Huey Gunships

[Truls Engebakken-Fjell]

I got my Cyclic, I’ve been practicing with it, but man you have to relearn to control the helicopter, feels so strange, might have to fiddle with the sensitivity settings.
I do generally mange to take off and land, but it’s not always pretty or completely under control.
The cheeky enemy shot my Speedometer on the first volley, so I had to fly without speed knowledge.

[Deleted User]

A shame about the splash damage and copilot controlling the minigun. I was expecting you to line up using the minigun before letting loose with rockets until I saw that gunsight come down.
How easy/difficult is it to spot targets from the air?

[Truls Engebakken-Fjell]

Deleted User wrote:

A shame about the splash damage and copilot controlling the minigun. I was expecting you to line up using the minigun before letting loose with rockets until I saw that gunsight come down. How easy/difficult is it to spot targets from the air?

 

Splash damage is one of those typical DCS things, they’ll spend thousands of man hours making a new plane or helicopter,  or adding good looking clouds but fixing splash damage, nope. Until one day out of the blue between now and the sun blowing up they’ll fix it. Like they did with bullet impacts up until a year or so ago bullet impacts on ground and water was way way too big, like small explosions. Then suddenly they fixed it and made it much more realistic.

It’s very hard to see ground units, even more so in VR, now that can be quite hard in real life. I’ve read books about ww2 pilots who where looking for AAA and just couldn’t find it. Only chance was when it fired.

In Vietnam as a helicopter pilot they would usually spot infantry easily once they opened fire as the muzzle flashes was easy to spot under the jungle canopy., because it was so dark there.

But it still is harder in DCS than in real life, even on a 4k flat monitor.  Still can’t capture the rather excellent vision humans have. We might not be able to spot a hare from 5km like an eagle. But in the animal kingdom,  humans are definitely top tier in the visual acuity department (generally sacrificing night vision for superb day vision)

I noticed that on my real Cessna flight how small details I could pick up from 2000 feet vs in a simulator.

[Deleted User]

I noticed ground objects don’t have as good shadow as in the copit, that might be part of it, shadows give a lot of things away.

I was expecting it to be easier with VR, depth perception and all.

[Truls Engebakken-Fjell]

Deleted User wrote:

I noticed ground objects don’t have as good shadow as in the copit, that might be part of it, shadows give a lot of things away. I was expecting it to be easier with VR, depth perception and all.

No vr goggles have the same resolution or clarity as a flat screen (except mabye that $2500 varjo) 4k vr isn’t the same as 4k flat screen.

While you definitely get better depths perception you don’t get true to life. As that is party based on resolution,  field of view and clarity (and probably more parameters)

I saw big increase in depth of field as I got the G2 which has higher, resolution and clarity then my other ones)  but it still not as clear as a flat screen.

[Deleted User]

That makes me feel better for not having one 😀

[Truls Engebakken-Fjell]

Deleted User wrote:

That makes me feel better for not having one

Sadly there is no perfect VR headset yet.

For simmers the two best are

G2 that I have

And 8k from pimax.

The G2 has the best clarity (very important looking at cockpit instruments)

While the 8k sacrifice some clarity for huge FOV(8k has adjustable FOV from 130 to 200, while the G2 has around 105) the huge FOV increase the feeling of speed, depth perception, the ability to check your six without giving yourself whiplash.  But the 8k costs more than twice that of the G2, is extremely not user friendly.

Not only does the 8k require “base stations ” which increases the cost. But while the G2 mabye require 20-30 minutes for first time use setup, you might end up spending a week to get the 8k working as it should, hidden settings you need to dile in, standing around adjusting and checking,  adjusting and checking.

 

Really if my G2 had 150-200 FOV, I would have the perfect headset for the foreseeable future. Sadly it doesn’t. But that big FOV is made for simming,  but is hidden behind a huge paywall and suffering.

[Deleted User]

Don’t know if you can answer this but I#’m short sighted and even thought a lot of VR sets elts you wear glasses while wearing them I’d rather not wear glasses. Does VR work for shortsighted people without glasses since the display is only a little off the eyes?

[Truls Engebakken-Fjell]

Deleted User wrote:

Don’t know if you can answer this but I#’m short sighted and even thought a lot of VR sets elts you wear glasses while wearing them I’d rather not wear glasses. Does VR work for shortsighted people without glasses since the display is only a little off the eyes?

I don’t actually know. How visual acutiy is affecting how you see VR. Mabye it’s only a problem for far-sighted?

A short Google search gives contradictory answers, but it might depend on how nearsighted you are. One said he can’t see clearly past 2 meters but sees fine in vr without glasses   another says he can’t see clearly past a few feet( -4.5 is his prescription)

And he said he sees big difference between glasses and no glasses in VR.

I honestly don’t know if I need glasses or not, I haven’t done a basic eye test I like two decades   and never done a proper optometrist check) but I don’t feel I have any problems

[Etranger]

Having spent some time in the back of Bell 412’s (basically civilianised Hueys), flown by ex-military pilots on cas-evac flights, you get a great view in good weather conditions.  if the sun is in the right place. If you’re staring into the sun, that cuts it down a lot, add mist, rain, cloud or low light levels & visibility goes down a lot. Add in evasive actions and it gets a whole lot trickier.

[Truls Engebakken-Fjell]

Norway still uses the 412 as it’s main army helicopter. We don’t have any designated gunships like Apache, Cobra or Tiger.(we probably should) so basically we still strap rockets and miniguns on our Bells like the US army did in the late 60s.

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