Wow that MANPAD 
Iām now in a similar boat you were, the sale is on, and Iām curious. Do you still recommend it?
Hmmā¦yeah. In terms of flight dynamics, it is to the other DCS helicopters what the MiG29 is to DCS airplanes. It is now plausible but, to me, nowhere near 100 percent believable. But thatās just me. In any case, it is light years ahead of where it was just months ago; the artwork and 3D modeling are superb and the systems (other than the autopilot) are very well done.
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I think itās pretty good and the campaign is a whole lot of fun.
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I donāt regret buying it. I need to give it some love. The mini looks Fun
Some of the most fun Iāve had in DCS multiplayer this year was plinking helicopters and the occassional Mirage with the Mistral in Blue Flag.
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Btw, back to the Gazelle, be sure to adjust the y-saturation on the cyclic controls to something low initially (50 - 60). You definately donāt need full deflection and curves are a bit funky with force trim.
I love the gazelle. You can have so much fun making and playing recon missions. It is just a sleek little bird to skim those tree tops with.
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Today I gave the Gazelle a spin again for the first time since a long time. What I immediately noticed again is that the Viviane sight can be ground stabilized and I still wonder how that is supposed to be possible for a platform without INS.
gyros in the sight? Iād imagine its a similar technology to what allows a IR maverick to stay pointed at a certain spot without a INS while moving. Not so much that is stabilized to a spot on the ground, but keeping a certain sight picture. Could be wrong though.
A gyro-stabilisation would keep it in a stabilised attitude but would not allow it to track a specific point on the ground, which the Viviane in DCS can do.
What Iām getting at is, Iām pretty sure its possible to APPEAR to be tracking a spot on the ground, but in reality it is only maintaining a certain sight picture in relation to objects in view. I think thats how the maverick IR head operates. Where as a TGP knows what coordinates its looking at because of the INS integration. A maverick does not, AFAIK.
Basically if a Maverick can be ground stabilized without INS, I donāt think its outside the possibility for a vivianne sight to be. If the maverick requires INS, then argument is null and void.
Just to qualify what I just said, I dont know what Iām talking about. Merely speculation based on vague similarities. Maybe @near_blind can add to this.
I get what you describe with the Maverick. As it is mostly looking straight ahead at things miles away, its gyro-stabilization might appear ground stabilized while it is actually not. But the Viviane in DCS is most certainly ground stabilized. You can point it at things up ahead and then fly past them as the sight keeps tracking sideways to its azimuth limits.
I thought the Gazelleās NADIR is an INS?
This bit seems to be from the Tiger attack helicopter though and as far as I can read talks about automatic target tracking (locking targets). The Gazelle is not capable of locking up targets, so this isnāt really relevant. Considering that even the Tigerās sight is gyro-stabilized before initiating a target lock, this is actually points towards the Viviane being merely gyro-stabilized altogether.
It is actually just a doppler set.
Hmm. Well, my point is that if the Doppler can provide positional information to allow the helicopter to navigate to programmed waypoints, then it should also be able to provide input to the Viviane for ground stabilization, right? Iāll admit, the ground stabilization modeled in the DCS Gazelle is pretty darn good, but not completely unrealistic.
In one sense, it is a good counterpoint to the lack of an AI copilot. It will stay on target close enough to make doing a pop-up attack by yourself easier.
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