Ka-50 noobery

in which our intrepid hero manages to wastefully lay waste to some motherlovers and makes the mother of all whoopsies. No screenies because i was too busy at the time. suck it.

So I studied and exercised and studied some more on Kamov’s hellbeast. Read all of the articles on SimHQ about the Hokums aerodynamics, trimmer and autopilot. Memorized through repetition how to boot it up. Learned how to get it moving and stop it moving at a place more or less of my choosing. Even learned how to activate the Shkval targetting system and fire Vikhr totalhelldeath at the thing below the pipper.

I loaded up 2.1 again, and my area51 training scenario. You start off cold and dark in the deathmachine of your choice at groom lake just before sunset. Just north of the airfield is a small range of hills and beyond those I put a shilka radar guided bundle of ratata, a Sa-9 missile thrower and a bunch of tanks that drive along the valley to park next to the air defence units. Also two choppers because those need killin’ too.

That’s what I was up again in my Kamov. I crept up the hills all sneaky like and tactical. Controlled too. Then I spotted the SAM at like two clicks, panicked in a controlled fashion and managed to turn tail and head off back behind a hill before the things could turn on me and make roasted shark fin soup. Let’s try that ■■■■ again. I very carefully put the thing in a hover a mite farther away just behind a ridge. Came up. Came up some more. Paused the simulation to soothe a crying kid who should have been sleeping an hour ago.

Unpaused the sim. Fixed controls so slewing, resetting and zooming the Shkval are on the HOTAS. Slewed to the Shilka and tried to lock target. It refused to even acknowledge my button press. Well â– â– â– â–  it, the laser is on and on-target so I gently pressed the trigger. WHOOSH! huh? Two missiles? I didnt ask for two?! one should be enough right? I guided them onto the Shilka which blew up in a spectacular fireball. His SAM buddy started scurrying around in a panic, but the next missile was on the way. Another hit.

The tanks got slaughtered one after another by my slowly but steadily climbing helicopter. I must have been about 900 meters up when I ran out of Vikhr guided punches. Next up chopper on chopper murder. I tried targetting the two Gazelles with Shkval but again it refused to lock. No amount of fiddling with the targetting gate thing would do. So I put the gun in fixed mode and made gun runs at the buggers until both got rekt. Shooting is so much easier in VR than on a flat screen.

Satisfied I laid in a course home. Climbing the hill went nice and easy. Cresting it I made a mistake. My tail clipped something and the nose went wildly up. I panicked and ejected. My steed shed its rotorblades and fired me like I was its last and best bit of firework. What an ignoble end to my first live fire Ka-50 hop.

The Kamov is a remarkably stable and easy to fly machine, once you get the hang of it. Have you guys any idea why the Shkval refused to lock up the targets?

7 Likes

Did you put the Shkval into AA mode?

1 Like

Great first report on her. My favorite module after all these years. And destined to get even better as the newer maps have the whole collidable trees thing going on (which also block missiles coming back at you) (not sure about AI line of sight with regards to that though)…

There is a way to make the target bracket smaller and larger…perhaps it was not the right size?

1 Like

There are several reasons why no lock can occur -

Laser not on,
Manual targeting set,
Outside of 8km range,
Lowlight
Gate too large

…off the top of my head

2 Likes

low light. likely. The mission was at dusk.

Also the button lights in the Kamov are borked in 2.1. So I might not have had it turned to AA. If I understood the manual correctly tho, doesnt that only affect the fusing of the Vikhr warhead?

I might also have had manual targeting set. What switch is that?

How should I work that gate? as small as possible? should it outline the target?

Would have been my guess. You can lock outside of 8klm’s but the fire control system won’t give you authorisation. However, there is a great switch to disable that.

So i would say it’s most likely the light.

You can still attack the target with vihkers in low light and manual mode. The only problem is no lock so you have to manually keep target in “crosshairs”. Easy to do with stationary target, not so easy if they are on the move.

And if I recall…you can actually use that manual mode to extend the range of the Vikhr a bit…

A bit smaller than the vehicle and on its upper half. The Vikhr corkscrews around the laser beam and on flat trajectory shots it can strike the ground if if you lock too low.

1 Like

@schurem for a lack of better thread…
Here we go, proper thread :slight_smile:

For taming Black Shark autopilot

Yes you can !

@NEVO yea those are excellent, thx. read all of that twice, as well as the chuck pdf. i have used the kneeboard utility to put all of the chuck guides in their relevant cockpits. neat :sunglasses:

Those were (are) some great articles. Nobody writes better technical stuff with great explanations than @EinsteinEP…

2 Likes

Unfortunately I dont have Black Shark, but I love all the docs for it :slight_smile:
…so I will just link it all here:

Technical, Simplified

Coaxial Rotor Aerodynamics

Trimmer

Unguided Rockets

Vikhr p1

Vikhr p2