General KA question

Was there a version of the KA where the Abris and the PVI-800 were linked? In other words, inputs on one were recognized by the other? Because in my opinion that's the main thing holding this heli's nav system back from A-10 level of awesomeness. (that and being able to persistently save flight plans on the hard drive...)

IIRC you can save flight plans and recall them in the KA-50.

IIRC you can save flight plans and recall them in the KA-50.

They can be recalled within the same flight session by following the save procedures in the manual, but if you respawn, or go to another server and come back later, the saved flightplan is gone.

There is only one part where the PVI-800 and ABRIS are linked. If you create a NAV TGT on the PVI, it will be displayed on the ABRIS as a square with a number inside it. Not sure why this is the only link between the two, and it's one-way only: no matter what you do on the ABRIS , it won't affect the PVI-800 at all.

In practice, I hardly ever use the PVI-800, and use the ABRIS for everything. It's easy enough to trim the aircraft so that it's flying in a straight path towards a target point, so I just follow the yellow line on the ABRIS.

I guess it's technically two-way since if you delete a DL-memory mark its ABRIS representation can be deleted later matched to clearing that part of the DL-memory. But really the ABRIS marks are a kind of repeated copy mark. You can save a bunch of armor marks and then power cycle the ABRIS in which case they will be erased from ABRIS memory but still present in the PRK memory. Similarly you can use the all the other systems with ABRIS simply off.

ABRIS allows a sort of passive display of the PRK locations as a luxury.

Flight plans for example can't be generated simply by the ABRIS. All you can really do is find the numbers and punch them in the PVI-800 keypad (which if mapped to the keyboard numpad can be very quick).

..SNIP>>>

 

Flight plans for example can't be generated simply by the ABRIS. All you can really do is find the numbers and punch them in the PVI-800 keypad (which if mapped to the keyboard numpad can be very quick).

I figured that out about a year ago..mapping the PVI to the Numpad saves a lot of time!:thumbup:

I should be clear I'm talking about it mainly from the perspective of usability in multiplayer, where you don't have the option to create a mission plan which might populate PVI waypoints before you load into the game.

In multiplayer I use the Abris to create a waypoint to the target ... used to create actual flightplans with multiple waypoints to and from the target area, but after I realized that saving them to the "hard drive" per the manual's instructions wasn't persistent - ie if I respawned or left server and came back they were gone - it just didn't seem worth the time and effort.

So I create a waypoint to target area, usually by looking up the name of the town that's referenced in the mission briefing, so that I have the heading to follow and then I'll determine on the way if I want to modify the flight path to come in from another direction. But this means that in reality I hardly ever use the PVI-800 for managing or following waypoints, and I never use the autopilot that is linked to it (forget the name - you flip the switch on the left up to activate it). I basically use flight director on/off exclusively in MP.

Its the route following switch you're thinking of Lefty.

Since there's no mission planner function in multiplayer the workload is higher.

But it's not that much work to punch in ABRIS flight plan page numbers into the PVI. Bind your numpad on keyboard to the PVI keypad. I probably wouldn't bother with the en route portion but NAVTGT points for actual targets or target areas is worthwhile.

In fact not only would I make a NAVTGT point of a target but I'll transfer that point to the datalink system so I can use the DL INGRESS function instead. That way I can track the target list, delete destroyed, and it's the same interface for the opportunity targets recorded by Shkval.

Since there's no mission planner function in multiplayer the workload is higher.

 

But it's not that much work to punch in ABRIS flight plan page numbers into the PVI. Bind your numpad on keyboard to the PVI keypad. I probably wouldn't bother with the en route portion but NAVTGT points for actual targets or target areas is worthwhile.

 

In fact not only would I make a NAVTGT point of a target but I'll transfer that point to the datalink system so I can use the DL INGRESS function instead. That way I can track the target list, delete destroyed, and it's the same interface for the opportunity targets recorded by Shkval.

Explain how you transfer NAVTGT to PRTz please. Or are you referring to NAVTGT slew (Shkval) to target?

Sort of. With Shkval caged, select a NAVTGT point (you'll see the place flash on the ABRIS) and then give it a type (diamond, square, pentagon, etc.) and press the save button on the DL panel. Then when you're done deselect any point on the PVI and cycle through the saved points with the type key and then press the DL ingress key.

This way it works just like NAVTGT points but the database of locations is in the DL memory.

I’ll be damned! Thank you very much! Will come in handy many times :)