Not pictured: CMWS, modernized M296 gun mount (see 58F picture), quick deployment skids, and complimentary Stetson hat.
ETA: To pile on, there were a number of iterative changes to the base 58D airframe over the years. Early versions carried no armament until mid-late '91, which were incorporated after experience with the armed 58D in Prime Chance. Much as the UH-60 armament was seen as a threat to the gunship programs, the 58Ds armament was kept in the dark for the same reason until the budget was shifted around enough to allow it. Armament options were then the M296 12.7mm/.50cal gunpod (modded M2 for higher ROF), AGM-114, FIM-92 ATAS (widely hated), and of course the M260 rocket launcher. The only restriction was the M296 was port side only.
Mid-late 90s, a quick deployment system was tested which included a folding tail, skids which could be adjusted to lower the aircraft’s profile, and a kit to hold the MMS plus folded tail and blades. The additional horseshoe/toilet seat air filter also appeared at the front of the engine nacelle at this time. Some units had these, some didn’t; generally a mishmash of aircraft with and without. By mid-late 00s, the M296 lost the heavy carriage mechanism and became pretty much just the gun mounted to the hardpoint, followed by CMWS and additional flare buckets.
I’ve no idea what year Polychop is aiming for, but I’m going to guess a late 90s.
I’d actually be more interested in getting a realistic version of those to work than the greatest and latest of bang you’re dead gadgetry.
A bit like how I enjoy the F-14 more in the fighter role than the F-15.
On topic: The OH-58C is one cool little chopper. I have great memories of riding it into battle in Gunship 2000 
I agree with @schurem here as well. The hind D is the one I’d have as well. Big heavy and sexy. But obviously I’ll be buying any version of that chopper on day one…
Indeed, although it was way more dangerous to fly it instead of let’s say - Apache. In the game’s manual it was stated that it was D model though.
The best tactic was to keep your Apache buddies close 
JFC! Have some pity, I’m at work!
I can’t go around with a boner FFS! 
To answer both of you, the Hind-E/Mi-24V and Hind-F/Mi-24P aren’t that different from the Hind-D/Mi-24D. There’s only about 3 years of separation between the E/F and the D.
I propose we rename this thread to Polychop Simulations OH-58D News and Updates
also…
Just do it!
Looks like they’re going for a modern 2010s version. CMWS blisters on the external model. I didn’t see the CMWS panel in the cockpit though.
I didn’t realize that this is the same company that made the Gazelle mod. As such this will be a firm pass for me. The Gazelle mod is a piece of excrement. I was hoping that VR might be able to overcome some of its control problems. Not at all.
I won’t waste my and your time commenting on the Polychop CEO’s comments in the attached article. Just kind of shaking my head here…and moving on to happier posts. 
Done the name change.
I have to agree, I’m cautiously watching to see what they do with the Gazelle first. If they introduce Gazelle improvements and bring it to an actual standard, then I’ll think about the 58. If they’re expecting to sell 58 and then go back to Gazelle… No dice.
The 58D is an infinitely more complex aircraft than the Gazelle.
No multicrew. Well, this is a bummer. This means the success of this helicopter will depend on the fidelity of AI crew members, and I have serious doubts whether Polychop will do much in this regard. Heatblur has set the standard with their JESTER system and I will not settle for anything less for two-seaters. In fact I have my doubts whether even Eagle Dynamics will provide a comparable gunner for the Mi-24 or AH-1 (let alone WSO for the F-4E).
Lack of AI gunner/pilot is also what killed the Gazelle for me. Using auto-hover and switching between the seats to do both jobs was simply too cumbersome and insufficient for the demanding pop-up tactics such light anti-tank helicopters were famous for. Not being able to perform it’s core mission alone (and the few times we tried MP multicrew that didn’t really work either, I guess that’s why they don’t even try for the Kiowa) made the Gazelle pointless for me.
I caught that, too. I’m having doubts they’ll do an AI at all and it’s really going to be necessary for most of the typical DCS missions. Flying and operating the MMS at the same time is a challenge, to say the least.
I’m no stranger to how difficult multicrew implementation can be, but very few modern attack/scout are designed to be operated by a single pilot. There’s a reason for that.
I find it strange to see some people contradicting themselves from the Early Access Model Rumination threads. I’m not saying there’s a double-standard, but…
Probably because Polychop has done exactly one module, the Gazelle, which has many, many, many issues, and is several years old now with those issues, many of which were disregarded and brushed off by the team until recently called out by the community. If the Gazelle were done to a higher standard, the tune would probably be different.
Love the M-4s and smoke grenades in the cockpit, but ditch the water bottle on the glare shield. I don’t need that thing blocking my view in a sim.
Besides, your water just gets hot sitting up there.
If there Gazelle is any indication, they will do zero AI crew.
The Hip has pretty good AI crewmen…they don’t do much but they are good at it.
SITREP 10-14-2019
This week we’re glad to say we have finished rewriting the sound code from scratch. The code dependencies for all the sounds except the base engine sound had been replaced by ED to allow for more customisation. This resulted in most, if not all of the sounds of the Gazelle to be non-functioning.
With this gamebreaking bug out of the way we’ve started testing the bugfixes and additions mentioned in the previous sitreps. If all goes well we hope to send the new files to ED for implementation in one of the next patches.
What we expect to bring you in the first patch:
Sound
As stated above, this issue has been our main priority as it was a game breaking bug. We wanted to have this done before releasing the first patch. Testing has showed no new bugs so far and this bugfix will be included in the first patch.
Mistral missile
We’ve adopted the new more advanced missile script structure to create a more true to life version of the Mistral missile flight model. The new script structure allows for a more realistic implementation of drag which in turn provides a more realistic speed and flightpath for this short range missile. The aim has been to make the missile have a max speed of ~mach 2.6, a range of ~3.5Nm. You will find the missile is no longer overpowered and the “ghost phase” is gone. We consider this release the base for further development of the missile and we’re open for any feedback on this matter.
This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1443x240.
The big (and unrealistic) drop in speed after the initial boost is inherent to the missile system in DCS world as it is now. All missiles seem to suffer from this.
HOT3 missile
While rewriting the Mistral code, we’ve decided to also bring the HOT3 missile up to the new coding standard. Even though you won’t notice many changes here, making full use of the code allowed us to get the values more on point.
RWR
The RWR has seen some development changes in the past week as well. With the release of the F-16C, we noticed the values used by our previous fix had been changed in the core engine code, essentially breaking the new RWR again. To prevent this from happening in the future, the RWR code has been rewritten to adapt to any changes and to make it easier to update the RWR in the future.
NVG’s
Both the code and 3d models needed to bring you night vision capability in the L and Mistral variants have been finished and implemented. This new feature has been tested and is ready to be included in the first patch.
Keybinds
Another time consuming job has been to straighten out the keybind files. Some errors snuck in to these files during the previous updates causing double and inaccurate binds as reported on the forums here. Some buttons and switches were not doing what the description indicated they should be doing and by cleaning the files up we’ve paved the way to add new keybinds as per request.
When all of the above proves to be stable and no new bugs are discovered, we are ready to move on to the next chunk of bugfixes on the list. Hopefully we will be able to address them in the next sitrep.
