Ka-50 Guide - Assisted Flight

This demonstrates how to fly the Shark in its cruising mode, with the full assistance of its autopilots. A lot of people struggle with the Shark's autopilot, but it's actually really helpful when you know what to expect from it, and what it expects from you. If you find yourself wrestling with this amazing bird, and sometimes losing the fight, this video should help you.
Updated for DCS World 2.5.6. This video is part of a playlist with other instructional Ka-50 videos, which can be found here: • Ka-50 Guide

[@721MrG]

This was super useful. Thank You.

[@Viking355th]

Glad to hear it! This stuff is complex and usually unfamiliar. I definitely appreciate knowing I was able to help.

[@FalcoGer]

Could you go into more details about the FD, the collective break, the trimmer and such please? For instance could you just hold down the trimmer and release after rudder input instead of turning off and on heading hold all the time?

[@Viking355th]

I've personally never used the collective brake in the Shark, so I have little to add there. FD is essentially just autopilot off but with SAS. Trimmer button held down is essentially the same as FD, and when released, it tries to hold heading, pitch, and bank to whatever those values were when the trimmer button was released. If that's not the detail you were looking for, could you expand upon your question a bit?

[@FalcoGer]

@@Viking355th I was wondering what all the switches do. I'm used to having pretty good success only trimming once for hover and flying only with roll, pitch and yaw SAS on. Never touched FD or the route mode (DH/DT) autopilot. It is a bit strenuous to hold the stick deflected all the time but it works surprisingly well. As for the collective break I wanted to use it more. I think it can override the altitude hold mode while you hold it in or something allowing for continuous altitude hold operation and making things just that little bit more easier, but I wasn't sure. I had hoped you could say more about it. It's just that I made the experience that when I hit the trimmer the aircraft suddenly and abruptly does a maneuver, often snapping my rotor blades off even. Made me never want to touch that button again. Either it just added whatever stick deflection was on top of the new trim or it kept it but as soon as the stick moved the tiniest amount after releasing trim it went full crazy on me then thinking i was pushing that deflection off the trim position, effectively doubling my input. So in essence in forward flight with 50% stick forward it suddenly thought I was shoving my stick full forward, with the expected result of me crashing or panicking and pulling full aft and snapping my blades off.

[@Viking355th]

@@FalcoGer Okay, so you trim, and the aircraft goes nuts. Go to the Options screen and set the trimmer option to "Central Position Trimmer Mode" to fix that. That option change will prevent the effective doubling of input, but it also prevents your control inputs from taking effect until you center everything. You'll need to develop a reflex of hitting the trimmer button, releasing the stick and rudder momentarily, and then resuming control. If you don't let the controls center, it'll prevent your inputs from having any effect, so if the aircraft appears to not respond to your stick input, just take your hand off for a split second, and you'll be back in control. Central position advantage: no doubling. Disadvantage: lose control until controls are centered. Non-central position advantage: no need to re-center. Disadvantage: inputs instantaneously double. With Central Position enabled, you can hold the trimmer button down, put the stick where you want the trim to be, and release the trimmer button. Tapping the trimmer button is something I avoid -- I always hold it down, get the flight profile I want, then release it. This works with or without FD.

[@janee7995]

Does anyone have a link to the Valhalla 3d printfiles for the controls?