Campaign missions formation flying.

[Buznee]

I have some issues with the formation flying missions that are quite frustrating to me.

 

Some of these issues may be limitations or issues within the DCS engine and out of Belsimtek's control but they really need to be fixed because they detract from the realism and can be quite frustrating.

 

When flying many of the formation missions, flying behind the group leader, I find that you start quite heavy. To the point where the recommend beeping the rotor speed up for takeoff and landing. I understand this is a real operational occurance, The problem is that when in cruise, 100 knots is the target formation speed, the aircraft is not able to achieve this with adequate margin and keeping the engine in the continuous power setting. Most of the time up in the mountains the aircraft seems limited by the exhaust gas temperature. You are supposed to keep it in the green but to stay in formation you end up running above the green into the 30 minute power or higher. Especially because you end up having to keep accelerating and decelerating due to AI erratic behavior. This can be improved by simply lowering the targeted cruise speed to something more reasonable like 80 knots. I believe the huey actually has VNE limitations with altitude and weight, the AI may actually be exceeding these limits. Check the flight manual!

 

Other issues, I notice the AI is very erratic in it's behavior when performing NAP of the earth flying. Worse is, because they are close to the max capability of the aircraft they are forced to trade airspeed for altitude which causes large changes in trim. Very bad for formation flying. They also climb at unrealistic rates, only way to keep up with them is to pull into high powers and droop the rotor. Can you set a more reasonable climb profile for these guys? You find them getting near a mountain, setting up the climb profile too shallow initially and then stopping and climbing vertically. Not realistic and quite frustrating. They then get over the mountain, accelerate rapidly, descend like crazy and slow down. A group leader would never fly in this manner unless he wanted to get himself rear ended by his wingmen. Please fix this especially since the campaign has quantity of formation based missions. I can complete them but I am not amused. Another option is to allow for a much looser formation promoted by the group leader "Loose formation guys, we don't want to run into each other while in the mountains"

 

Thanks for listening.

[Flyingfrog]

+1

 

Buznee, as per I saw in other tread, Damages due to over EGT is not modeled yet and BST are working on Torque vs EGT. http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=105677

 

About Airspeed Operation Limits, with full GW (gross weight) and Altitude (2k-5k density Alt), 100Kts is well within limits as per FM (Tm 55-1520-210-10, fig 5-2) but give you only about 5-15kts of room to reach back the leader in case you're too far behind. I don't know if VNE is full modeled yet.

 

I agree about AI leaders erratic flight path. I would add that some manoeuvers could exceed -0.5G limitation.

 

Om my side, for the moment, I don't care about EGT since it goes anyways over limits in campaign missions and following guys on MP but keep the habit to don't over torque and keep my eyes on RPM.

 

FlyingFrog