes poor formation flying....yeah, that's it...). ShuRugal was brilliant in leading the flight, and the only time I didn't know what was going on was when I being shot down. As always, my thanks for everyone and their patience while I learn how to fly with other human beings. It's completely different from single player, and in a good way. On to the pics: I don't know if it was Molevitch or Brain, but one of the Ka-50s had some serious issues starting up... Attempting some formation flying with Bad: Landed at the Forming Up Point to allow the Black Sharks to reconnoiter the target area: After dodging all sorts of AAA, I landed at the spot where I hoped that last truck in the distance had some of the hostages: Turns out that "truck" was a "tank" with a "really big gun" I died shortly thereafter, and respawned to learn that all the hostages were dead. So I watched Bad make a smooth, controlled descent with his Mi-8 to a perfect landing. Pretty much the exact opposite of my landings in the Mi-8 I had fun...thanks again everyone for the good times! -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Application for -smil-.
October 3 at 2:11 pm
Hi Smil! I'll be travelling this whole week, back on Friday night.You can give a shout on the shoutbox if you want to fly this week or enroll in a mission if someone propose one. Until then , I'll be working on my next mission and let you know when it is ready. Also, we are trying to have some very informal fun flights once a week so you are most welcome to join. -
-smil- replied to the topic Application for -smil-.
October 3 at 11:48 am
Sorry, was still getting settled in. First couple days after retiring threw me for a loop. It affects you in ways you don't think about but I am getting back to normal. Just so you know... you go from the happiest day of your life to feeling like someone died. I'm told it is normal and it passes. Tuesday evening should be a good day for a start. I've got the pit running well with 1.5 and 2.0. If you don't mind me saying, it is friggin wonderful! DCS is running pretty well for me. I still miss SoftTH, but I'm running full textures and it looks great! Three year old system still impresses. I have TS loaded and working, just need to verify my volumes with someone. I'll be in and out with the ToDo list, but I will plan on flying in any events I can from now on. Anyone wants to take a free flight, just let me know. I practice in the VA public server mostly. Thanks! Sorry to miss Sunday, I look forward to taking part now. -smil- Cary -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Debrief Hostages Rescue mission.
October 3 at 6:18 am
A few more screenshots.I made some corrections to the mission and uploaded it in the library by the way. Sunrise takeoff of Angels while Rewolves are getting ready Airborne. Heading 277 to W1 Leaving Vaziani CTR on a cold and foggy morning Got this formation flight almost nailed this time! Angel 2 down. Angel 1 flaring while a SAM is taking another shot. Little the SAM knows that a Vikhr is already on its way for him. Escorting Angel flight to EA from Kapel FARP. -
BaDCrC created new topic Debrief Hostages Rescue mission.
October 3 at 12:10 am
Pilots: Shurugal (KA50 leader)/Spike (Mi-8)/Brain (Ka-50)/Molevitch (Ka-50)/BaDCrC (Mi-8)Mission time: 3 hours (remember to log them in your logbook) Starting up in the cold early morning at Vaziani airport. Mission debrief:First of all, congrats to all the pilots who all showed a pretty good knowledge and experience of their aircraft. The mission was not easy as it involved combat at high altitude with a very significant risk of icing. Not only you guys had to deal with enemy fire, but also you had to manage your engines pushed to the max and weight+fuel. In addition, with 5 helicopters on the frequency and no specific comm plan, there was a high potential for total chaos on the radio. And that didn't happen. Wow. Special mention to Shurugal, who not only volunteered to lead the flight, but actually did it at a master class level. Shurugal, your radio procedures were impressive and I believe this helped a lot to maintain discipline on the frequency. It also helped the pilots with no previous MP experience to work together in a coordinated manner. Starting up and taxiing went great. Proper procedures were followed and we were all able to meet at the W1 10 minutes later. 116km of navigation to the Engagement Area with a stop over in the middle to pick up the commandos at FARP Torba Navigation was lead by Shurugal and the Mi-8 had no specific issue to follow at 200 kph. Angel 1 & 2 were able to pick up troops at Torba while the Ka50 were orbiting above, then resumed navigation to Farp Kapel. FARP Kapel was used as a regroup point to rearm/refuel. MI-8 were left at the FARP to let the 3 Ka50 time to ingress to EA and do some recon. Once the targets spotted and shared on the datalink, the Redwolves came back to escort the Angels to the extraction point. Targets were engaged at the same time the angels were dropping the troops with a pretty good coordination. Sadly, one of the enemy targets had been missed and a MANPADS SA-18 hit Angel 2 while both Angels were approaching drop off. Angel 2 survived and crash landed. MANPADS was takn care off pretty quickly, and this allowed Angel 1 to pick up the Angel 2 crew and take them back to FARP Kapel where a spare Mi-8 was waiting for them. During this time, hostages reached the pickup point but had to wait for the 2 angels to come back from the Farp. This is when the shit started to be real as nearby terro camp started to send some reinforcements. First with a Northbound convoy made of BMPs, T55 and Zu23 on Ural, then a second convoy Southbound with about the same type of armament. Redwolves started to get engaged from the Northbound convoy as some of the KA-50 got too close to the EA. And we started to see some hits. Red 3 on his way back for repair after direct hit from one of the ENY convoy while Angel flight is hurrying to extraction point At some point, there was not enough cover for the hostages and although the Southbound convoy was finally processed, the Northbound convoy got close enough to start to engage the hostages. One T55 made it to the hostages and slaughter everyone left. It was too late for the Mi-8 when flying back to the pick up area to pick up anyone. It was decided to leave the area and land at FARP Kapel. Survivors made it back to Kapel FARP. IN the background, the infamous Samsari mountains where the tragedy happened So we failed to bring back our hostages, but the mission overall was a pretty good one. I really enjoyed it as it went very well. No major bugs (except this script error I made with the commandos on the drop off point) and the missing message that all hostages were killed. Thanks again to all the pilots who did really well. Thanks to Shurugal for his brilliant leadership on this mission. We'll fly it again and hopefully succeed this time. Let me know what you think about it, share your screenshots and your ideas to improve the experience at BSD. -
Molevitch replied to the topic Calling for missions!.
October 2 at 5:07 pm
Hi All,Well, I want to build some missions, but feel very conscious of my inexperience doing it. Then when I try, I in into that thing, "What do I do now, how do I get this to happen?" etc. plus I have not found much time recently. Next week I have some free time in daylight hours, so I will try. btw, for me being uk based, 4pm est is great starting time, so if I do a mission, it will be proposed to start at that time, I guess on a Sunday for everyone else's benefit. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Calling for missions!.
October 2 at 1:57 am
OK. I re-organized the library again and added in the restricted section a Missions Library with all the missions+briefings. I also added a Mission Editor section. -
Drakoz replied to the topic Calling for missions!.
October 1 at 2:29 am
Yes, BaD, please post your old missions on the website. Also, everyone, don't forget all Multiplayer missions end up getting saved as a Track (.trk) file in your Saved Games folder. You can load it up in the mission editor and replay it single player, or use it to learn, or edit to create other missions. To get more missions, there's nothing wrong with re-flying a past mission also. But thanks for pointing out we can also find and propose we fly a mission someone else created and posted online. Regarding re-flying past missions, another option for people that want to quickly create a mission is to take a previous mission and change it up and then re-fly it. Say move it to a different valley or town, but otherwise, keep the same units, triggers, etc. A little plagiarizing can go a log way. :-) As for my own mission design, I'm the kind of person that starts slow because I like to play and try things, but I eventually become an expert because of it. I hope to do a lot of mission design work this weekend. Once I start releasing missions, they will likely start coming out more quickly. So I'm looking forward to reaching that point. Regards,Michael -
spike replied to the topic Calling for missions!.
October 1 at 12:32 am
I would love to see some of the previous missions for a couple of reasons. If there are a few people online and we decide to have a spur-of-the-moment flight, it would be great to have a library from which to pull missions. The other reason is to see what kinds of missions there are and how they're done. It's been awhile since I created missions and I'm having to relearn a lot of the basics. It helped a ton to just look at my old missions and triggers and see what I did. I have no idea how to create larger missions, so I would love to see some of the ones that you guys have flown. I also don't know where to announce any kind of mission, especially if I'm just looking for some guinea pigs to help test the MP aspect of it. I pinged you directly for my first mission, Bad, but I don't want to do that all the time (unless you just love the abuse). :) -
spiderpig replied to the topic Calling for missions!.
September 30 at 9:55 am
I think it's a good idea. I got some ideas about missions I want to create to it'll give me a good excuse to do it. -
BaDCrC created new topic Calling for missions!.
September 30 at 2:06 am
Hi guys, OK, so BSD is now 7 months old and I think 99% of the missions flown were proposed by me. It's OK because I really enjoy making missions, but if we want to sustain the '1 mission' per week objective (or 1 fun mission + 1 serious one per week), we do need to have more volunteers to propose missions. This is becoming a bit more critical lately because I have to travel a lot in the coming weeks. Next week for example will be dead quiet if you guys are waiting after me.I purposely use the term 'propose missions' instead of 'create missions' as the objective for BSD is not about creating missions but flying missions to keep everyone happy and busy. I know that creating missions takes a bit of time when you are not completely fluent in the Mission Editor. I know there are several pilots that are working on one too. Helicopters missions are a bit specific compared to fixed wing ones, so it's kinda easier to create missions as you can make sure they should be flyable with a reasonable threat level and distances to fly. Nonetheless, if you are feeling completely incompetent in mission editing, this does not mean you cannot propose missions created by others (like UH-1H Tactical Air Assault COOP by eight ball). I am also thinking to create a section of the website where I will upload the missions I already created if you guys want to fly them again. What do you think? -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Briefing [Mi-8/Ka-50] Hostages Rescue (Sunday Afternoon!).
September 30 at 1:12 am
We'll see. But we definitively need to have more than 2 rotaries otherwise the mission is doomed. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Application for -smil-.
September 29 at 10:41 pm
Hi Smil! Glad to see you finally joining us! Seriously, we don't really need to check you out so do you want to join us for Sunday's afternoon mission? -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Application for -smil-.
September 29 at 2:07 am
Glad to see you again -Smil-, and thanks for the FB groups too! Bad or Eagle will be along to set up a flight with you. I would but I'm out of town for work the rest of the week. So our reunion in the sky will have to wait. Oh I found the S3 scores from way back. The site is still up! Welcome sir and looking forward to getting in the air with you again soon. BK -
-smil- created new topic Application for -smil-.
September 28 at 1:22 pm
Hello, real name is Cary. -smil- is pronounced "smile". Call Sign: -smil- Age: 56 Connection: is pretty good, Comcast upgraded version. No tests run lately. Timezone: CST Availability: Retiring in three days. If I'm here, I'll fly. DCS Time: 'Been thinking in Russian since '95 and Flanker. Own a 90% functioning Ka-50 pit, the only DCS aircraft I fly. They fix a Ka-50 bug, I swear I'll buy every module they make! I forgot a lot about DCS, but it is coming back. ME Experience: Limited. I am weeks to months away from making missions, but I will. Chopper: Ka-50. Why.. why... WHY? I always wanted to fly with Bad CrC. Serendipity brought him to my country one timezone away and it is just meant to be. I enjoy every aspect of flight with the Ka-50, especially non-combat flight, as you may be seeing in my missions I build. I once flew and have a non-current PPL. No worries though, I'll sling those weapons wherever I'm told. I l o v e formation flight. I love flying as a wingman and I look forward to starting at the bottom in training. I held every position in a squadron, in a career lasting over 10 years, now flying sims for 21 years. -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Briefing [Mi-8/Ka-50] Hostages Rescue (Sunday Afternoon!).
September 28 at 3:03 am
I'm in, I'll take the dump truck unless others want too. Then I can be in a Ka-50. I'm good either way. -
BaDCrC created new topic Briefing [Mi-8/Ka-50] Hostages Rescue (Sunday Afternoon!).
September 26 at 5:33 am
We will try to fly this mission Sunday afternoon if some of our UK and German pilots want to fly with us. Take off for east-coast is 1600. 1500 for PST. If we have some people interrested, we can use UniversRadio. This mission is proposing a pretty long navigation across areas of Caucasus map you probably never explored. It's pretty interesting for Mi-8, navigation wise. Ka-50 will have to escort and secure some extraction areas. We will also have plenty of time to work on those formations. It's high altitude, it's cold and it's windy. We will try to follow departure and arrival radio procedures. UG27 ATIS 141.000Mhz / GND/TWR on 140.000Mhz / TBILISSI TMA on 138.000Mhz. FARP TORBA 125.500Mhz and KAPEL 126.500Mhz. Read the full briefing HERE. Expect to spend 3 hours total for this mission. -
Blackwolf replied to the topic OvGME: JSGME on steroids!.
September 26 at 3:30 am
You better knock on wood Eagle! I know one night you told me you don't turn them off. I guess if it was a huge game changing update it might mess it up, but the little fixes updates may not mess with mods at all. When ED does merge 1.5 and 2.0 I'd turn them off for sure! -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic OvGME: JSGME on steroids!.
September 26 at 1:53 am
I'll be honest I haven't been doing that and I haven't had any problems... well not any more than anyone else -
BaDCrC replied to the topic OvGME: JSGME on steroids!.
September 26 at 1:43 am
Yep. Same for DCS update. You have to be careful to turn everything off before. -
Blackwolf replied to the topic OvGME: JSGME on steroids!.
September 25 at 2:10 pm
Yeah, his version of the map is awesome. After one update I forgot to turn it back on and I could tell right away. I flew that mission with the stock map. I don't know if it makes a difference but I turn off all mods before letting an update run, then turn them back on. With IL2 1946 and JSGME it could screw up your install if you didn't so its a habit to do it. -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Debrief combat training (Tuesday 20th).
September 24 at 12:43 am
I'm with Drakoz here, Dead is Dead should be for an event, not an every day squad mission. I do like the rescue idea though. Here's what I mean..Way back when in Warbirds we would have an event twice a month. A lot of squads flew in it ,sometimes it was over 300 in a night. It was called the Squad Select Series . Dead is dead is the rule. Every squad that flew in it would use their squad nights geared to practicing what they were tasked with doing in the S3. Squad night you could spawn as many times as needed to get it right for the S3. Whatever the outcome on a given night the map would stay as it is until next time. So if you bombed a base bad enough that it couldn't be used next time it still couldn't unless it was repaired in the time frame and so on. -smil- played in it too. I'm sure he would also say how much fun it was..unless you messed up on take off and killed yourself..or dropped your bombs on the runway while running up and killed most of your squad! (off topic) If you haven't seen his post for "FNG..soon" I thought I knew his call sign, turns out I've been flying with and against him for years. Small world. Here is a link to his ka-50 cockpit https://forums.eagle.ru/album.php?albumid=254 I found my old stats..they are still up! bkwolf (off topic) So it was a mix of flight sim,role playing and game master. Drakoz mission sounds more like that. In the sense you couldn't win it in a night or every time you ran it the outcome could be different. Dead is dead wouldn't be much fun every time, maybe the rescue yourself idea would. BK -
Drakoz replied to the topic Debrief combat training (Tuesday 20th).
September 23 at 1:53 am
Ha! Excess pilots. Not only are you dead, but instead of getting the chance to respawn yourself, you are out, and the wait listed guy is in. That's brutal. Though I'd hope if we get guys on a wait list, instead we expand the missions to allow everyone in. Regarding picking up pilots who are downed, I actually love that idea, but I didn't suggest it because seems most the time we don't survive. But maybe we play it as if you do survive and it adds the element of having to do a rescue. Or maybe it will become an incentive for people to practice auto rotations, or remember to eject for those that can. Then again, seems the Ka-50 guys always ride their mount right into the ground. :-O Another idea is to have a rescue helicopter on standby. The downed pilot must fly his own rescue mission successfully before he is allowed to jump back into his previous aircraft. Of course, if you were shot down in a hot area, you will need to seek help from the other helicopters to make a safe extraction. This stuff doesn't even need to be scripted in missions. It can be up to the mission maker to determine what the "death" policy is for a mission and people just follow it. Though it may require scripting a rescue radio to start transmitting at the crash site. Seriously, when a bird goes down, everyone's primary task should switch to find and protect the downed crew until they are rescued or at least out of danger (the rescue zone is no longer hot). Yes, Tuesday training nights should always be respawn of course as it is a casual night. I have CA and I have several times considered how I might use it to play "game master". I don't mean intentionally trying to win against the real players. I mean like a game master who directs the game play on both blue and red in order to make the mission exciting (like Zeus in ARMA 3). I think CA can let me do that - popping into any aircraft or ground vehicle, as well as being field commander on both sides - for the purpose of stirring shit up. If you guys haven't figured it out, I spent many years doing roll playing games (AD&D, Pathfinder more recently), so I am always thinking not as a mission designer, but as a game master. For example, the missions I'm working on will have a strong ground contingent in them so it isn't just helicopters shooting at ground targets. But in fact the helicopters really are CAS for a large ground battle and without the CAS, the good guys will lose. This partially alleviates the need to find targets by being a target to draw fire. If a bunch of tanks or infantry are already shooting at each other, you know where the bad guys are. My first mission will rely heavily on red and blue beating the crap out of each other, and the helicopters will be coming to save the day. If I can eventually work CA and "game mastering" into the mix, I will. -
spike replied to the topic Debrief combat training (Tuesday 20th).
September 23 at 12:51 am
I agree with the idea of dead = dead. I know Tuesday's mission was a training/fun mission, and in those instances I prefer to respawn at will. But any "serious" mission should be permadeath. Bad's idea of excess pilots is a good one, too. Jumping into the enemy's vehicles may be unfair, since that one "enemy" will know the routes, strategy, etc. Combine that with not being idiotic AI, it could be another slaughter similar to Bad's last example. Either way, it was fun! -
spike replied to the topic OvGME: JSGME on steroids!.
September 22 at 10:59 pm
Thanks for the list, BK! I couldn't stand the blue cockpit (I know, I know), but I went with Ricardo's black HD one. Also really enjoying Starways' map. Thanks again for bringing these to my attention. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Debrief combat training (Tuesday 20th).
September 22 at 9:08 pm
As you said Drakoz, the no respawn rule is really nice when there's a lot of pilots flying on the mission. An alternate to this is to have an "extraction" rule, meaning that if your chopper is shot down, assuming you kinda crash landed your aircraft or ejected, then you need to wait for another player to extract you (like landing next to the downed chopper). We can also have pilot's on stand by. Say you have a 6 choppers mission and 8 registered pilots for it, the excess pilots (the website registration system can handle stand-by lists) can be waiting to jump in the next chopper available after someone got shot down. Also, a funny option is to have the downed pilots jump into an enemy vehicle in CA (assuming they have it). Talking about that, I flew Tuesday's mission once with two guys controlling the AAA in CA, and it was a complete slaughter for the helicopters. Those guys were hiding in the forests, or waiting for a few helicopters to pass before popping out from the woods and shoot from behind, or again going into evasive maneuvers whenever they were engaged. Hilarious, but AI, although they are aiming better, are much less vicious. -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Debrief combat training (Tuesday 20th).
September 22 at 2:47 am
I actually don't think the view distance is that bad compared to real life and to be honest having zoom is pretty nice I keep the button on my collective and I'm ashamed to say I've reached for it in real life. In the first chapter of that book they talk about not seeing the VC until they were literally hovering over them. I agree that tactics are definitely going to be different but It's that way in real life the enemy is always going to be one step ahead so we train to a base standard that we are able to adapt when needed. Hopefully the AI will get better later on but right now I'm just looking forward to being able to use trees as actual concealment. -
Drakoz replied to the topic Debrief combat training (Tuesday 20th).
September 22 at 2:31 am
One thing I like with organized play in multiplayer ARMA is the concept that you die, and you are out for the night. Most public servers just follow the re-spawn any time model because they have to - no organization. But organized groups like United Operations (who I have played with a few times), or Shacktac follow the dead is dead concept. Well, you can spectate on a separate Teamspeak channel heckling as everyone else dies, so it's not so bad. It is harsh, but it makes you act more like you would in real life, and since it is a mil-sim, part of the sim is entrenching the fear of god in the players. This works, in my opinion, because the 2-3 hour ARMA missions also have between 50 and 150 players. So there is a lot going on and the dead people have plenty to watch and heckle. In DCS, with only 4 pilots, this obviously doesn't work. Not enough for the dead people to spectate, and loose just 2 pilots, and the remaining pilots are possibly no longer combat effective. I like the idea, however, of forcing the tactics to change due to the loss of aircraft. For example, maybe enforcing the idea that the dead respawn together and re-enter the AO as a backup group after a short wait. Or maybe the idea that the ones still alive can make the decision to fly back to the FARP or airport, and then regroup and go out as a full squad again in fresh aircraft. But there is still a wait for the dead. You don't just get to re-engage immediately. As for my other comments, regarding tactics, I'm thinking about DCS tactics because the enemy is AI, not real. So in real life, no we wouldn't use these tactics, but with DCS, the AI are very predictable which sucks but it compensates for the fact that they are also eagle eyed and can see us the moment our rotor blades crest a hill at 5K meters (which is BS and not likely to happen in real life). Also, the tactics I'm talking about are partially a factor that we can't see soldiers or even technicals at even 1-2K distance most the time (the graphics just don't do it), but in real life, our eyes might be able to pick out such details. So when I talk about tactics like I did above, I'm talking about learning what works in DCS even though I know that doesn't work in real life. The tactic I'm describing requires patience, communication, and a good chain of command. And it is enhanced by a fear of death so people want to use the tactics so as not to have to wait half an hour to rejoin. Thoughts? -
BaDCrC liked a reply to the topic Debrief combat training (Tuesday 20th).
September 22 at 1:26 am
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Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Debrief combat training (Tuesday 20th).
September 22 at 12:42 am
Flying low to spot/draw the enemy fire like I said last night was a real tactic but those times are over with the increased threat of RPGs, AAA, and manpads. Low Level Hell This book is a great resource on what it would be like to be a scout pilot. Now days we would never get that close to AAA you would do like you described before keep your range and observe the target area. I do have to admit my knowledge of attack tactics is very weak the most I really got was the fundamentals of scouting. and to be honest I have really been teaching you things that are common in the lift community so I have no idea if it is the same as the attack guys. I will try to reach out to some of my Apache friends to see if they have any better information but for now all that I really am going on is the basic combat maneuvers from the .203 and some other sources. I will try to make another lesson on it in the future but this is a little lower on priority list since it is out of my "lane" so to speak. I definitely like this type of training mission it puts people on the spot to make decisions based off of limited information and helps develop our tactics and communications. Definitely room for improvement but there always is. I think in real life you wouldn't be so quick to fly that low when you think there is AAA around I know Bad and I talked about having a single helicopter and how it adds a new level of fear and cautiousness. I think that might be a little extreme for us but I think a compromise would be having to wait until the other aircraft are at the farp before the dead players can respawn sort of like a tag in system. Anyway that's my two cents it was still a lot of fun and can't wait to do it again -
Drakoz replied to the topic Debrief combat training (Tuesday 20th).
September 21 at 11:44 pm
My near miss with a missile. Not as close as I remember it at the time, but close enough. -
Drakoz replied to the topic Debrief combat training (Tuesday 20th).
September 21 at 10:57 pm
I'm not sure if it is just DCS (because are are going against AI, not real people), or if it is just the real tactic you have to use against AAA, but the concept of finding the enemy by letting them shoot at you is one I realized in the A-10A way back in the LOMAC days. Flying at a defensible distance and altitude until you see the smoke of the SAM launch, quickly remembering where you saw it and taking action to avoid the missile. In the helicopters, I am perfectly comfortable jumping up and letting a AAA target me so someone else in a more defensible position can destroy the target. Right now, however, it seems to be the only tactic that works in DCS because the AI is too good at finding and targeting us. Such is the detriment of going against AI in any mil sim. When that missile almost hit me, though, I wasn't paying attention. I saw the smoke and was like "ah, is that a missile?....... Oh shit!" I moved to the left just in time. I could have reached out and grabbed it, it was so close. But of course, stupid me didn't even think about flares. I need to practice flaring as a reaction. I supposed the other tactic is to use long range optics on the Ka-50 (or the Gazelle if done right) to find targets and shoot them before they shoot you. But again, it becomes a range vs. range thing. If your optics allow you to find and shoot the target while being outside of their range, you are fine. Even with the Ka-50, that isn't always possible. In the Gazelle, I often find a target at long (safe) range and hence have locked my camera on that position, then using cover, I fly in to the target, get within range, popping up every now and then to make sure I know what is between me and the target. Then when I'm in a good spot, I switch to the #2 seat, pop up and fire before they can get a good shot back. I did this a lot last night in fact, even in the Gazelle L model, using my optics to keep track of where the target was as I used terrain blocking to move in close enough that I might be able to do a gun or missile run. But of course it was better to let you guys take out the targets with guided missiles. I was hoping later in the mission to get more bold, try to get within 1KM or less, pop up for a quick shot of rockets or guns, but the server crash issues ruined that. But regarding the tactics I followed last night. At that 3rd town, I was able to consistently draw the AAA fire at my location by popping up. I'd get RWR immediately, followed by gun fire within a predictable period of time. I could have done that all day long, pop up, draw fire, and tell one of you to shoot the target. The difficulty comes in following procedure and sticking to the plan which is where we had trouble last night. The tactic works, but it's a question of being patient and following the practice. As I learned from playing ARMA online, a couple hours of moving into an AO, setting up cross fire and flanking, all for about 5 minutes of actual shooting. But that's doing it the "real" way, as opposed to wanting to go rogue and just attacking because you can. Well, the tactic works as long as we do the first step. It requires first identifying all (most) the targets in the area so we know where we can ingress safely and so there are no surprises. This is a matter of finding the safe vs. dangerous zones. It is best to think of it like a bunch of infantry running form fox hole to fox hole, maybe using suppressing fire at times. All methods such as flanking, having spotters, etc. all apply equally well. This is where the perfectness of the AI is annoying. In a real conflict, you could hide and cover through trees for example, see a target without being spotted (or spotted quickly), but for the AI, trees don't exist. So as soon as you crest the horizon of a hilltop, they are immediately turning toward you and shooting as soon as they have acquired the target. I'm sure I'm saying nothing new to most of you guys. It is kind of new to me, so looking for confirmation of my thoughts. Obviously, the above tactics require a good chain of command (a commander that has a plan and implements it, and the squad following those commands). I hadn't commanded a group like that before last night, so I was a little unsure how I should effectively use everyone. For the Ka-50's it was easy. You guys could find a spot far off enough to be effective without getting shot down (most the time). I was less sure what to do with Eagle in the Gazelle M. Doing it again, I would probably have used myself as a spotter in a safe flanking position, Eagle to draw fire, and the Ka-50's to shoot. But then depending on the target (and available weapons - spreading out who was shooting), I would have changed rolls for Eagle vs. BaD and Spike, giving the KA-50's a chance to play rabbit. But the key point I didn't follow well last night was getting into a good flanking observation spot. If I had, I could have used my camera to identify stuff that the rest of you couldn't see and helped direct fire. So the question is, are we interested in that type of mission - where we have to be patient, let the commander come up with a plan and execute it, maybe trying new stuff and learning along the way, or are we more interested in operating on our own, or maybe in pairs, or just individual run and gun passes. All mission types are valid, but the one that is likely most effective is what I have explained above. Regardless I had a lot of fun last night. Thanks again BaD for the mission editing. Regards,Michael -
Blackwolf replied to the topic OvGME: JSGME on steroids!.
September 21 at 8:44 pm
Mods I must have are: KA-50: TGP in color, Devrims hud in English, and Ricardo/Dev's blue HD cockpit ,JTAC for ka-50 and MI-8, ABRIS nav mod Mi-8: Vasilissa Blue, JTAC, Mi-8 Weapon mod( corrects the look of the rockets) Gazelle: Devrims English cockpit Other mods: Starways Caucasus map, Diveplanes soundpack, Devrims Su-27 grey and English cockpit, FW-190 English pit,109 English pit and the ME model skin and payload viewer. Along with the BSD mods as well. I will try this new one out. I did see it in the ED forums but didn't read too much about it. BK -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Debrief combat training (Tuesday 20th).
September 21 at 8:15 pm
Awesome! Sorry I missed it, work called at 830 so I had to go. -
BaDCrC created new topic Debrief combat training (Tuesday 20th).
September 21 at 4:53 am
Pilots: BadCrC, Drakoz, Eagle_Rising, SpikeDuration: 2.5 hours (update logbook!) A fun flight with some serious firepower to overcome this time. Since it was a training, we knew in advance the area where the enemy will wait for us. But still, some positions were a challenge to take out. Difficulty was increased gradually. Two Ka-50 and two SA-342 (L and M) took off from Sochi, heading to the border. SA-342 were to be the scouts while Ka-50 would stay at the rear shooting down at range the targets desigated by the Gazelles. It turned out that Gazelles were more used as to draw fire, for the Ka-50 to cover and destroy whatever was on the other side of the bullets tracers. Take off: Drakoz was leading. We finally got the grip on the formation take off procedure and it looked about good. Still some hesitations with the use of the anti collision. But overall, a nice improvement.Chalk callsigns used during the formation flight. It was a bit confusing though to have to switch to our callsigns when leaving the formation. Callsigns shall be better discussed at the pre take off briefing. Ingress: Formation flight was pretty much a disaster, as none of the aircraft were able to maintain a constant speed and altitude, making the formation impossible to maintain. To be worked again. Radio coms were good though, and leader was clearly announcing next waypoints while acknowledgments were done properly. First BP (waypoint Delta or 4):No specific issue. Vulcans quickly taken out by the 2 Ka-50 while the Gazelles were finishing the light vehicles. Second BP (waypoint Golf or 7): A bit more tricky as it was positioned at the exit of a corner turn. We quickly drew fire from the Vulcans sitting on top of the small buildings and got our first battle damages/loss. Work as scout/heavy worked well. Third BP (waypoint India or 9): Change of leader. Eagle is switching with Drakoz to lead the attack on India. Respawned aircraft joining us at Hotel with new machines. Several Vulcans and armed Humvees to take down. Drakoz narrowly avoided to first missile shot at him from India while flying low. This allowed us to spot several air threats and deal with them, once the perfect spot found. Fourth BP (waypoint India or 9): Two Gepards made our lives really difficult with multiple losses.Once taken out by Bad from 8 km away at the crest of a mountain. Disconnections and DCS crashes cut short this mission. Conclusion: A lot of progress on take off procedure. Better radio communications. Formation flight to review. Good leading although it takes a lot of effort to figure out where everybody is during an attack. The first attacks were properly responding the the leader's tactics, the next ones were a bit 'lone wolf' type. But datalink and radio comms were used extensively.Because of the surrounding narrow terrain, it was difficult for the gazelle to fulfill its role of scout as they were pretty quick in the EA (Egagement Area) and not watching from out of range of the enemy. Nevertheless, there was a nice attempt from Drakoz to maintain the Ka50 as heavy back support against AA awhile Gazelles were dealing with lighter targets and infantry. No overkill. In general, it as great flying with you guys as we are starting to get used to fly together and get a better feel of the tactics to follow in combat zones. -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Cool/Interesting pictures.
September 21 at 12:24 am
SO I totally forgot about this at the end of primary flight tanning we were supposed to take a class photo and make a commemorative plaque we spent all of our money on booze for our IPs so we had to get creative -
Drakoz replied to the topic Welcome to Brain.
September 21 at 12:08 am
The signups are mainly just a formality - so the organizer knows who (or if anyone) is coming. There's no cut off for the signup, but of course it is best to sign up early so the organizer knows people will be there. If you can't sign up, there may be a permission problem on the website. So speak up if that is the case. I just signed up for tonight's training flight. Wasn't sure I would make it until just now. But it would also be fine to just show up if you can because it's casual. For the real missions (typically Thur night), of course it is important to show up on time for briefing and kick off as adding a helicopter late in the mission is less than ideal. Tues. are generally casual, training days so that doesn't matter as much. A chance for us to work out and practice techniques, radio brevity, learn to work together, etc. -
Brain replied to the topic Welcome to Brain.
September 20 at 6:30 pm
Knows how to start a Russian attack helicopter, can't read a calendar. However, I was right about being to late so sign up. Every brain farts sometimes ;) -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Welcome to Brain.
September 20 at 5:16 pm
Thursday mission was last week Brain. There is no mission planned this week on thursday yet. -
Brain replied to the topic Welcome to Brain.
September 20 at 4:19 pm
Don't you just love it when you wrote something, want to come back to it a few minutes later and close the window in the mean time? I'm doing too much multi tasking since my rig can handle it.It wasn't as exciting as I hoped for and I'm not feeling any more combat capable but I had fun between all those helis. I see myself enjoying the KA-50 even more once we get into the more serious stuff. This doesn't mean I didn't enjoy chatting with you guys ;) Pleasant surprise to find some model builders around here as well. While I'm on the subject: Primeportal.net & Scalemates.comTo be honest I avoided the auto rotation landing. After playing public for some time and often dealing with total idiots I can't stand waiting 3minutes for startup if I can possibly avoid it (seriously, learn how to use your plane instead of doing low fly-bys, ripping my blades off). I will get to it eventually but for now my goal is to bring her home safe. I might be feeling too confident after I walked away unharmed from a dance with a Shilka (guns kill) and 2 SA-13s a few days ago :DI'm hungry for more but I might have to take a slow start. Planned on joining the Tue flight but something just came up so I probably wont make it. I could attend on Thursday but since I never needed it I have no clue about ARK and HSI slave as noted in the required competencies. Today might have been a good opportunity to go over it really quickly as I'm a fast learner.Can't register for either flight anyways (which is probably just me not signing up in time) but if there is a way to squeeze me in regardless I'm sure you'll let me know....if not, we'll be having another flight soon :) -
BaDCrC replied to the topic OvGME: JSGME on steroids!.
September 20 at 3:46 pm
Well, the mods in the BSD repository server are the ones we are using for missions, adding mostly new objects to add more realism/fun in them. Like landing on a small ship with an engine about to explode, and no hydraulics (kudos to Eagle): We can also imagine to use some specific skins for missions, or customized ones for BSD with our names on each aircraft, and have them available and up to date on the repository. The others are more personal taste. Hence, they are not in the BSD repository. I really like the KA50 HD cockpit from Ricardo and the Vassilia Mi-8 HD cockpit (in English). -
spike replied to the topic OvGME: JSGME on steroids!.
September 20 at 2:58 pm
Nice. Is it wrong that I don't have any mods installed? :) I may have an updated cockpit for the Ka-50, but I just overwrote the vanilla. I haven't used JSGME since Silent Hunter IV, but I'll definitely check it out. What are some of the must-have mods out there (aside from what's on the Links section of the site)? Thanks Bad! -
spiderpig replied to the topic OvGME: JSGME on steroids!.
September 20 at 10:14 am
Looks interesting. Will have to check it out. -
BaDCrC created new topic OvGME: JSGME on steroids!.
September 20 at 5:28 am
As you all know, JSGME is an abandonware now for many years and although it is still working pretty well in most cases, it is nonetheless very limited and basic. So there's this guy Senedion on the forum who rewrote from scratch this software and added some really fantastic feature like multi game support, multi mods profiles, online mod updates from a repository server and support of zipped files. After playing around with it tonight, I can only wholeheartedly recommend it to you guys. Go and get the install file here. (version 1.6.5 as I am writing those lines). Before installing it, make sure you remove all the mods you have installed with JSGME before so you have a clean version of DCS World. Once you start using OvGME, DO NOT use again JSGME at the same time as it will screw up your DCS installation. It's one OR the other. Then go through the usual installation process of OvGME (licence agreement, components,...). At this point you are ready to create your first configuration, in this case for DCS world. Now the cool thing is that you can keep the directory you use to have your JSGME mods as it is and use it for OvGME. It can indeed manage Directory mods just like what JSGME was handling. These are my settings for my config DCS World. Once you hit apply, you are ending up in the main OvGME window with the good old list of mods you use to have with JSGME. Double clicking on a greyed out mod will install it. Double click again and it will remove it. Before starting to re install mod, I suggest you go 'config' then 'snapshot' in order to create a snapshot of the files as they are in a clean DCS world version. This will allow OvGME to check what files were modified when applying mods. The snapshot process took about 3 or 4 minutes on my computer. Now, if you go to 'mods' then 'make Mod-Archive', you can generate a zip file of one of your directory mod. What's cool about OvGME generated zip mod files, is that, of course, it is smaller, but also you can embed a version number that will help you to track if you are running the latest one, and comments, to get a description of the mod for example. Creating a Mod archive from the Vasilissa cockpit mod for Mi-8 directory Once you created a Mod archive file, you can delete the directory of the mod you just archived an use only the zip file from OvGME, as long as the zip file is in the Mod path of the configuration you created. Now, even more cool is the online capability to check and update mods from a repository server. So it turned out I created one for BSD users so you guys can do exactly this before flying a mission requiring mods, without wondering if you got the latest version and worrying about installing the mod correctly in order for it to show up during the mission! For this, go to 'mods', 'repositories', 'configure' then add the following URL: Close the repositories configuration window. Go to 'mods', 'repositories', 'query' and you'll see a list of the official BSD mods with an icon telling you if you already have the mod installed or not in your mod directory, and if yes, if it is at an older or more recent version. If you find you are missing one of the mod from the list, or if your existing mod is not up to date, simply double click to update your mod. How cool is that? You then just have to install the recently downloaded mod by double clicking on it in the main OvGME window. Check out the help in the 'help' drop down menu. It is pretty detailed and easy to understand, well at least in the french version. I didn't read the english one. Let me know if you have questions. -
spike replied to the topic Welcome to Brain.
September 20 at 4:45 am
Nice pics, Blackwolf. And of course, a belated welcome to Brain! (I always picture that name the way zombies say it.) Thanks everyone for letting me join late. As always, fun times were had by all. A bit late, but I thought I'd share some of my own screenshots. This is what happens to me when BK has gun pods: Brain and Eagle trying to kiss: Some fun with flares: And of course, my attempt (crashed Huey) and BK's attempt (overturned Ka-50) at autorotation. Brain and Eagle nailed theirs. This is why I prefer the Blackshark...if the engine dies for whatever reason, I have a parachute and don't have to learn this stuff. :) Welcome again, Brain, and thanks everyone for the fun. -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Welcome to Brain.
September 18 at 3:24 pm
Welcome Brain! That was a lot of fun just flying around and talking with you. I did manage to get some screens this time. Eagle and Spike going for a CAT launch :P Spike doesn't need landing gear! Brain coming in, making it look easy. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Welcome to Brain.
September 18 at 1:57 pm
Welcome Brain! You should now have access to our mess and library with your new trainee status. Waiting to fly your first MP mission to get your wings at BSD! Hope you enjoyed the intro flight with BK and Eagle (thanks guys!). I am looking forward to fly with you next time. BaDCrC. -
Eagle_Rising created new topic Welcome to Brain.
September 18 at 4:25 am
Welcome Brain to BSD Thank you for joining the flight and thank you BK for providing the mission. all though the original plan of flying around the local airfield was thwarted by the AAA in the adjacent village we managed to still get some training in. BK led us to a near by airfield which we used as an opportunity to practice formation flying. Brain did a pretty good job of taking my feedback and applying it on the spot. There was some confusion upon reaching the airfield which brings up a good point that we should also practice entering and exiting traffic patterns. We did manage a few trafic patterns the only comments that I would have on them is that the landings were a little short of the touch down point other than that the patterns were pretty good. We disused VRS a little you should be able to view some of my lessons on aerodynamics in the fundamentals of flight thread once you get Bad changes you to trainee status. We then flew back NOE with me flying lead and Spike ended up joining us in another Huey at the mid way point. I lead us right over the target area were BK and I were shot down rather quickly and Spike lost his tail rotor but made a skillful landing saving his crew and aircraft and Brain managed to take out all the threats. we then practiced autorotations I demonstrated the first one, spike came in second and was to slow on the initial which caused him to fall through on the decel and crashing although the pilots were alive I'm sure they were not happy. Bk almost ran into me on his auto rotation coming in crooked and rolling the aircraft. I however didn't see Brains autorotation but I'm sure there will be more opportunities for that later. We then made our way over to the ships and finished with a couple landings. Spike and I left shortly after that. Again it was a great flight Brain I am glad to have you with us I would try expanding your horizons later on with different aircraft but I understand you wanting to stick with the KA-50 for now -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Brains suiting up, strappin in.
September 18 at 12:35 am
I agree with you on the flight model it is going to be a very different aircraft then any other helicopter but I don't think it is inaccurate. no one is going to force you to get any other helicopters it's just that others are passionate about their helicopters myself included. I sent you the TS info if you still want to fly tonight -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Brains suiting up, strappin in.
September 18 at 12:34 am
Eagle just sent them for you. I'll be on TS in just a few. -
Brain replied to the topic Brains suiting up, strappin in.
September 18 at 12:25 am
Thanks for the write up but I think I got a good picture of what those helis are going to be like. I started with Janes LB Gold and have since been addicted to helis just like I was addicted to planes already. I just want an attack helicopter. Not because I can 'snipe' from 8km, but because I can charge in with 40mm rockets. I'm fast, maneuverable and can take a few hits. There are also a lot of buttons to push and I really enjoy that ;)In terms of flight model, remember the KA-50 is coax helicopter. The manual states it has quiet different flight characteristics compared to a classic layout. I'm no expert but I can believe that, so I'm buying the flight model. If it get's more accurate over time that's cool, it's still a bit of a challenge and once 'mastered' a fun to fly machine IMHO.Currently doing some more practice with S-8 on Dragon's weapon training I believe but will be on for a bit longer I think. So, depending on when you come on I might hop on and do a little sunday drive with somebody. -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Brains suiting up, strappin in.
September 17 at 11:37 pm
I'm up for some flying tonight. I'll send you the ts info if Eagle hasn't yet. -
Drakoz replied to the topic Brains suiting up, strappin in.
September 17 at 11:20 pm
Brain, Nice to meet you. Sounds like you can bring some good ideas for missions. Many of the membership are ex or current military. So we are getting a healthy dose of tactics and methods. This is much of why I joined the group. Don't discount the other helicopters. The Mi-8 offers as much or more challenge than the Ka-50, yet it is not considered an attack helicopter. Trying to tune an ADF beacon for a downed pilot while in flight, checking a knee board map and avoiding getting shot down is half the challenge and many of our missions will include stuff like that. The Ka-50 is easy to fly once you understand it's systems, which takes away one of the biggest factors about combat operations - not crashing just because you weren't paying attention. I mean the Ka-50's autopilot modes make this much less likely at least. In the Mi-8, though, I had a VRS incident this week because I was too focused on finding targets and not paying attention to my flight speed. I never felt such life critical factors flying the Ka-50 both because it's auto pilot features, but also because I've always felt the Ka-50 was not as realistic of a flight model as the other DCS helicopters. Not a detriment - the Ka-50 is cool in so many ways. But the Mi-8 and Huey make you feel a lot more like you are flying a real helicopter. It's kind of a technology vs. visceral feel thing. The Huey is similar to the Mi-8, but not as complex on weapon systems and load outs. You still have to choose the compromise of more weapons and fuel vs. maneuverability or just being able to take off without forward airspeed. So some of our missions may involve a Huey with minimal or no weapons flying recon, or troop pickup/drop off. A mission idea I'm looking at requires a constant stream of Huey's or Mi-8's delivering troops to an escalating conflict with other helicopters (Ka-50s or Gazelles) flying interference. If the Huey has weapons, then it will be too heavy, yet the mostly unarmed flying buses will be the most important part of the mission - success will depend on reaching critical mass of troops in the area. So the Huey and Mi-8 offer the most realistic model of what is like to fly a real helicopter, and also offer the most realistic regarding avionics compared to general aviation (no glass cockpits, steam gauges only, more primitive navigation and the need to understand how to use it all). The Gazelle is also really neat. It is probably the easiest to learn due to ease of flight, and simple to understand weapons. And, it is the sports car of DCS helicopters - very nimble. The Bo-105 will likely be the same when it comes out. I like to fly aerobatics as much as combat, so I'm looking forward to the Bo-105. The Gazelle is a little easier to fly with it's SAS (stability control) once you have it figured out. Easier to understand it's weapons, but still offers attack helicopter features such as TV wire guided missiles, as well as rockets and guns for a more personal in your face combat. And with only a 4300m range on it's HOT3 missiles, you have to use terrain blocking and working with the other pilots as a team to survive as that is well within most other AAA weapon system's range. Many of our missions, if they were only Ka-50 based, would allow us to just sit back at 8K distance and pick off targets practically at will. But the other helicopters require getting down and dirty with the enemy, often in close quarters. A couple weeks ago, Eagle_Rising was actually pinned down in a Gazelle (or was it a Huey) in an area due to enemy fire just over the hill, not 200m away. Seeing the bullets fly and series of explosions as the enemy was trying to take him out was an amazing display of fire power. Mean while, the rest of us were trying to maneuver to take out his attackers. Alas, we were too slow, so he rose up and took them out on his own after a bit - and survived. Just giving you some food for thought regarding the other helicopters. We all have our favorites, so even if you feel differently, well, that's part of the fun, and a good reason why BaDCrC requires, as part of membership, that all members contribute to creating missions. I look forward to flying with you. Regards,Michael -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Brains suiting up, strappin in.
September 17 at 7:05 pm
I think you would suprise yourself with the gazelle it really is a fun aircraft I might be on tonight I haven't done much with ka-50 lately but I can take you through some paternity work and other basic procedures Also the Apache has nothing on the Uh-60 DAPs -
Brain replied to the topic Brains suiting up, strappin in.
September 17 at 6:18 pm
Thanks for the warm welcome!I feel like I can come up with good ideas, not necessarily good plans just yet. I did have some good flights (incl. TS, PVI, DLink) on servers like Open Conflict, but it was still pretty casual and more of a mini campaign rather than a focused MP mission. To be able to lead or create quality content I would need some flight hours in a more professional environment and that's what I'm here for in the first place. Basically train my situational awareness in the KA-50, take note of what is going on and get creative from there.Speaking of which, it's weekend and I'd love some quality flight time. Calendar looks clear for tonight so maybe somebody has time for a introduction flight? I'd like to use that opportunity to learn about proper patterns around the FARP and maybe navigation without PVI/ABRIS (ADF?)...just if you don't mind. I'm not very good at the 'boring' stuff but I feel it's time to get into it.I'd just hang out on TS and see who comes alone but I don't have the details just yet.@BK: I'd marry that plane when I could. Mainly bought it to look at it, I'm so bad at BVR in it.@Spiderpig: Sorry, not interested in anything less than an AH-1 or Mi-24 ;) -
spiderpig replied to the topic Brains suiting up, strappin in.
September 17 at 1:47 pm
Welcome! I would recommend the Gazelle...but then again I'd be fired if I didn't say that. -
spike replied to the topic Debrief Convoy Escort 2016.
September 17 at 4:12 am
Great shots, thanks Drakoz! I wondered what the heck you meant by a wedding party, but now I see. Looks like a good time all around and a fun mission. -
Drakoz replied to the topic Debrief Convoy Escort 2016.
September 17 at 2:51 am
Pictures I got of last night's flight. I went through the track file to get these. Unfortunately, my own helicopter crashed half way through (stupid track file glitches), but it doesn't matter. Lots of good shots. Lined up for takeoff. Beacon! (front to back: BaDCrC, Blackwolf, Eagle_Rising, Drakoz). BaDCrC in the Ka-50, Drakoz in the Mi-8. Flying loops over the convoy to guard it. Drakoz taking out a road side vehicle - possible IED. Friendlies waving at the convoy. BaDCrC flying over watch. This was what I thought was a wedding party. Closer inspection revealed they were friendly. BaDCrC flying cover over the downed Mi-24 (red smoke). In the distance, Eagle_Rising attacking and being attached by the enemy training camp. Two shots of a missile run against the training camp by Eagle_Rising. Blackwolf going in. Shot down by fire from the training camp. It was a tough target! Sorry BK, no other shots of you because we didn't fly together most the mission. Eagle_Rising pummeling the camp again to avenge Blackwolf's death (Blackwolf's crash is at the lower left side of image). Eagle getting shot at by the training camp. He lost an engine shortly after this and had to make it to the FARP on only one engine. Eagle trying to land at the FARP with one engine. BadCrC in the foreground. But descent rate was too high. RIP Eagle. And these pictures don't even cover all the stuff Eagle and BK did escorting the other convoy. It was a busy mission. -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Debrief Convoy Escort 2016.
September 16 at 9:08 pm
I had made gifs of the key moments from me and bks flight but once I published it the source code went away -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Debrief Convoy Escort 2016.
September 16 at 8:33 pm
Yeah it was a fun but busy mission and I didn't really had time to take screenshots this time. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Brains suiting up, strappin in.
September 16 at 8:31 pm
Hi Brain. Great presentation! From what I can read, you are a very good fit for BSD. Good to know you are ready to take flight lead from time to time. Our fellow pilots here are not always keen to take lead. We have a ranking system in place here, but it's not really about leading capability, but more about involvement into the BSD community. What is important for us too is to get some members capable of proposing MP missions in order to get some good stuff going at least once a week. BK told you already, but we are trying to get two flights a week. One fun and laid back where we are going through different trainings (navigation, precision landings, formation flight, radio coms, brevity, whatever you can think of,...) and one with a more serious mission in order to apply what we saw during the laid back ones. Fun flights are also an opportunity to meet the new registrants, get an idea of their sim knowledge (min req TS fluency/cold-start/good handling of the aircraft/datalink/weapons) and make sure we all agree on what we can bring to each others. Next fun flight is most likely Tuesday 0900PM EST. I still don't have a theme in mind but I'll think about it this weekend, unless someone got a suggestion? You can join if you are free this night. BK will send you the connection details for TS. -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Debrief Convoy Escort 2016.
September 16 at 7:46 pm
Eagle had it about right, I got lost for a few, shot some rockets, crashed then went the wrong way, turned around rejoined Eagle and felt two crashes wasn't enough so I slammed the ka-50 into the ground again. Nose first just to make sure I got it right. Now I'm going to go Hit the pace car It was a fun mission and I have figured out my throttle pot is almost dead in the center so that is helping with my VRS and control/crashes. Good thing I have a throttle quad I can use for now. Sorry Spike I'm usually very good about screen shots but I was so busy in the Ka-50 I only took one. Bravo outbound.. -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Brains suiting up, strappin in.
September 16 at 7:28 pm
Hi Brain! Yes it was a fun escort mission! Ka-50's and Mi-8's I started off line with Flanker 2.0 as well. I still do fly the SU-27 in my down time (don't tell the others :P ) Being a fixed wing convert I've owned the Ka-50 since 2011 but only just in the last 5 months started really flying it and the other choppers so I tend to crash a lot. You'll find a mixed type here, sim pilots and real pilots, and a developer from Polychop. Its very laid back but we get serious when we have to. As a newer group we still are working out things like formation flying, proper brevity (I am the worst with that)! Pick a night when you are free and we can have an introduction flight. Nothing too hard just a flight around the airfield and some targets to kill. Mission making is what keeps us going. Right now a few of us are making missions to help BadCrC out. We try to fly one "fun night" and one mission night a week, and any other night a few of us may be on. Let us know when you want to fly and we will send you the Teamspeak info. BK -
spike replied to the topic Debrief Convoy Escort 2016.
September 16 at 6:15 pm
Sounds like fun. Sorry I missed it. And where are the screenshots??! -
Brain created new topic Brains suiting up, strappin in.
September 16 at 3:54 pm
Callsign: BrainAge: 31Connectivity: 32mbps/1mbps (subject to change early 2017)Timezone: CESTAvailability: Need to sleep sometimes but otherwise a lot. Night owl so can take part in CST/EST events. Weekends know almost no limits, I'll bring coffee.DCS experience:...since 1999 when it was Flanker 2.0, then LOMAC later. Both more casually for the eyecandy because I was still a kid ;) Played all other modern mil flightsims (all Jane's games, EEAH/EECH) and after years of no helicopters I was thrilled to get my hands on Black Shark!Consumed MattWag's 'developer notes' prior to release and put in hundreds of hours into single player since day 1, getting new content from pages like LOMAC Files. Few months ago on Steam Sale I upgraded to BS2 and have done most flights on public servers since, specifically looking for people in helicopters for cooperative employment. That should add another 100-150 flight hours by now. Yeah, I think I'm getting the hang of it ;)Prior I spent most time in Falcon BMS (which I still adore), playing campaigns on public servers. It's very different but things like comm discretion, brevity, situational awareness (...) are universally useful. I make a good element lead, sometimes even a good flight lead .. recon, planning of route, targets and payload included.Editing:Since LOMAC and on different games like FreeSpace 1&2. I'm not into LUA coding but I can work with triggers, set up reasonable flightplans and get the AI to do their job (mostly). Not entirely familiar with all the new DCS features yet and never made a multiplayer mission. Chopper of choice:I just love the KA-50, don't own any others. Possible interest in other attack choppers later (AH-64C please?)Expectations:Your list on top of the About page sums it up pretty well.Mainly I want to fly with more KA-50s, execute our mission gracefully, bring everybody back safe and have (serious) fun doing it. I'm fine with learning new things and teaching others alike, didn't earn my callsign for nothing ;)So, if any of this sounds just remotely fine to you, feel free to tell me ASAP. I'm happy about catching a glimpse of your server name last night and finding my way here. Whatever it was you were flying, it looked like fun to me. -
Drakoz replied to the topic Debrief Convoy Escort 2016.
September 16 at 7:08 am
I think this was my favorite so far. Probably because it was my first ever combat mission in the Mi-8 (I haven't even done any single player combat missions in the Mi-8). And I managed to get a kill the first time I fired the rockets. But also because the weather and poor visibility at the start, needing to fly to the destination using proper tactics, IFR, radio beacons, formation flying in reduced visibility, etc. And having to work together to find targets and protect the convoy. Thanks Bad for the excellent mission. The best part for me was when I wasted the snipers on top of the building as the convoy was getting close to town (rockets did the job). I had over flown the town a couple times and found no enemy, but then the convoy got close enough and they came out of the wood work. Bad and I worked together to identify targets for each other, draw fire, and take out the targets quickly. So there was minimal loss on the convoy. I also loved what appeared to be a wedding party along the road. We had to identify if these were enemy, or not. At first, I was ready to light them up, but closer inspection revealed the trucks were surrounded by civilians. We watched them closely, but it all ended well as the convoy drove by and the bride and groom waved to the us. Alas, I went down twice in the Mi-8. First time I crashed due to VRS. Couldn't get enough forward momentum to save it, and went down just a bit hard. All crew survived, but helicopter broke in half. That's what I get for orbiting around the convoy too slowly. Second was because I was shot down overflying the training camp while I was setting up to land and pickup the downed pilots. I had no idea the camp was there. Holes started appearing in my windshield. Then another burst and everything went crazy. I sort of auto rotated to the ground - if you could call it that. Honestly, I'm not even sure I had a tail at that point. I think I was able to keep forward speed which prevented me from getting into a spin. Then as I pulled collective to complete the auto, it started to spin, but not so bad that I couldn't set it down. Again all crew survived. I have no idea how. All in all, a great evening. Thanks guys! -
Drakoz replied to the topic Traffic Patterns and Taxiing.
September 16 at 6:47 am
Yes, tonight was a help. Like I said at the end of the flight tonight. It's good to be pushed into trying to turn on stuff, set knobs, get radio frequencies, etc. It feels difficult at first, but when you push through and work on it, it just gets easier. But this is also why I like the training/fun night as well as a mission night. It's good to have both to work through stuff. -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Debrief Convoy Escort 2016.
September 16 at 4:59 am
So I will start this out since this was a two part mission so we started off flying in formation to the Farp at W3 and that was uneventful except for BKs incident which will hopefully be solved once he gets his new warthog. We tried the new beacon call just remember the you should be pulling in collective slowly as the flight lead counts down to one and you should be off the ground by one. I do also think we should work on formation flying a little more the standard for formation flying is 3 to 5 rotor diameters which is about 150 to 300 ft depending on aircraft. so after reaching the Farp bk and I split off to look for the missing convoy and along the way we got separated bk did a good job of realizing that he was no longer with me and we both were able to rejoin BK and I found the lost convoy shortly after which was already under heavy fire but thankfully with two rocket salvos from each of us the threat was taken care of shortly after bk crashed and I continued to escort the convoy unfortunately there were also civilians in the village. It is cowardice for the enemy to hide behind civilian populations but they are but one of the many casualties of war. the remainder of the enemies had lost the will to fight and the convoy revived very little fire after that. from what I understand BK decided I was good on my own and decided he was going to help Bad and Drakoz I ended up landing with the fuel master caution light on we then leaked up with the rest of the flight in support of the downed pilot and destruction of the enemy camp. -
BaDCrC created new topic Debrief Convoy Escort 2016.
September 16 at 4:37 am
Pilots: BadCrC, BK, Drakoz, Eagle_Rising Flight time: 2.5 hours (remember to log this on your logbook) Debrief: Pretty happy with this mission. Everything worked fine as it should be and you guys all went through the briefing so we could jump into our cockpit quickly. We got the whisper family stuff working quick on TS. This made the comms quite easier and less messy. Tried the formation take off method with more or less success. But it was a first. Next time will be OK. The departure went fine, the nav to W3 also although we got a bit stretched on the formation. Have a look again on the brevity when the leader is asking for 'buster', so you don't get surprised. Group split alright to escort Alpha on one valley and to search for Bravo on the other side. Drakoz and I maintained all the way to Alpha's convoy destination the proper pattern escort method and it was pretty successful with only one vehicle lost (during the 2nd ambush) and some infantry casualties at the 3rd ambush in the village. But the escort was successful overall. We got surprised during the extraction of the downed Mi-26 crew by a AAA ENI group (1 Zu23 on truck +infantry) on top of one of the mountain and lost one angel. He was able to get back with us and successfuly performed the extraction once the threat was neutralized. Training camp received a few salvos but we were too short fuel to really finish it. Back to FARP to drop the Mi26 crew. Then Drakoz and I flew back to Kutaisi with an IFR approach on Rwy 07. Pretty cool. Hey, I want you guys story about this mission! And your screenshots too if you have some! -
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Blackwolf replied to the topic Banners for BSD Pilots.
September 16 at 12:32 am
Eagle I'm so stealing the facebook like hand with the collective! -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Traffic Patterns and Taxiing.
September 15 at 11:16 pm
Well, you'll be happy with the mission tonight then. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Banners for BSD Pilots.
September 15 at 11:15 pm
Sure. No problem. Let me know. -
Drakoz replied to the topic Banners for BSD Pilots.
September 15 at 11:11 pm
That's pretty cool. Though I am a little concerned that this is a modified version of an image off the Internet. I certainly don't expect you to draw something from scratch, of course. Let me look around a bit to find something with less of a "royalty" concern. It's probably not a real big deal, but the image you chose is from someone's roll playing character or RPG Story site. So it could be very recognizable to the right person. I've run into this before borrowing people's RPG character images, but I only did it for private RPG games. If I ever posted something on the Internet, it is best to avoid such images. One idea I've tried is taking images from wall paper sites and cutting out just a part of the image. Because it is a wall paper image, they come in high enough resolution for clipping and editing. Also, wallpapers are typically free to download (people expect you to copy the images), and by taking a clipping (like just the head of a cloaked figure), I end up with something that is not only free of concerns about copying (i.e. nobody is really going to care), but also not so recognizable if someone has seen the original image. I found several examples of cloaked figures or Grim Reaper figures that may work. I'm not necessarily looking for a grim reaper, but a dark masked face under a cloak. It would be ideal if it was more of a 2 tone (black & white) icon image like the wolf and eagle you found. But that is difficult with a dark cloaked figure. I've also seen some excellent 2 tone caricatures or cartoon characters of cloaked or grim reaper figures. Or I may try to get my son to draw something. He's in college learning Graphic Arts, and I'm sure he needs another project. :-) -
Drakoz replied to the topic Traffic Patterns and Taxiing.
September 15 at 9:20 pm
Maybe you should add radio nav beacons (helpless lost soldiers transmitting on their little radios) to the navigation mission we did the other day and then it can be used for time and speed navigation as well as radio navigation. Perhaps add a variety of different radio types as (if that makes any useful sense). -
BaDCrC said thank you to craig for his/her reply to the topic Banners for BSD Pilots.
September 15 at 2:11 am
Ya thanks Bad really love it so I made one small change -
BaDCrC liked a reply to the topic Banners for BSD Pilots.
September 15 at 2:11 am
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Eagle_Rising replied to the topic FNG soon. Hello.
September 15 at 12:59 am
haha ya BK apparently though they traded 607 to another state a couple years ago so I cant do a side by side but still it was pretty cool -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Welcome to Spike (and debrief Nav training).
September 15 at 12:33 am
I think I know. This is actually a glitch in the screenshot between my center and left monitor. There's a slight change in the view angles and the center monitors certainly shows a part of the pylon of BK's Kamov on the left screen. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic FNG soon. Hello.
September 15 at 12:26 am
This is a great picture! Incredible. -
Blackwolf replied to the topic FNG soon. Hello.
September 14 at 11:35 pm
In 95 I was bitching about "Grunge music killing metal" and dating my wife, while working as a cable guy and moonlighting in a club band..we were going to get famous, yeah right! And Eagle was one! How cool is that your in 607 and later flying 606. -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Banners for BSD Pilots.
September 14 at 11:28 pm
Ya bad really love it -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Banners for BSD Pilots.
September 14 at 11:24 pm
Perfect Bad! I love it. Thanks. -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Welcome to Spike (and debrief Nav training).
September 14 at 11:15 pm
I was fishing..ok you caught me! ..see what I did there? Ok bad puns aside, I have no idea what that is but I'm going to blame it for my crash! It made my chopper lopsided, unbalanced, uncontrollable and I couldn't hold it to land...yeah that's the ticket. Sounds about right. Too hard on the collective and I dropped like a rock, tried to save it and didn't. Stupid mistakes, that's all. I swear one of these day's I'll land during a mission..really, I will. Welcome Spike! Glad to have you on board with us. Look forward to crashing next to you sometime! LOL BK -
spike replied to the topic Welcome to Spike (and debrief Nav training).
September 14 at 11:14 pm
I know, right? Bunch of ingrates.... :) -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic FNG soon. Hello.
September 14 at 7:40 pm
Oh ya I think the oldest bird I ever flew was a 1968 OH-58A its really incredible that they can keep them flying that long -
Drakoz replied to the topic Banners for BSD Pilots.
September 14 at 7:31 pm
These are pretty neat. Where do you get the silhouettes of the helicopters? Are you making them in Photoshop? If you are willing to make one for me, I'm not sure what I could suggest for mine. The name Drakoz is actually a roll playing character from long ago. If I was to suggest something related to my namesake, it would be a dark cloaked figure (like a cloaked head). Not sure if this link will work, but I googled "Dark Cloaked Figure" and eventually found this grouping of images: Dark Cloaked Figures If it was possible to make a simple image (silhouette or simplified line drawing) of such a thing, that would be perfect. Don't go out of your way, though. -
Drakoz replied to the topic FNG soon. Hello.
September 14 at 7:12 pm
Yup, our modern military. :) Joking aside, it's amazing in general that in aviation, airframes remain functional and useful for many years. It's kind of a cool aspect of aviation. -
Drakoz replied to the topic Welcome to Spike (and debrief Nav training).
September 14 at 7:07 pm
Wow, you offered them a stick to join in. Now that's not being rude at all. Family. Sheesh! :-) -
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spike replied to the topic Welcome to Spike (and debrief Nav training).
September 14 at 12:39 pm
Thanks for the warm welcome, guys! It was a fun flight, and it shows that I need more experience formation flying (I'm sure that's not the only thing lacking, though). I suspect that BK's "fish" is some weird blur from the exhaust of his engines that was captured at just the right time. Or, maybe he found an actual black shark and was trying to show us. Unfortunately, I won't be able to make Thursday's mission as it's the last night the in-laws are in town. Apparently, spending that night up in my "office" playing a "game" would be "rude." I've got an extra X-52 and offered to set it up on my wife's computer so they could join us, but alas, she declined. Here is the only shot I have of BK going fishing: -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Formation flight.
September 14 at 10:10 am
So only the 4th aircraft would call beacon but other than that good stuff -
BaDCrC created new topic Formation flight.
September 14 at 5:45 am
Formation flight Take Off. All aircraft in position for takeoff (aligned on runway or within close visual range of each other). Callsigns 1/2/3/4. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Welcome to Spike (and debrief Nav training).
September 14 at 3:58 am
@Eagle: Yeah. I am curious now. If you guys have a working track. I saw him falling on the other side of the bridge into the water before re appearing. Maybe the remains of a large fish? Or a piece of trash that was floating on the river? -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Welcome to Spike (and debrief Nav training).
September 14 at 3:55 am
Navigation debrief: Pilots: BK / Drakoz / Spike / Eagle_Rising / BaD CrC Flight time: 2 hours (Spike, I already updated your logbook. The others, remember you have to update yours). Mission: Just a fun flight with zero wind. Just to keep you guys busy. A precision navigation to choose among 6 different ones. Only Nav 1 was successfully completed by Eagle. Sorry I forgot to say there was a success trigger only on the destination (which didn't work by the way) and not on the intermediate waypoints. So some of you guys lost time trying to overfly them hoping for a message or something. Nav 5 (BK) and Nav 2 (Drakoz) have still to be fully discovered. Good idea from Eagle to fly one of the navigation in formation. And again we learnt a lot of stuff that we will need to use for the missions: taking off as a formation (procedure using anti collision + leader's countdown to lift off), change of leader (brevity 'nightmare'), new leader flying to the front of the formation with V+10kt announcing "abeam 3", "abeam 2", etc.) and formation flight with donwash and tip vortices in mind. I'll try to make a specific post in the training section of the forum. Oh, and good job to all. We did find the destination at Nav 3, although our formation was not very tight during the last leg. -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Welcome to Spike (and debrief Nav training).
September 14 at 3:48 am
It was good flying with you spike can't wait to do some more. Hey bad I think bk bagged himself a deer during some NOE flying -
BaDCrC created new topic Welcome to Spike (and debrief Nav training).
September 14 at 3:39 am
A warm welcome to our new trainee Spike, following his successful integration flight on Ka-50. We are all looking forward to fly with you next time in a real mission (I am not too worry since you did great tonight). Now it's time to think about a cool (but simple) mission for all of us to fly! (note on the screenshot: what the hell is hanging on BK's Ka50 pylon?) -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic FNG soon. Hello.
September 14 at 12:46 am
speaking on how strange time can be this picture was taken of me about 14 or 15 years ago. This helicopter was in the same unit I am in now. Today I flew tail #606 the one in the picture is #607 -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Banners for BSD Pilots.
September 14 at 12:15 am
Do you like this one too? -
Drakoz replied to the topic FNG soon. Hello.
September 13 at 8:18 pm
Time becomes relative with age. My sons are 21 and 19. Hard to believe. What always makes it real is when I think of the year they were born. I mean it's amazing to think that there are adults who were born in the '90's. :-) -
-smil- said thank you to craig for his/her reply to the topic FNG soon. Hello.
September 13 at 7:33 pm
I don't think you guys want to know what I was doing back in 1995 ;) -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Banners for BSD Pilots.
September 13 at 9:06 am
That's really cool -
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BaDCrC replied to the topic Traffic Patterns and Taxiing.
September 13 at 2:01 am
Well, depending on our pilot's group requests, radionav might be something they want to address. We got HSI on most of the DCS choppers for example. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Banners for BSD Pilots.
September 13 at 1:55 am
What do you think of this? Or you want to keep the girl? The small optimized version for signature: -
Drakoz replied to the topic Spike's application.
September 13 at 12:40 am
Nice to meet you Spike. I look forward to flying with you Tue. if you can make it. I'll echo the comments on the Mi-8. I've owned it since it came out, but finally started to figure out how to fly it last week. It is by far the most advanced helicopter in DCS (regarding what you need to learn to master it) - yes even more so than the KA-50. Why? Because, like Blackwolf said, easy to learn, but difficult to master. The weapon systems can be very complex (lots to learn to understand how to use them all effectively - from several different guns pods, and rockets, to bombs on a helicopter). But also, depending on the mission, altitude, weather, loadout, etc., to fly the Mi-8 correctly, you cannot ignore real world stuff like weight, pressure altitude, performance envelopes, and how all that affects the Mi-8. All of that might scare you away from learning the Mi-8, but remember the point, easy to learn. After one Saturday, I was able to fly it and employ a basic set of weapons. So I can fly missions with it now. But I can see that I will spend just as much time learning how to master the Mi-8 as I spent learning the KA-50 or A10. As for shear fun with minimal learning curve, though, the Gazelle is best for that. It has some advanced weapons systems (more advanced than point and shoot - and easy to become combat effective with them right away), but they are really obvious how they work - especially for anyone familiar with other guided weapons systems like on the KA-50, A10, etc. Regards,Michael -
Drakoz replied to the topic Picked up the Gazelle on sale.
September 13 at 12:21 am
Ah, I remember when I got my first expensive HOTAS. :-) Joking aside, glad to hear you are upgrading. I have a Cougar and two Warthogs now (2nd Warthog came with a set of stuff I bought for a really good price). I was going to sell the 2nd Warthog, but I'm hanging on to it for my joystick projects for now. If you need any help figuring out TARGET, let me know. If you have any skills with programming, I suggest avoiding the TARGET GUI and instead use the TARGET Scripting language. It is much more powerful, and once you start to figure it out, much easier to get the desired result than using the GUI. -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic FNG soon. Hello.
September 13 at 12:19 am
I don't think you guys want to know what I was doing back in 1995 ;) -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Picked up the Gazelle on sale.
September 12 at 11:57 pm
I hope so! I cant wait..its like a kid counting down the days until Christmas. A few more days and its mine! My mailman is my buddy now. -
Blackwolf replied to the topic FNG soon. Hello.
September 12 at 11:54 pm
Confirmed Kill..that was before the Wild Bill days I think. I'll send a FB request out. -
Blackwolf liked a reply to the topic FNG soon. Hello.
September 12 at 11:52 pm
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Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Traffic Patterns and Taxiing.
September 12 at 10:47 pm
this made me look back at all of my old study guides and I found a lot of good stuff that would be good for the group once we get into more advanced stuff (I lost everything before instrument :( IDK if you would find any of this would be useful for what we are doing and the types of aircraft we are flying -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Traffic Patterns and Taxiing.
September 12 at 5:56 pm
Up for this topic. Will be useful for trainings. -
-smil- replied to the topic FNG soon. Hello.
September 12 at 10:37 am
In 1995, I was walking through a Walgreen's drugstore. As I passed through the magazine section, a PC Gamer caught my eye. It had a screenshot of a Luftwaffe plane on the cover from "Confirmed Kill", the early incarnation of Warbirds. I fist dreamed of a simulator when I was single-digit young, probably '68 or so and I was not alone. I bought my first computer, joined AOL and got into the CK/WB beta, flying for about 10 years. I went to three conventions and met some great people. Actually changed me life... what a great hobby. :) I'll get FB on this computer soon. Send me a friend request if you get a chance. Cary Sporinsky -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Banners for BSD Pilots.
September 12 at 4:39 am
Sure. What chopper do you want? And do you want a specific citation included? By the way, (that's for everybody), in the BSD forum, if you go to my account and click on edit next to your name, you'll be able to add your signature. (if you use a picture, try to make it no more than 500 x 200 pix). -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Spike's application.
September 12 at 4:05 am
Thanks for enrolling in Tuesday's training mission. Trainings are often multi platform so you can fly whatever you like this time. I'll PM you the details for connecting on the TS server. -
spike replied to the topic Spike's application.
September 12 at 3:03 am
Thanks for the warm welcome, guys! I should able to do Tuesday evening; shoot me the details and I'll join. Should I brush up on the Huey, or can I fly the Ka-50? I'll also start poking around the ME again, since it's been a few months since I attempted the Huey campaign. Thanks again! Spike -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Picked up the Gazelle on sale.
September 11 at 9:37 pm
Haha yes!! It shouldn't be to bad, actually you will probably find it easier to fly. -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Picked up the Gazelle on sale.
September 11 at 8:06 pm
Bumping this to say I have put my Gazelle flight training on hold. The ways and means committee has approved the funding for a warthog! So I will have to re learn it all again, along with every other aircraft. -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Banners for BSD Pilots.
September 11 at 8:00 pm
Hey Bad, can you make me one like yours but with the white background? BK -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Spike's application.
September 11 at 7:47 pm
Hey Spike! I started with the Ka-50 as well..I ended up getting all the choppers. The Mi-8 ( The dump truck as I call it) Is very easy learn and hard to master. Just like a guitar. I was on the fence about getting it so I did some reading on it. It is the Russian version of a Huey..it does it all, its very fun to fly and its so ugly its cute! Good to hear you know your way around the ME. A few of us are working on missions so Bad doesn't have to be the only one building them. We are getting close to having a lot of different missions to fly. A nice friendly group, real pilots as well as sim ones. Very laid back guy's, its a sim and we always have fun online. Looking forward to flying with you sometime! BK -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Kneeboards on an iPad, (not for VR obvs...).
September 11 at 7:14 pm
a video of foreflight being used with fsx This is pretty cool and I would love to see it in DCS granted you could only use satellite maps in the Georgian region but still this would be cool. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Spike's application.
September 11 at 5:16 pm
Hi Spike! Thanks for this pretty exhaustive presentation. I believe once you are flying MP with us, you'll never fly SP anymore. I am glad to hear you are familiar with mission editing. There is not a lot of difference between MP mission editing and SP mission one. Just remember to set up the aircraft as clients! It is likely that you'll want to acquire all the choppers module after flying with us! Mi-8 is a beauty to master, systems, weapons and flight wise. Gazelle is challenging too, have a thermal imager, RWR and can shoots AA missiles! If you are available, you can join our training session Tuesday 0900PM EST. We will do some radio coms, patterns and short navigations. I'll PM you the details to join our TS server. Let me know. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Kneeboards on an iPad, (not for VR obvs...).
September 11 at 4:47 pm
Whoever got the skills to provide us with an ipad/android app kneeboard for DCS with real time position/Caucasus map/distance and bearing measurement got my money straight away. An easier way would be to find a way to export DCS aircraft position in a format that can be understood via Bluetooth/USB to a GPS app like foreflight. -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Kneeboards on an iPad, (not for VR obvs...).
September 11 at 3:28 pm
How about an Ipad on a kneeboard but seriously Bad and I were talking about this the other day I think it would be very useful (even in VR) In FSX and Xplane you can actually use the app I have open and it will use your GPS location from the game and display it on the Ipad I know there are ways to get the kneeboard files onto the Ipad but they would just be pictures at that point and I have also seen someone make the Ipad a second display and put the abris. At a minimum I would love to just see the f10 view especially since in VR it is messed up. -
Molevitch replied to the topic Cool/Interesting pictures.
September 11 at 12:42 pm
Shopful of CnC's??!! I'd be building new sticks every week! :0 -
Molevitch created new topic Kneeboards on an iPad, (not for VR obvs...).
September 11 at 12:36 pm
Hi All, I thought I would share what I have done this morning with everybody.I have always been a bit "meh" about kneeboards, because they were not on my knee.... So I thought, hmm, that old iPad is gathering dust, how do I get my kneeboard on there? So, I found an app called TwoMonAir, for a few bucks. My old iPad is 1st gen, and only runs iOs 5.1.1. So the only app that would work is the TwoMonAir. (There is a USB version but it kept failing on me. Need a refund...). So this TwoMon app has an option to run the iPad as an extension to a monitor. I am already running a wide monitor, and a touch monitor below for Helios. In my options.lua I extended the width of the main monitor by 700px. Kept main Viewport to the actual monitor size (3440 x 1440). I explored DCS forums for mods and apps and settled on AlaskanGrizzly's Kneeboard Builder, which is great. Then in KB, it reads that the monitor is 4140 wide, and I push the Kneeboard to the top right corner, and Voila!Kneeboard on my iPad, on my knee....Brilliant! -
spike created new topic Spike's application.
September 11 at 4:49 am
Hello, fellow sim pilots, My name is Paul, and I am interested in checking out Black Shark Den. On to the meat of the post Call Sign: Spike Age: 38 Internet Connection: 66Mbps Download/21Mbps Upload based on an oh-so-reliable internet test, Comcast broadband Timezone: CST/CDT (Zulu -6/-5) Availability: Once or twice a week, after 8pm CDT is preferred, but could do earlier on the weekends or if given enough notice during the week (wife and 8 month old kid generally run my life before 8pm). This coming week (9/11 until 9/16) may be bad for any kind of training/familiarity flight since the in-laws are in town. But next weekend or any evening after that should be good. DCS Time: I would say several hundred hours overall. I bought the KA-50 in 2009, and have been flying it on and off since then. I also own the A10C and Huey modules (and Combined Arms...if that even counts), along with whatever is free (SU-25 and TF-P51?). Mission Editor Experience: I created a few single player missions for the KA-50 and 80% of a mini campaign for the Huey (7 missions long). I would say I'm competent at creating single player missions, but I don't know how much is different creating one for multiplayer. Preferred Chopper: Either the Ka-50 or the Huey. I've played them both extensively. I am currently running through all the single player campaigns for the KA-50, so am up to speed on that one. It's been awhile since I cold-started the Huey, so I would need a few days to get caught up, although I can still take off, fly, and land with it currently. I don't own the Mi-8, as it hold little appeal to me for some reason. I am open to being convinced otherwise, though! I would like the pick up the Gazelle at some point, but am on somewhat of a budget so generally wait until a nice massive sale reduces the price to $20 or $30 at most. Why Black Shark Den?: From what little I've seen (postings on the DCS forums and this website), this group seems like a friendly little group. I'd like to join and see if multiplayer can make the experience even better. I'm sure there are a million things I don't know about or am flat out doing wrong, and I would like any advice to help become a better virtual pilot. Similarly, nothing cements a concept like teaching it to someone else, so if there are any others that I can help, I am always more than willing. To a certain extent, I enjoy making missions, and maybe actually showing them to others would generate some positive feedback and constructive criticism on what I can do better. (Although creating missions can be one of the most frustrating things in the world...follow the f'ing road, you stupid convoy!!!) If you have any other questions, please feel free to let me know. I'm looking forward to flying with you all! Spike -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Debrief Harmattan III Day 4.
September 11 at 12:56 am
Wow, sounded like a lot of fun. Sorry I had to bail at the last hours. I felt it would be rude to be online with my parents here, my wife's "you better not" face seemed to say the same. I'd like to give this a try sometime again too. -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Debrief Harmattan III Day 4.
September 10 at 4:30 pm
Ya I think the valuable lesson is taking your time and keeping your distance I definitely would like to try this again in the future -
Blackwolf replied to the topic FNG soon. Hello.
September 10 at 3:10 pm
How cool is that! I was blkwlf of the Avengers. Stayed in the WW2 arena most of the time fighting the Menacing Ferrets :D . I didn't go into the main that much. Yes it was a great time from WB 2.7 and on! So glad to see you again! I still am in touch with a few of the MF, Pennsy and a few are in Il2 BOS. if you can ,let me have the link to the fb page. I'd like to see that! Looking forward to getting in the air again with you! BK -
-smil- replied to the topic FNG soon. Hello.
September 10 at 12:27 pm
Hello! Yes, 'tis me from Warbirds. What a magical time that was!. There is an AGW group on bookface. It s interesting to see old names there. I'm still in contact with some WB pilots. Looking forward to taking part here. I've flown a little bit while I work programming my tactical feedback seat. I'm so happy I was able to get it working again as it is just not simming without it. I'm learning how to optimize it for the BS. Kind of tricky, though. Pretty excited to learn more about =Andre='s sound module too. Oh, CnC router has finally been ordered. Will be a fun hobby again. c u Cary -
Molevitch liked a reply to the topic Cool/Interesting pictures.
September 10 at 7:57 am
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Drakoz replied to the topic Cool/Interesting pictures.
September 10 at 1:37 am
Elegant or not, they look great. Hell, most real military stuff in the cockpit doesn't look very elegant because it's so well used and sometimes kind of thrown together. Functionality is what matters. On FFB sticks, I and my buddy met today and kicked off the mechanical design for the FFB stick. I gave him my Cougar to measure and model so he can start doing the 3D model for the gimbals while I sort out the required force to handle a heavy Warthog/Cougar stick (with and without extension) and focus on motors, gearing, and electronics. Initially, we'll make the gimbals to work with a Cougar/Warthog stick and electronics, but with pull-pull centering springs like an Uber II Nxt. But I hope we can get enough of the FFB details figured out now to allow removing the springs and adding the gearing and motors plus electronics later to make it FFB. Designing the FFB will require some significant circuit design, motor selection, designing the gearing, etc. When I'm done, though, it is intended to be a FFB upgrade for HOTAS Cougar and Warthog sticks as well as a stand alone FFB joystick. So for example, someone wanting to build a custom stick into a cockpit could integrate what I'm designing into their build and customize it as needed. I've been slowing working on this for 2 years, but now it's time to make it actually happen - make the physical components. I have a shop full of CNC machines looking for something to do. :-) -
Drakoz replied to the topic Debrief Harmattan III Day 4.
September 10 at 1:12 am
Just because we had difficulty, or died (over and over and over) doesn't mean it wasn't fun. So don't feel bad. It was an educational good 4 hours. The best part was seeing Eagle pined down behind a hill with certain death looming right over the crest, 200 meters away. "Screw this, I'm going in." he said. The display of fire power, tracer rounds and explosions from my vantage point was quite something to behold. Eagle didn't have a chance. :-) Honestly, though, we could have defeated this mission easily if we had gotten 3 Gazelles and just worked together (even 2 Gazelles). It required us to scout out the area as a team, find the targets - all of them, use terrain to block them off (terrain blocking) and take them out using one helicopter as bait allowing the other two to pop up and take them out. I think this mission, as it is, would be an excellent training exercise to work on those techniques. A lot of our trouble was the two convoys South of the village. We were focused on the convoy closer to the village (with the tank) and kept getting clobbered by the guns in the convoy that was much further South (closer to us). The confusion over trying to work on one and getting hit by the other was the problem. For example, I kept seeing tank rounds flying past my canopy while I was trying to find the convoy further South because I didn't realize I was in range of the North Convoy (or that it even existed). When I finally realized there were _two_ convoys, and both were right at the crest of a hill, and hence had excellent cover, finally I saw why we were having so much trouble. Later, as we got closer to the village center, it was a meat grinder, but still using the block off and bait plan, methodically, I think we could have done this mission with great success and perhaps pretty quickly. -
BaDCrC created new topic Debrief Harmattan III Day 4.
September 9 at 5:43 am
A perfect example of when you want to put too many threats in the mission and not having enough fire power to take them down. Not my best mission guys, sorry about that.It took us 4 hours to get rid of those pesky BTR80 and BMP. The constant rotations we had to perform made it really hard to work as a team. So we couldn't really provide cover for each other and we paid the price: personally got shot down at least 7 times. Not to mention 2 gazelles I crashed when attempting to land on the platform ships. Congrats to Eagle_Rising for landing with no hydraulics power at all on one of those ships: Escorting Eagle's Huey backEagle making this almost deadstick landing looking like a really easy one Congrats also to Dracoz who managed his aircraft pretty well and never get discouraged. We even extracted all but one group from the surrounded village at the end. Too bad we all got disconnected after 4 hours of continuous flight. He saved a lot of lives tonight. Waay to many BTRs and heavy tank shooting missiles at us like they got an unlimited stock. That was mad. We lost a lot of machines and men this night, turning the mission into an attrition war. Thank you guys for your patience. We did manage to finish this mission after all. I'll be more moderate next time with targets. -
Molevitch replied to the topic Cool/Interesting pictures.
September 8 at 9:28 pm
Hey BaD, Thanks for the comments. The collective is supposed to have a canvas/leather boot over it but i just keep not getting round to it. The friction I tried in several unsuccessful ways. I looked at components online and then I thought about where friction gets used around the home. Skylight hinges, kitchen cupboard flaps, etc. In the end I went for the flap-stay, as it is cheap and still looks mechanical. I looked at the gas/oil filled dampers, but they are mostly not adjustable, so everything needs to be in balance. Might try that method with another. I have adapted the collective now so it has a slide in/out shelf to take my Warthog throttle, but it has not had much use yet. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Cool/Interesting pictures.
September 8 at 9:03 pm
Wow. The cyclic looks really neat actually. That's a pretty good job. How does the friction work for your collective? -
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Molevitch replied to the topic Cool/Interesting pictures.
September 8 at 8:58 pm
So here are my pics of my cyclic and collective builds. They may not be elegant but they do the trick! Hope you like, and feel free to ask questions, or criticise.... The 2 x FFB Cyclic The Cyclic's guts.... The Collective Collective design. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Multi-monitor setup and frame rate.
September 8 at 8:56 pm
Hi Drakoz, I actually run a 5 23' touchscreen monitors. {artsexylightbox youtube="zrEfTGR3QZk"}{/artsexylightbox} To maintain a reasonable framerate, I am using this: {artsexylightbox youtube="d2Pt6OoLj_U"}{/artsexylightbox} There's of course several more tweaks like the way you arrange your monitors in the windows display configuration, the definition and some trade off in the graphics settings of DCS, but in general, there is no secret. You need brute force CPU power. -
Molevitch replied to the topic Welcome to Molevitch!.
September 8 at 8:48 pm
Shame there is still no multicrew in any other chopper! -
Molevitch liked a reply to the topic Welcome to Molevitch!.
September 8 at 8:48 pm
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Molevitch liked a reply to the topic Welcome to Molevitch!.
September 8 at 8:47 pm
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Molevitch liked the topic Welcome to Molevitch!.
September 8 at 8:47 pm
Welcome to comrad Molevitch! This was not the easiest flight for Mole tonight, first having to stay up until 2:00 am, flying MP, having to bare with the pain-in-the-ass french guy in the left seat of his Gazelle, and finally avoid all the crazy BSD pilots flying around him. But I think we all appreciated Mole's motivation to do it right. So it is my pleasure to welcome him in our BSD group. Molevitch is now promoted to Trainee with a Private rank. We hope to see you often flying with us despite the difficult time difference with UK! Cheers! BaDCrC -
Molevitch replied to the topic Multi-monitor setup and frame rate.
September 8 at 8:47 pm
Hi Drakoz/Michael, Something like this problem was discussed recently on DCS Forum. The suggestion is you need to do a bit more fiddling back and forth with your DCS settings, like ramp it right down, and build it back up bit by bit.https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=169727. I am going to have another look at my screwy Mig 21 stick and report back. Thanks for your input about the pots. Meantime, I am posting pix of my cyclic and collective builds in the Cool Pictures gallery. Hope to fly with you again soon, though the timings are tough! Brushing up my cold starts on all the Helicopters currently. Regards, Robin -
Drakoz created new topic Multi-monitor setup and frame rate.
September 8 at 8:00 pm
Bad, I see you use 4 monitors on your rig (from pictures I saw on Captain Zeen's Helios profile website) . What are you doing to maintain a reasonable frame rate? I have three 24 inch (1920x1200) monitors in a straight layout left, center, right configuration. I run Medium settings in DCS (I just clicked the medium button) and haven't changed much. Even with a GTX 1080, I"m only getting 20-35 fps solo, and downwards of 15-20 FPS in multiplayer. It seemed to get worse recently with the latest patches from DCS. It may also be my motherboard/CPU. It's an i7-3770K from about 3 years ago, and I imagine DCS is a bit more CPU intensive than most games. Less than 20 FPS makes flying helicopters kinda painful at times. I would like to add a 3rd (center overhead) monitor, and maybe add my touch screen monitor for Helios on the side, but not at the expense of lesser frame rate. Regards,Michael -
ShuRugal replied to the topic Using Zulu Time for missions?.
September 8 at 7:24 pm
add my vote for EST. If the mission planner wants to include Zulu for international convenience, that is good, but having the primary listing be Zulu keeps throwing me with all these 2100 EST flights being listed as the next day on the calendar. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Cool/Interesting pictures.
September 8 at 5:54 pm
Awesome stuff guys! Thanks for sharing. Love the Apache blowing stuff picture. Good timing. -
Molevitch replied to the topic Cool/Interesting pictures.
September 8 at 1:54 pm
Hi Everyone, Thanks @Eagle_Rising for how to post pics. I will just post a few for now to make sure I did it right!. Here are some pix I took last year at Yeovilton Naval Air Station 2015 in UK. Lots of choppery fun! http://i1356.photobucket.com/albums/q726/robin-archer/Choppers%20at%20Yeovilton%20Air%20Day%202015/_DSC0016_zpsy7btyifc.jpg http://i1356.photobucket.com/albums/q726/robin-archer/Choppers%20at%20Yeovilton%20Air%20Day%202015/_DSC1215_zpsbqovb8fa.jpg http://i1356.photobucket.com/albums/q726/robin-archer/Choppers%20at%20Yeovilton%20Air%20Day%202015/_DSC1131_zpsq0rbzeql.jpg -
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Lulu created new topic Chipkit Max32 Delay Functions.
September 8 at 5:58 am
I did a great deal of web searching to find a decent delay function for timing and found a few (though I don't understand why it's not provided in a standard library). It was also important to me to understand how it works. So the following is what I came up with. The PIC32mx795F512L uC (on the ChipKit Max32 Arduino board) has a core timer feature. The timer is clocked every two system clocks (SYSCLK) and has two associated 32-bit registers (Count and Compare). This discussion is limited to simple uses of the core timer, so I won't cover theCompare register or interrupts. Given a clock speed of 80MHz, the timing resolution is 10^9/((80*10^6)/2) = 25nS/count. Notice that the core timer feature has nothing to do with the peripheral clock. When the count gets to the maximum (i.e., 0xFFFF_FFFF), the register simply rolls over to zero and starts counting again. At a 25nS clock rate (80MHz clock frequency), the register rolls over every 107 seconds (25nS*[2^32-1] = 107seconds or 1 minute, 47 seconds). There is a function that reads the core timer count register - ReadCoreTimer(). This function returns the instantaneous value of the counter when called. There are other associated core timer routines that are not discussed here. Given all that, here are two functions, one to delay in milliseconds and another to delay in microseconds: First a few header definitions: : : #define SYS_FREQ (80000000L) // Note- the CPU Core timer is always half the processor clock rate #define COUNTS_PER_MICRO_SEC ((SYS_FREQ/2L)/1000000L) #define COUNTS_PER_MILLI_SEC ((SYS_FREQ/2L)/1000L) // --------------------------------------------------------- Function prototypes void Delay_uS(unsigned int ReqDelay); void Delay_mS(unsigned int ReqDelay); : : The actual functions: #include <plib.h> : : // _____________________________________________________________________________ void Delay_uS(unsigned int ReqDelay) { unsigned int Finish; unsigned int EntryCount = ReadCoreTimer(); ReqDelay *= COUNTS_PER_MICRO_SEC; Finish = EntryCount + ReqDelay; if (Finish >= EntryCount) { // Normal Case while (ReadCoreTimer() < Finish); } else { // Roll-over will happen while (ReadCoreTimer() > EntryCount); // Wait for roll-over while (ReadCoreTimer() > Finish); // Remainder of wait } } // _____________________________________________________________________________ void Delay_mS(unsigned int ReqDelay) { unsigned int Finish; unsigned int EntryCount = ReadCoreTimer(); ReqDelay *= COUNTS_PER_MILLI_SEC; Finish = EntryCount + ReqDelay; if (Finish >= EntryCount) { // Normal Case while (ReadCoreTimer() < Finish); } else { // Roll-over will happen while (ReadCoreTimer() > EntryCount); // Wait for roll-over while (ReadCoreTimer() < Finish); // Remainder of wait } } : : A few comments: The two routines use the function ReadCoreTimer() from the plib library. There is a companion WriteCoreTimer() function, but it is not needed in this case and best not used. In all the XC32 documentation, they say plib.h will go away, but it is not at all clear what will replace it or what to use in the mean time. So I will use it until I find a replacement. Notice that the function parameter is modified within the routine. The functions are NOT portable to other uC, so for the PIC32 parameter passing scheme, this will not cause a problem. If the parameter passed is zero (it is unsigned, so it can't be negative), the result will be the shortest possible delay. The routines take into account the case when the timer register rolls-over which gives better timing over all. I did not yet get a chance to look at it with a scope, but I believe it should be correct. I struggled to find these routines, so I hope they are useful to others. -
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BaDCrC replied to the topic Using Zulu Time for missions?.
September 7 at 3:16 pm
I think the Zulu time is too complex to manage when flying in the US zone because of the date change. If we are flying regularly at 2000 or 2100 EST, pilots living in difference time zones will get used with it. And the calendar view is way too confusing in zulu. -
Drakoz replied to the topic Using Zulu Time for missions?.
September 6 at 9:11 pm
Since the topic came up again, I thought I would comment here. I'm good with EST, or Zulu (it's really just what you get used to and I can get used to Zulu easy enough), but the one reason I prefer EST is because for a mostly USA group, it means with EST, the events will be on the website calendar on the day it was planned. Using Zulu, typically the dates show up on the website calendar as the following day (just after midnight). This would be fine except the calendar doesn't show the time. Even though I know it's Zulu, it still gets a little confusing because at a glance, it looks like the events are one day later than they actually are for most the group. Regards,Michael -
Drakoz replied to the topic Cool/Interesting pictures.
September 6 at 8:49 pm
This was the day I maidened my Goblin 700 - May 2015. I had to land to let the Bell fly out. :-) So I did some comparison shots. This was a meet up weekend for kit build helicopters in the Sierra Nevada mountains - the Central Sierra Helicopter Meet. Mostly Helicycles, a couple Rotoways helicopters, and an R44 came that year. The Bell came in for part of the day and was the largest helicopter to show up. Surprisingly, no Mosquitos, but it's mostly a Helicycle group. Here's a better perspective of size. The Goblin has a 1.6 meter wing span, so it's still a serious RC helicopter. Here's a video by one of the Helicycle owners. They flew out to go get milkshakes. Landed in a local farmer's field next to the shake shop. 2015 Central Sierra Helicopter Meet I missed it this year (had to work). Here's a video of the 2016 meet up. There are actually quite a few Helicycle owners in California/Nevada. Unlike the Mosquito, which just requires a sport pilot license (it's an ultralight), the Helicycle has a 100HP turbine engine, and 100+ knots max speed, so it requires a regular helicopter license. Fly by Helicycles Central Sierra Meet 2016 And another - they had an R22 this year offering training flights. Wish I had gone. I could have gotten a little more time in my log book enjoying the Sierra Nevada mountains area. GoPro Central Sierra Helicopter Meet 2016 R22 Helicycle Regards,Michael -
Eagle_Rising replied to the topic Cool/Interesting pictures.
September 6 at 12:00 am
A ch-53 would be pretty cool that cockpit does look pretty old though but I guess I have no room to talk other than the steam gauges for the engine/oil indications the cockpit looks identical to ours. Also I think that is their squadron name or something I don't think it was in reference to the Uh-60. Awesome pictures, I'm going to be going to an airshow next month so hopefully there will be some cool stuff to look at. -
Molevitch said thank you to Michael Lohmeyer for his/her reply to the topic Welcome to Molevitch!.
September 5 at 8:15 pm
Welcome Molevitch. Since it wasn't a proper mission, there was a bit more messing around last night than the norm but I hope it wasn't too chaotic. It was good to fly with you. -
Molevitch said thank you to Tim Wilcox for his/her reply to the topic Welcome to Molevitch!.
September 5 at 8:14 pm
Welcome Mole, As Drakoz said we did a little more messing around than usual. I see it as a good way to test what you can and can't do with the choppers. The first time dealing with more people than AI and TS can be hectic. You will get used to it and it will be no big deal. Here is some of what you missed as you and Bad went for a ride in the country. Eagle and Spider testing out the hover: And testing the guns: Eagle testing my windscreen with a 2.75 rocket, as you see my co pilot took it to the face. Folding up my Gazelle like a sandwich..I don't think I walked away from this one. -
spiderpig replied to the topic Would you be using UniversRadio for our missions?.
September 5 at 6:04 pm
I've been using UR with the 355th for years now and can attest that it adds to the realism. We can have one channel for the operation and then have separate channels for each group (fighters, helicopters, CA). It makes radio communications much more realistic and you can also get a ATC module that works with UR as well (I think it's like 30 dollars). So if the group ever did get huge, I would invest in that as well. I already have a license so I'm good. Considering how much money we spend on controllers and cockpits - I don't this cost is a huge issue. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Would you be using UniversRadio for our missions?.
September 5 at 4:16 pm
http://tacnoworld.fr/universradio-changelog/ The intercom feature for multicrew is coming. Note that you can try UR for the first 15 minutes of a mission with 1 radio. -
Blackwolf replied to the topic FNG soon. Hello.
September 5 at 3:12 pm
Hi Smil! Welcome, did you come from Warbirds back about 2003? I seem to recognize the -smil- callsign from somewhere. Looking forward to winging up with you. BK -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Would you be using UniversRadio for our missions?.
September 5 at 3:02 pm
Thanks for your input Drakoz, Yes, I agree with you. Flying 4 or 5 might not be worth UR, although it's not just about being able to use different channels for different groups (you can do this in TS using the built-in family channel feature), it's also about adding realism in using the radios, frequencies and taking into account the terrain. The fact that different choppers use different radio types and bands is interesting as it forces users to do a radio com plan just like IRL. But there's always a way to find a common set of frequencies. Hey, it's a great idea of a feature for UR to take into account this multicrew dimension. I'll suggest this to Tacno (the guy who created UR). -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Would you be using UniversRadio for our missions?.
September 5 at 2:57 pm
Voted yes as well, I think it would add a lot to the missions. I can see a training day for radio's and set up coming up. Other than the tower freq or the datalink I haven't messed with the radios that much. I'm sure its easy just might need some help getting it set up. -
BaDCrC replied to the topic FNG soon. Hello.
September 5 at 2:50 pm
Hi Smil. It's great to have you on board. Looking forward to fly with you! -
Blackwolf replied to the topic Welcome to Molevitch!.
September 5 at 2:50 pm
Welcome Mole, As Drakoz said we did a little more messing around than usual. I see it as a good way to test what you can and can't do with the choppers. The first time dealing with more people than AI and TS can be hectic. You will get used to it and it will be no big deal. Here is some of what you missed as you and Bad went for a ride in the country. Eagle and Spider testing out the hover: And testing the guns: Eagle testing my windscreen with a 2.75 rocket, as you see my co pilot took it to the face. Folding up my Gazelle like a sandwich..I don't think I walked away from this one. -
Molevitch replied to the topic Welcome to Molevitch!.
September 5 at 2:10 pm
Hi BaDCrC, Drakoz, Spiderpig, Eagle, BlackWolf, and everybody else whose names I might not have got who were flying last night! Thank you for the warm reception, I am honoured to be joining your group as a Trainee Pilot. While I am sure my performance last night was poorer than usual, I was for the first time really dealing with co-operative interactions and TS comms, as well as trying not to get tangled in anyone else's rotors.... My Gazelle felt heavier than usual, I see BaDCrc is quite a tall and big guy, maybe that's why. :) I will continue to brush up on my cold starts and practice landings, taxiing, etc. My biggest lesson last night was compass orientation! I usually don't worry about it too much, just F10 it. But working with, rather than despite, fellow pilots seems to be really important at BlackSharkDen, and I like that. I will have a go at putting together some hopefully decent missions, and see what you think. I have only recently started to look at ME in any depth. When I was working FULL time, (own business, very full time!), I would use DCS as a wind down many evenings, but only running quick missions, or instant actions. Now that can change. For those that expressed an interest, I will post some pics of my cyclic and collective, once I work out how and where to do it on BSD.com. I guess I will need to produce an Avatar as well! See you all soon, Mole -
-smil- created new topic FNG soon. Hello.
September 5 at 12:42 pm
Thanks Bad_CrC for letting me join the forum! I wanted to say hello here before I can do my official registration for flight operations. Good news is I will be retiring at the end of this month (Sept), but bad news is I am pretty busy right now. I expect a delay before I can contribute with the squad. I also need to get my Ka-50 cockpit running again and that is taking longer than I thought with all the changes in OS, DCS, ect. I have a lot to relearn and I look forward to flying my Ka-50 again with you. thanks, see you all soon. -smil- -
Drakoz replied to the topic Would you be using UniversRadio for our missions?.
September 5 at 6:21 am
For groups of 4 to 8 people maybe it doesn't matter, but with complex missions and especially larger groups, something like UR will eventually be a requirement. If UR is the best you have tried, than paying $8 to get the best is no big deal. Wasting time with a free solution that doesn't work as well as UR, or is missing important features is not worth it. Also, if we end up doing multi-crew, it will be important to be able to set up "in aircraft" communications between crew members without going out to the entire group. Does UR have that ability without having to tune into a single radio channel? I keep comparing to ACRE for ARMA where people within earshot can always hear easy other. In the case of Multi-crew, there needs to be a channel for in aircraft comms which is equivalent to the "in earshot" mode. Anyway, the missions I'm thinking of making eventually will depend on a command structure where commanders of a flight will need to communicate with command or the FARP (where maybe a person will be acting as overall commander, but not necessarily flying). Flight commanders would get orders from the central command and then on a different frequency give sub-orders to a flight. This may be difficult or unrealistic in DCS as I'm not sure all helicopters have enough radios or radios with multi-channel capability, but if it is possible, I think it would enhance the chain of command greatly to be able to use UR in this way. -
Drakoz replied to the topic Welcome to Molevitch!.
September 5 at 5:59 am
Welcome Molevitch. Since it wasn't a proper mission, there was a bit more messing around last night than the norm but I hope it wasn't too chaotic. It was good to fly with you. -
BaDCrC created new topic Would you be using UniversRadio for our missions?.
September 5 at 5:33 am
So Eagle and I have been conducting some quick tests with UniversRadio (aka UR) and it seems to work pretty find. The only drawback of UR compare to the competition (SimpleRadio and Aries Radio) is that you have to pay a licence for about 7 to 8 dollars. The general consensus is that UR is vastly superior to SimpleRadio technically, and vastly superior to Aries from a stability point of view. The good thing I would add is that I can surely got Tacno (the programmer) to help us in case. Overall, Eagle and I felt this could really add the realism and makes the whole mission more enjoyable. {CONTENTPOLL ["id": 3]} -
BaDCrC replied to the topic Cool/Interesting pictures.
September 5 at 5:11 am
New York Airshow 2016 at Stewart Airport. Great weather but not as many choppers as last year sadly. But we got the chance to see that: I would like a DCS:CH-53 sooo much! This thing is really HUUUUUGE! Blackhawks? I have always been fascinated by the complexity of the CH-53 rotor!The maintenance must be crazy! From the cockpit. Not the new model. But I love analog gauges better than screens. The new Lakota: a BO-105 on steroids. FA-18 about to take-off following the Lakota pass.Simulated extraction from a Coast guardq Dauphin (Dolphin) -
BaDCrC created new topic Welcome to Molevitch!.
September 5 at 4:30 am
Welcome to comrad Molevitch! This was not the easiest flight for Mole tonight, first having to stay up until 2:00 am, flying MP, having to bare with the pain-in-the-ass french guy in the left seat of his Gazelle, and finally avoid all the crazy BSD pilots flying around him. But I think we all appreciated Mole's motivation to do it right. So it is my pleasure to welcome him in our BSD group. Molevitch is now promoted to Trainee with a Private rank. We hope to see you often flying with us despite the difficult time difference with UK! Cheers! BaDCrC -
Molevitch replied to the topic Application for Molevitch.
September 4 at 6:20 pm
Hi Drakoz, Well let's have a chat tonight. I just realised that Zulu is 1 hour behind GMT.... Yikes! Better have a small espresso. -
Molevitch said thank you to Michael Lohmeyer for his/her reply to the topic Application for Molevitch.
September 4 at 2:53 pm
Molevitch, I look forward to meeting at the flight tomorrow. Regarding the stick, it might be one of the pots is bad, noisy, or the wire got damaged. The FFB needs to know the position of the stick to know when it has moved the stick to the desired location (it's a feedback loop). It is less likely you would have damaged the circuit, but very possible in re-arranging it that you damaged a wire, connector, or pot. This kind of "easy" problem is often very likely the problem. So I'd focus on those kinds of things first. Also, ask yourself what else you may have touched that might have resulted in the problem. If you don't find anything, then the next thing is to study the circuit board to see if you did anything there (a loose solder blob or piece of wire shorting out something). Unfortunately, if you don't find any obvious causes like that, then it's time to dive into the circuit itself and see if a component got ruined. Sadly, it might just be easier to buy another one on eBay. But if you dive into it that deep, I'll help if I can. If you haven't seen it already, this page (http://www.simprojects.nl/ms_siderwinder_ff2_hack.htm) has schematics for the driver circuit and maybe some other interesting info that may help you.
