Campaign issues

First of all, pardon me if I come across as irritated. I've just spent a couple of exasperating hours trying to fly a couple of missions.

In the campaign, especially in mission 5 (poke in the eye), the winds are just ridiculous. 12m/s? That's close to 30mph winds. Is it really doable to successfully fly a combat chopper in that, or am I just having trouble adapting?

Anyway, the high winds give me great difficulty getting to the target area. It seems like I'm nearly pinning the stick to a side just to fly a relatively straight line.

When I get there, my Vikhrs don't work. From what I've read on the forums, it sounds like that's because of the wind. I have tried a couple of methods, and the only one that worked was to fire off a shot, see which direction that veered wildly in, and then engage manual mode and correct for it. Oddly enough, my Vikhrs veered INTO the wind more often than not.

The omnipresent AAA would seem like a fun challenge if I weren't spending all my concentration just trying to keep my bird from flying off like a kite.

So, any thoughts? Is it just me? Is there any way to tone the wind down? I haven't played in the editor much, but I don't see a windspeed option in the dynamic weather.

Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated =(

Never flown the mission nor am I really an expert on the Ka-50, but I know the mission editor. So if you wish to change the weather, either select "standard" box on weather options and set wind accordingly, or you can change the systems quantity in dynamic to 1 and hope you get a not very windy day or just hit generate and it will randomly create new weather.

It's not just you :)

It's the wind (dynamic weather:cyclone). All my vikhrs missed. I tell my wingman to engaged my target. Same thing. all his vilkhrs missed.

Then, I play all the mission of the campaign independantly, and modify the weather of mission 5.

You must fire Vikhrs with some deflection against the wind. I had some troubles with this mission too :thumbup:

First of all, pardon me if I come across as irritated. I've just spent a couple of exasperating hours trying to fly a couple of missions.

In the campaign, especially in mission 5 (poke in the eye), the winds are just ridiculous. 12m/s? That's close to 30mph winds. Is it really doable to successfully fly a combat chopper in that, or am I just having trouble adapting?

 

Anyway, the high winds give me great difficulty getting to the target area. It seems like I'm nearly pinning the stick to a side just to fly a relatively straight line.

 

When I get there, my Vikhrs don't work. From what I've read on the forums, it sounds like that's because of the wind. I have tried a couple of methods, and the only one that worked was to fire off a shot, see which direction that veered wildly in, and then engage manual mode and correct for it. Oddly enough, my Vikhrs veered INTO the wind more often than not.

 

The omnipresent AAA would seem like a fun challenge if I weren't spending all my concentration just trying to keep my bird from flying off like a kite.

 

So, any thoughts? Is it just me? Is there any way to tone the wind down? I haven't played in the editor much, but I don't see a windspeed option in the dynamic weather.

 

Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated =(

Post a track please.

War does not wait for fair weather :D

To have the Vikhrs stick you'll have to compensate for your drift so put cyclic into the wind until the vikher reticule is stable in centre of HUD and on target.

It's a lot'a work, but once mastered it's easy as anything else.

Will see if I can make a track after I'm done at work.

After a few attemp, I completed the mission. Always anticipate the wind direction and compensate. Dont rely on auto hower, try manual hovering with trim and keep an eye on the ground movement.

For the vikhrs, aligning the targets along the wind direction worked for me. Most of the missiles hit in the automatic mode.

I'll have to eat my words from my previous post!

There could be a bug in the launch vector of the Vikhrs. When I compensate for wind drift during high hover, the Vikhers seem to launch upwind at double my vector angle as if their initial air speed is translated into ground speed?!

That means I have to point the nose of the helo downwind of the target upon weapon release. I thought the natural thing would be to point upwind to compensate for drift!

*or*

There is the possibility that it may be correct behaviour though. In earlier posts there were mention of the stabilizing fins of rockets being affected by rotor downwash if released during hover, giving the rocket a slight upward tilt thus overshooting the target. Maybe the Vikhrs are affected in the same way by wind coming from the side?

Attached track show 5x T80 heading into 15ms @ 180 degrees attacked with Vikhrs from 270 degrees.

Wind.trk

There's an interesting post on the A10 side, re wind and the ability to input the winds parameters for iron "dumb" bombs.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=66422

It doesn't help us in the Black Shark.:joystick:

12 m/s is challenging. Its over the service limit for take off and landing, crosswind and tail wind. (10 m/s).

The Vikhr has a supersonic speed ( initially) 650 m/s or 2100 fps. If you keep the range low, say, 4 kilometers ( 4 seconds flight for a Vikhr) and keep the Skhval on the target, it should spiral its way along the beam and hit.

With a strong wind ( remember we have gusts as well in RW, to contend with) I would ripple fire a couple. Russian's like to ripple fire their missiles!:music_whistling: In winds, you can see why this makes sense. Especially if you are attacking a SAM and need that hit. All weapons are affected by wind.

I would position around the target, if there is time and fire as close to either downwind or up wind of the target as you can.

I have not flown this campain. My favourite is still the Deployment campain. lots of Russian radio chat between the co pilot and you feel "there". I completed that with 29 missions flown, 139 Air to ground kills and 2 Air to air.:D

Here's a simultaneous Double Vikhr attack at about 4 cliks.

And a nice vid of our deadly Bird of Prey;-

:thumbup:

The Vikhr has a supersonic speed ( initially) 650 m/s or 2100 fps. If you keep the range low, say, 4 kilometers ( 4 seconds flight for a Vikhr) and keep the Skhval on the target, it should spiral its way along the beam and hit.

I find greater range is better. It gives the Vikhr more time to stabilize, and you'd have to be very brave to come within 4km of a column of T72/T80 these days. At expert setting, the T80 is firing its 9M119 just within 5km.

I would position around the target, if there is time and fire as close to either downwind or up wind of the target as you can.

Agreed, or stay very low to the ground where it's less windy. Ground laminar effect is nicely done in this sim.

Here's my latest attempt. I am also having issues with the Vikhr overcorrecting and shooting way off upwind. The successful hits I got came from aiming downwind (i.e. the direction I expected the missile to drift) and firing manually.

KosPilot: FWIW, I realize that yes, military pilots have to fly in difficult conditions. I'm not asking for patronizing remarks; I'm trying to figure out why the hell my missiles are drifting the opposite way they should. I recognize I'm not the best pilot; I just want to understand what on earth is going on during windy combat employment. Sheesh.

LastMissionTrack.trk

KosPilot: FWIW, I realize that yes, military pilots have to fly in difficult conditions. I'm not asking for patronizing remarks; I'm trying to figure out why the hell my missiles are drifting the opposite way they should. I recognize I'm not the best pilot; I just want to understand what on earth is going on during windy combat employment. Sheesh.

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Offended you, did I? My apologies.

If it's really understanding you're after I would like you to comment my second post as well.

Here's my latest attempt. I am also having issues with the Vikhr overcorrecting and shooting way off upwind. The successful hits I got came from aiming downwind (i.e. the direction I expected the missile to drift) and firing manually.

AFAIK this is normal; most missiles and rockets will naturally turn into the wind. This is called weathercocking or weathervaning, and it's due to the fact that the wind will exert a greater force on the back of the missile than on the front, due to the control surfaces in the back. This creates a torque which turns the nose into the wind. Given that the Vikhr's rocket motor burns through most of it's flight, and is easily powerful enough to overcome the net downwind force, it's no surprise that the missile tends to end up well upwind of the intended target.

In other words, you're not missing due to wind drift, you're missing because the missile doesn't have sufficient control authority to correct it's weathercocking tendency and point it's nose at the target. That's my theory anyway :).

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPG-7

A crosswind will tend to exert pressure on the stabilizing fins, causing the projectile to turn into the wind. While the rocket motor is still burning, this will cause the flight path to curve into the wind.

KosPilot: I suppose I should refrain from replying when I've just spent an hour fighting the sim. At any rate, sorry for sounding snippy.

slug88: Thank you for that. That seems like a likely explanation. If that's the case, then the level of detail in the physics of this sim still amazes me. As long as I manually correct sufficiently, the missile manages to make it into a stable flight path after a couple seconds.

And for what it's worth, here's my (finally!) successful attempt at this mission. Fun story: One little trick I've used to drop my rotor RPM after killing the engines is to max out the collective. It gets them slowed down nicely to the point (30%?) where I can slap on the brake. Apparently this isn't a good idea in 30mph winds. The RPM dropped, my blades whipped up and before I knew what was going on, I had done yet another salad chopper. My wingman couldn't even land on the FARP with the winds.

At the start of the mission, the ATC refuses me startup clearance. Is that just because of the wind?

Edit: And while I'm here, how exactly does calling in CAS work? On the next mission, I hit the CAS option in the radio after I got off the ground, wondering if I had to designate targets or what. My guy said nothing, the CAS talked constantly, and 2 minutes later, my mission was done o.O

Windy!.trk

In other words, you're not missing due to wind drift, you're missing because the missile doesn't have sufficient control authority to correct it's weathercocking tendency and point it's nose at the target. That's my theory anyway :) .

Thank you Slug and thank you ED!

+1 to the straight-shooter ;)