Elbrus Mission - Question

After not touching this missions for probably half a year, I thought I should be a better pilot by now...but I still don't manage to start. Gov on, slided to the edge and thought I could get some speed while sliding downhill. But the Huey simply tilts over, when I do this. While reading through this thread, I saw some comments about bugs and a modified mission. So I'm just wondering if it's still possible to finish the original, non-modified mission?

Its possible and dont mess with the gov, its just not realistic.

Love this mission. Run it a few times (sometimes successfully, sometimes not ;)).

 

However, with the newest incarnation with DCS 1.5, I've run into problems. All the flying is going fine. I can take off at the top with manual GOV (just about so).

 

The only issue I'm starting to have is at the very end when I'm taking the second round of soldiers down the mountain. It became very very dark and because the weather was still awful, I really couldn't see a thing.

 

I was going for the night vision and that helped me through the saddle close to the airport, but there I got into some light clouds (which wouldn't have been a problem at day) and really couldn't see a thing, no matter if with night vision or not.

It was just a blind flight. I tried to get into a hover (which is quite hard if you're flying blind) and get closer to the ground, but in the end I blindly crashed into a mountain.

 

Now I wanted to know if this is just on my system due to some graphics setup or if there is a general problem with this mission in DCS 1.5?

 

I'm using a Radeon R9 280X with settings on the High Preset.

 

I sort of doubt that this extremely low visibility is wanted. It was much lower than I would expect from these kind of clouds.

Had the same issue whilst playing with a buddy in the modified version so two of us could do that mission together, Both of us were able to do mission with out issue, well except for me having the same blind landing as described above ;-)(, I lost all visibility and paniced by the time I calmed down and went into Instrument flight rules and checked my artifiscal horizon, I was in a 45 degree bank turn with nose down into the dirt, as I corrected this dire attitude I was so low that I had come out of the fog and could just make out the the ground that I was about to hit, but I had survived, just, I then landed successfully and accomplished the mission successfully. (Nail biting stuff !!!)

Re: The darkness can be due to a bug that 1.5x has with the time of day, it varies to the original by 30-90 min, I have seen it in other missions.

ie:

• If it was 05:30 in the morning at sunrise (able to see quite well) in v1.216, it would be (pitch black) and have to be set to 06:15 or so in v1.5x to have the exact same lighting conditions as v1.216.
  

So to others, yes it can be completed unmodified, I only changed the amount of choppers that were flyable.

Regards, Ian.

Thank you for the information. This means I still need a lot more practice how to start the thing heavily loaded on a mountain...

When I played it successfully I only remember starting up once. It is a fun flight back down I exceeded 140 knots:helpsmilie: It is doable but needs a bit of practice I failed about the first 4 times left it a year came back and did it:)

Good luck

I've flown this mission 3 times with the Huey without triggering a mission success, but with the Mi-8 it triggered OK.

Any ideas ?

..

Hey guys,

I just wonder, isn`t there more to this thread ? Now that taking off from the top of Mt. Elbrus has been discussed to extend (and it´s working in V 1.5.5, I managed taking off from there myself !), I have the next question.

Where do you have to land in order to drop off the 8 soldiers from the first run AND to be able to refuel. Finishing the first run, I landed close to the fire trucks (on one of those helipads next to the big white T) in order to have the injured pilot taken away as quickly as possble. At that time, the fuel gauge shows allmost 'empty' and my co-pilot tells me that it`ll be necessary to refuel before going up that mountain another time. I radio ground crew to refuel (and rearm) on the given frequency, but nothing happens. No confirmation, no refueling whatsoever.

I tried to find out by watching the most recent youtube videos, but they don`t show refueling in between those two runs.

Can anyone answer my question ?

Hey guys,

 

I have the next question.

 

Where do you have to land in order to drop off the 8 soldiers from the first run AND to be able to refuel. Finishing the first run, I landed close to the fire trucks (on one of those helipads next to the big white T) in order to have the injured pilot taken away as quickly as possible.

 

At that time, the fuel gauge shows almost 'empty' and my co-pilot tells me that it`ll be necessary to refuel before going up that mountain another time.

 

I radio ground crew to refuel (and rearm) on the given frequency, but nothing happens. No confirmation, no refueling whatsoever.

 

I tried to find out by watching the most recent youtube videos, but they don`t show refueling in between those two runs.

 

Can anyone answer my question ?

You only have to land on the FARP or within 100m radius of it to off load the troups and refuel.

To refuel:

• Be on the FARP
  
• Shutdown engine and wait till blades stop (This is a new requirement)
  
• Have correct radio tuned to AM 116.0mzh for SKALA
  
• Use Radio (Ralt + \) request for refuel by using proper radio selector (R-Cntrl + R-Shift + Y) or (R-Cntrl + R-Shift + Y) can't remember which one.
  
• IF radio request doesn't work anymore use (L-Shift + ') for the new Refueling and Rearming window.
  
• Once topped up, get the engine and blades going again and off you go.
  

Regards, Ian.

Its possible and dont mess with the gov, its just not realistic.

Fact.

I completed it reasonably easily, without fiddling with the governor.

When you land, land so you are facing as downhill as possible, it makes it easier to do a running takeoff. More key is landing into wind, look at the smoke and ensure you are into wind.

All the talk of manual governor in this sim is terribly erroneous. If you go manual governor at full throttle, you will melt your engine in no time. Highly inaccurate.

Thanks MadDog-IC for your help on refueling. I´ll give it a try this weekend.

With all the talk about changing the governor mode when leaving the crash site on top of the mountain, I can say, that putting it to EMER works good for me. But you have to be careful when the co-pilot returns it to NORMAL operation and you are still on the slope down in front of that cliff. The reduced power brings me into difficulties while trying to maintain height and course. So, what works best for me, is to set the governor right back to EMER once my co-pilot set it back to NORMAL. I leave it in that position until I reach the drop of the cliff and can go full-speed down. At that time I have to set it back to NORMAL, otherwise the engine will be toasted within the next few seconds, as Sandman1330 mentioned above.

Refueling problem solved !

You only have to land on the FARP or within 100m radius of it to off load the troups and refuel.

 

To refuel:

• Be on the FARP
  
• Shutdown engine and wait till blades stop (This is a new requirement)
  
• Have correct radio tuned to AM 116.0mzh for SKALA
  
• Use Radio (Ralt + \) request for refuel by using proper radio selector (R-Cntrl + R-Shift + Y) or (R-Cntrl + R-Shift + Y) can't remember which one.
  
• IF radio request doesn't work anymore use (L-Shift + ') for the new Refueling and Rearming window.
  
• Once topped up, get the engine and blades going again and off you go.
  

Regards, Ian.

Alrighty, I found out how to get refueled. As always the detail lies in the small things. In order to get refueled you´d have to make sure you are communicating with the ground crew. In order to do that, you have to set the dial of the communication controller (C-1611/AIC) to "INT". Once done, you can ask for refueling (and rearming) and you `ll get an immediate response from the ground crew.

I'd say the mission could need some tweaking for DCS 2.5. When I flew up, the soldiers were standing/waiting on an very steep slope. No way to land there. The trigger zone might have been big enough (not tested...managed to crash because the LZ wasn't flat enough and I didn't pay enough attention), but it was so hard to actually see the soldiers.

The visuals are pretty cool though compared to the 1.5 mission.

I just landed near them where the ground was much flatter and the groups then run over to you. If you aren't close enough the audio dialogue from the group wont trigger, so get a little closer. The mission is broken though as they need to fix the altitudes for the triggers back at the FARP, they just wont trigger as you don't get low enough to fulfill the requirement. I edited the mission to increase the trigger height from 1815 to 2000 and increased the range of the trigger from .2 to .3 just incase and that then seemed to fix it.

I've still not managed to get the second group down yet, I crashed during my second landing on the peak near that group and called it a day. I started on one of the other missions saving the downed A10 pilot, that's buggy too surprise surprise.

This is from 2.5 open beta.

Good to know, thanks. I'll edit the trigger in that case. Maybe it would make sense to post it in the "bug and problems" section? I doubt the devs will see it in this thread.

Did you not have problems with the EGT? When I climbed up the hill, I made sure I stayed within limits, but I wonder if I would have been too slow - it took me a lot longer than with 1.5 before they implemented EGT. Well, I suppose I'll find when I try it for the next time.

I'm fairly certain they are aware as I think every mission could be potentially be effected as they refined the terrain elevation map in 2.5, hence why things look much smoother and rounded now. I've certainly seen other posts mentioning mission bugs due to elevation changes.

Sorry missed your edit, yes I had problems the first couple of attempts because of EGT. Hint, turn off anti-icing for that extra bit of power when clear of clouds. Oh and try to stay in ground effect too, about 50 to 90ft helps.

It was no edit, but never mind. Thanks for the hint - I should have thought of that myself because it's the same with the Mi-8....but of course I did not think of it.

Which value did you change from 0.2 to 0.3? The "x: Cockpit Argument in Range"?

Which value did you change from 0.2 to 0.3? The "x: Cockpit Argument in Range"?

Yup that is the one, no idea if that was needed or not as I am a day one noob as far as mission editing goes, but it did help when I tested the first stage of the mission. Previous to changing that the mission wouldn't acknowledge me landing at the FARP.

Thank you, that worked fine. Too bad I also didn't make the 2nd part (had an oil pressure failure at 2nd climb even though I think I paid attention on EGT). It's really cool how the weather and the clouds are always different at every retry.

Yeah its funny my best run actually had the most inclement weather on my preferred route up the mountain.

Can´t make it to the summit of Mt. Elbrus anymore

Having flown the Elbrus mission successfully several times quite some time ago, I started it up in the Open Beta again just to see if I can still rescue the stranded soldiers.

Everything worked as usual after the take-off, but when reaching 11.300 ft (I think the QFE is wrong from the beginning - in the briefing it says 23.17 mmHg, but you start up with a readng of 28.17 mmHg) suddenly the engine fails. Everything was in the limits except for the exhaust temperature which reads 700° - yellow range.

I tried the climb several times going up as slow and close to the ground as possible to keep EGT really low, but on that one plateau in front of Mt. Elbrus the engines simply die with a bang every time.

Any suggestions how to accomplish that mission in 2.5 ? What´s the trick now ?

cannot succeed as well :(

Having flown the Elbrus mission successfully several times quite some time ago, I started it up in the Open Beta again just to see if I can still rescue the stranded soldiers.

 

Everything worked as usual after the take-off, but when reaching 11.300 ft (I think the QFE is wrong from the beginning - in the briefing it says 23.17 mmHg, but you start up with a readng of 28.17 mmHg) suddenly the engine fails. Everything was in the limits except for the exhaust temperature which reads 700° - yellow range.

I tried the climb several times going up as slow and close to the ground as possible to keep EGT really low, but on that one plateau in front of Mt. Elbrus the engines simply die with a bang every time.

 

Any suggestions how to accomplish that mission in 2.5 ? What´s the trick now ?

The max you can run the EGT for is 625 for 30 minutes, but you are going to lose performance all the time you are above 625, even if you come back below again. At 700 you are going to see an engine fire before you get to the summit for sure.

As I mentioned earlier, you need to turn off De-Icing when clear of cloud and really treat the engine with kid gloves, otherwise the accrued damage you get by the time you reach the summit will be high and you won't have enough power to land safely, never mind get in the air again loaded with the first group of passengers. Dont forget you need to go all the way back up again for the second group which is higher still and in an even worse spot to land.

Everything worked as usual after the take-off, but when reaching 11.300 ft (I think the QFE is wrong from the beginning - in the briefing it says 23.17 mmHg, but you start up with a readng of 28.17 mmHg) suddenly the engine fails. Everything was in the limits except for the exhaust temperature which reads 700° - yellow range.

The EGT 30 minute limit is 610-625°C, beyond that range/time limit BST have modelled accumulating engine damage - keep EGT below 610°C as long as possible.

Any suggestions how to accomplish that mission in 2.5 ? What´s the trick now ?

TL;DR Turn the Engine De-Icer OFF, it increases EGT too much, making a bad situation worse.

The mission is still difficult, but should be achievable as the flight model hasn't changed - I reached the summit but unfortunately crashed when re-positioning for the pickup trigger zone.

Pre-mission estimates for 2.5 (Engine De-ice=OFF)

Temperature = 8°C @ Sea-level, lapse -2°C per 1000 ft

Base Camp: Max Torque 38 psi at 6000 ft MSL/ -4°C OAT

Summit: Max Torque 32 psi at 18500 ft MSL/ -27°C OAT

6523 lb < OGE GW 7400 lb at 18500 ft MSL

IGE (2ft) GW 8400 lb at 18500 ft MSL

Note: Gearbox Torque limit is 50 psi, below this, the limiting parameters will be EGT 625°C, Vn, etc

Warning

Torque must be monitored as the primary power instrument below engine critical altitude.