OH-58D In flight testing now Twitch

My apology, didn't know there was a pay to view scheme on the VOD. When I posted the link, he was live and you don't need to pay to view live content.

No worries, it would be interesting to hear I guess, but not $5 interesting to me.

No, he meant Flight Engineer. That's what the Air Force calls Crew Chiefs if you're an Army-type person. There's more to it than that, but that will suffice.

At the end of the day all it means is that he isn't an actual pilot with the experience to evaluate the FM in meaningful ways.

At the end of the day all it means is that he isn't an actual pilot with the experience to evaluate the FM in meaningful ways.

Still... His wording was mostly that it felt a lot closer to the huey than the current Gazelle. And we could clearly see it behaving a lot more like a helicopter should.

EDIT: Also, you can see at least shorter snippets here

I'm obviously not suggesting to jump on it before seeing proper reviews or anything, but only that I personally think it looks promising based on what I've seen so far.

I watched a few hours of the stream - was very impressed.

having a R/L Helicopter rating - i watched the FM intently and listened to what Sven, the dev said.

The flight model looks great (although hard to assess while watching) a lot of improvements over Gaz FM were evident - infact looked NOTHING like the gazelle, even with the OH-58Ds SCAS turned on.

The interior modelling was fantastic.

Im very pumped for this, had low expectations, but ive changed my mind.

This is one bad ass little helo

Good Work PC

Go Sky

Most expected module for me for 2020! :D

Is there a video link?

Not gonna pay $5 to watch it, sorry.

Met that paywall as well, wouldn't want to pay that if I don't watch the channel regularly. Would have loved to see the Kiowa in action...

My apology, didn't know there was a pay to view scheme on the VOD. When I posted the link, he was live and you don't need to pay to view live content.

Actually this was the first time I've ever come across this. Usually I can watch VOD recordings of Twitch streams like up to a week after it happened without getting charged at all.

The flight model looks great (although hard to assess while watching) a lot of improvements over Gaz FM were evident - infact looked NOTHING like the gazelle, even with the OH-58Ds SCAS turned on.

It certainly looked like it was "hanging from the rotor" which at least looks about right.

Other notable points were:

Rain drops on the glass.

The rocket pods had some interesting configurations. One had what appears to be an over/under load with extended tubes in the middle three tubes. The other pod had some very long rockets which looked rather like APKWS. This is speculative and of course all this is subject to change, and they were not able to discuss this during the stream due to NDA.

The M4's will not be operable. Smoke grenades are.

Doors will not be a feature. To paraphrase the streamer "The doors appear on the helicopter when delivered to the unit, then they're thrown in a room somewhere and never used again"

Sounded like several Hellfire variants are modelled.

Still no plans for multicrew but are watching what ED's doing with the UH-1H.

Other caveats were that the rotors are not finished yet (which is why they look a bit weird) and there isn't any FADEC implmented yet. Bear this in mind when commenting on any videos.

Also this will not be released this year, there will be no EA and it should be more or less complete at release.

Most expected module for me for 2020! :D

The same for me! :thumbup:

We can hope for a Christmas miracle :D

TBH I can wait a little bit, with the JF-17 hitting tomorrow and the Supercarrier expected soon as well as Syria. I don't have all that cash at once, especially not in December

And I do want to get things as early as possible

But after reading Pickle's post, I got even more excited for the thing... and eventually, also the rework of the Gazelle so it will finally pay off

The reveiew sounds cool...

Have they said what "year"/model OH-58 we will get?

At the end of the day all it means is that he isn't an actual pilot with the experience to evaluate the FM in meaningful ways.

I agree. However, I am also of the opinion that most actual pilots also do not have the experience to evaluate the FM in meaningful ways. I believe it, additionally, requires at least some knowledge of and experience with DCS in particular and PC-based flight simulation in general.

The reveiew sounds cool...

 

Have they said what "year"/model OH-58 we will get?

Based on what I saw/what was said in the live stream, looks like it'll be a D variant Kiowa Warrior. I didn't see the nose mounted camera system of the F model and its various "confirmed" weapons list so far indicates a newer Warrior model.

One thing is for sure, Poly isn't messing around with this module. It's gonna be as accurate to real life as possible through this sim thanks to a load of real world pilots/maintainers that are providing them information and alpha flight testing input. It's going to set a new bar in terms of helo realism for DCS. No question.

My apology, didn't know there was a pay to view scheme on the VOD. When I posted the link, he was live and you don't need to pay to view live content.

Dont be sorry, it's not your fault.

Im just disappointed in how poorly this is being handled by Polychop. Who in their right mind does a reveal like this behind a paywall?

The Kiowa is gonna be interesting to a degree in that there's a whole lot more Bell 206 pilots out there who, even if they've not flown the Kiowa itself, should still have a general idea of how it's expected to behave. Got to fly one myself this summer, was a blast, and it was cool to experience how well DCS training transferred over to maneuvering.

@Sephyrius:

I did not know that there was such a VOD pay stuff in there, so appologies for that.

We will come to that in a different post though.

About your 206 experiance, that is nice to hear. One thing though, 206 and 58d Kiowa Warrior are defenately not feeling anything alike ;) and this is confirmed by all the testers that, cause they have all gone through the TF67, which is a 206

@Sephyrius:

 

I did not know that there was such a VOD pay stuff in there, so appologies for that.

 

We will come to that in a different post though.

 

About your 206 experiance, that is nice to hear. One thing though, 206 and 58d Kiowa Warrior are defenately not feeling anything alike ;) and this is confirmed by all the testers that, cause they have all gone through the TF67, which is a 206

Looking forward to checking it out.

And alright, hoped it would at least have a general similarity. I think it would be useful for people to know what setup your real life pilots use the module with, for example the twitchy and very sensitive feel of the Gazelle might be a completely different experience for a $1000 floor mounted helicopter cyclic and your average joe with his T16000M.

On that note, Im guessing that there wont be any FFB support for the Kiowa?

Anyone here don't like the "no rifle firing" decision? I've been reading people saying it's a deal breaker, but I don't understand why. Maybe if DCS infantry were like that ground based sim/game, but right now, what benefit would firing a rifle out the door bring?

While it would be cool I'm not upset about not being able to use the rifle. In the real world Kiowa pilots were deadly with them, but what we would end up with in dcs would be something like the door gun implementation but only semi automatic. And with how the infantry is in DCS I don't think its much of a loss. Then you have to consider that the ai would have to fly while you gun, and there not going to get you close enough to hit targets with a rifle. You'd have to have multicrew first.

I just went to Ponyhoof (rather known as facebook in its uncool and unmodded state) which I normally don't do on a regular basis anymore and stumbled across this comment to the latest announcement and thought I'd share it with you who haven't picked this up already:

Eric W. Abney: PUBIC ANNOUNCEMENT: I've decided the public shaming over my inability to provide my services (online content) for free is destroying what I'm trying to build. I will momentarily be making all of my online content FREE TO THE PUBLIC. You vote with your dollar (please vote for me so I can keep providing free online content).

So we now can watch the VOD of his OH-58D stream at

without having to pay for a subscription. Thanks for opening up the content to the public!

Not being able to fire the m4 isn't a deal breaker but it's definitely a missing part of the simulation. It's part of the kiowas character, even if it wouldn't be very effective in dcs.

I'd love to have it and chase down cars with it.

Hi Eldur,

when I access that link I get

Sorry. Unless you’ve got a time machine, that content is unavailable.

Sorry. Unless you’ve got a time machine, that content is unavailable.

Hi Eldur,

when I access that link I get

 

Sorry. Unless you’ve got a time machine, that content is unavailable.

Twitch only keeps past streams for a few weeks at most.