Posts by GregDude

FS2 so much needs to ability to create or generate missions to assist and motivate flights of fantasy.

Imagine a configuration file (not even interpreted script or visual editor) that generates missions from a template like:

1) Spawn chopper at compatible airport.

2) Spawn rescue victim at river or mountain peak within X kilometers of airport.

3) Display to player land mark with range of mission objective

4) Set win / lose conditions for completion ie. hover within X meters of target for Y seconds.

Later the software could become more complex than this, but Version 1.0 could be super simple, not add CPU burden or require more than minimal UI work.

For example, Version 2.0 might add triggers and media. Eg. Trigger to launch rescue flares within 5 miles of victim. Trigger to play audio file for voice overs at certain events. Mission briefing and end of mission result plus score dialog.

cgerada Question since you've flown R22 in real life: Do pilots need to descend vertically with great care to avoid entering Vortex Ring State? I ask because the R22 and Lxynx in FS2 inspired me to buy a chopper in another sim. The other sim chopper is very sensitive to VRS, yet I didn't even know about the effect before, from my R22, Lynx sim experience.

Noob question: On EC 135, where is the vertical speed indicator?

Quote from Armitage

I also found the manual (google for "EC 135 manual"),

You had better luck than me. All I get are spam scams and manuals for RC models.

He made it! I think I my like was the proverbial straw.

larrylynx Can you comment on the Lynx susceptibility, or lack thereof, to enter Vortex Ring State (VRS) when descending vertically?

I've read about this many times, but never noticed it flying Lynx or R22. Recently I tried flying the UH-1 Huey in another simulator and the effect was so prevalent and severe it took practice to avoid. Made me wonder about the Lynx and FS2 simulation of helicopters. I did not notice mention of this topic in your manual.

Schnuffelduffel I see you made a big post at about the same time as mine, yours appeared first.

If I had won, I'd want you to keep the money. I made a small donation to you and Higgy. You're not going to get rich giving things away for free!

But it was at least a couple hours fun hunting for the treasure. Italy is an enormous country when you try to cross it!

Edit: I think you should pay Firststep the prize, he found the location and made the donation. Seems you keep wanting to update the rules, the prize and the discussion. Time to end this, perhaps your next treasure hunt can have more clearly defined conditions from the start

Well done Firststep! I am happy for you.

It was there after all...

Within a few hours of Schnuffelduffel posting his 3 bright spots hint I located the place and circled around. However I thought I was looking for a bright yellow furry face, not writing in a corn field! I would have felt like a cheat anyway. I used his screen shot to guess the time of day and orientation relative to the mountains. Knowing it wasn't too far south from first hint, I searched ridge lines on the map based on the guessed orientation, and found the location on about the 3rd guess. I also set the time of day to dawn and dusk for some of my circling trying to find high contrast, which was the opposite of what was needed.

The video, while enthusiastically presented, is simplified to the point of being misleading.

The main take away is that the Vulkan driver doesn't do as much and instead relies on the application side to prepare resources for rendering. There are also efficiencies by design with the new interface to scale better with more CPUs and more dynamic scenery. Also importantly, the per draw overhead is significantly reduced for large scene / entity count scaling.

The down side is that the application need perform some of the tasks previously taken care of automatically, so if care is not taken, performance can be worse. To assist with this, example code has been made available.

As Jet-Pack suggests, an OpenGL application can perform well if it manages resources more carefully even though it may not have as much control. Experienced studios have been doing all the things he categorizes in the Vulcan pattern for the last two decades.

Quote from Schnuffelduffel

..and i have the Problem: I falling through the map, if i try to land ( landscape ) .

I've encountered and reported the same. Larry responded that it's the sim, not the model's collision objects. In the R22, as well as this chopper, I also get my skids stuck in the landing pad causing it to flip over or get stuck.

That was really well made and fun to watch W.B. Well done!

larrylynx Do you have any tips relating to visibility and landing?

I struggle to see through the cockpit toward the landing pad. The lower windows are very small and to the side. I've tried shifting my view up and down, which doesn't help a lot. The 3rd person view is quite helpful, but kind of cheating when trying to get the full sim experience.

I've now made a couple of high speed, high altitude passes over some areas of Italy. Schnuffelduffel 's results are fantastic! Rich seamless color and high detail imagery. However I prefer exploring low and slow, so plan to stay grounded until IZ0JUB returns with his cultivation. I'm guessing some of the promo screenshots like this coast used the earlier cultivation.

The chase camera, or whatever the 3rd person camera which typically looks at the aircraft from behind, is different with this chopper. The camera faces the aircraft from the front and right.

This view is normally handy for situational awareness and casual scenic flight. It also allows head tracking to pan, which other views do not.

Is there anyway to change this?

larrylynx The manual, under section LANDING, says "Remove all trim before touchdown". Does that mean to flip the cyclic trim switch off, or re-center the trim manually, or something else?

larrylynx Thanks for not reading, and providing great feedback.

I'll add a section on Trim soon. I think it is the main missing part beyond all the checks.

By the way, the reason I didn't put rotor lock as first step was that I always find it already off when the sim starts.

The purpose of this guide is to help people who would like to try Larry's Lynx Mk 7 chopper but are intimidated by all the buttons.

larrylynx Please do not read this article, it will make you cry or rage.

Our goal is to get the chopper started and flyable with as few steps as possible.

Once you've achieved that, the mystery and magic is broken, and you should then read the manual cover to cover a few times and follow the startup instructions properly.

For now, we're in that scene from movie Jumanji, where The Rock is under fire and running toward a chopper he's never flown before. He doesn't care about breaking the machine, and has no time to test the systems first, just jump in and hope fly to safety, I mean crash softly somewhere else.

The controls we care about are located on the center consoles, mostly ceiling and floor between seats.

We must prepare these items:

1. Electricity

2. Fuel

3. Engines

4. AFCS/ASE (can fly without)

5. TANS/Doppler (can fly without)

6. Trim (can fly without)

Battery

1. Battery on

2. All AC and DC on

Fuel

1. Up to Manual first

Wait for blue light above

Down to Auto

(Repeat for both sides)

2. All on except crossfeed

Engines

1. Rotor Break down to off (if not already)

2. Starter Master on

(Left side first)

3. Igniters down to on

4. Move the throttle cock down a bit (or all the way)

5. Press the red starter button

(Repeat for right side, shift camera to see what you're doing)

6. Set drive from ACC to Main

7. Speed Select all the way down

(Move both throttles all the way down)

!!!

At this point you could pull back on the collective and head into the sky.

However one warning remains on the central warning panel, AFCS.

AFCS / ASE helps stabilize the chopper, so best continue with the next few steps.

!!!

AFCS / ASE

1. Turn AFCS panel switch on

2. Press ASE button (lights up)

3. Press all these buttons (light up)

TANS / Doppler

1. TANS system on (Fail light illuminates)

2. Doppler On (Fail Light extinguishes)

3. S/Y Switch (Selects Doppler, nearby light extinguishes)

Trim

1. Position/Demand switch right to Demand

2. Pitch/Roll switch down to Roll (if not already)

3. Trim Pitch 2 clicks Backward

4. Trim Roll 2 clicks Right

5. Cyclic Trim On (Needed for ASE)

When configured as described, you will observe calibrated trim on the needle gauge to left, and any trim you supply from the simulation inputs.

Find the cockpit lights on the bottom left end of the middle console and flashy lights on the top left of the middle console.

After flying and landing or crashing, go read the manual and try to follow all the startup and shutdown instructions.

EDIT: Updated and added Trim.

I'm finding flight into terrain unpredictable...

A couple of times I've crashed into a mountain, but instead of crashing, merely sunk hundreds of feet underground, then flew my way back up and out.

A couple of times now, I've prepared for what I thought was a very soft landing on flat ground, quite proud of myself, only to have the aircraft reset as soon as the skids touched the ground.

I'm guessing this is an FS2 thing rather than the chopper being more or less gracefully about intersecting the terrain?

Well done Larry Lynx!

Just concluded my first flight.

May have skipped some of the TEST steps in startup sequence.

Does ECL 'retard to ground idle' mean turn the lever almost to lowest setting, or fully to lowest setting?

The Heading Hold did not appear to take effect for me, or very subtly so. I certainly couldn't take my hand off cyclic. I must not be engaging it correctly.

Thank you!

Schnuffelduffel I'm struggling to download these huge files. Have tried FireFox, Internet Explorer and FreeDownloadManager5. I get 8-11GB then file download aborts and won't resume on any of these downloaders, despite all having resume ability. Do you have any suggestions? Would you consider making a larger number of smaller files, perhaps ~5GB each?

Anyone else experiencing the same?