Musings from a Budget Airline Captain

For the past couple of days I have taken a semi-break from my latest crack addiction Cities Skylines to revisit some older tried and true titles to provide some gaming balance. One of those go to games is Microsoft Flight Simulator X where I love to pilot (from takeoff to landing) a virtual Boeing 737-800. My go to route is Jacksonville to Daytona because it is an easy and short flight that covers all of the bases of navigation.

DCS Blackshark 2 Flight Training

For the past couple of days I have been dusting off the cobwebs from Blackshark 2, the attack helicopter flight simulation from DCS. I have the game on Steam and it is now completely integrated into DCS World. While I have DCS Blackshark 1, that game has major graphical issues now that I am on a Windows 10 machine and is in an unplayable state (perhaps it is something I can relegate to my Windows XP machine).

MS FSX Boeing 737-800 IFR Flight Plan

Microsoft Flight Simulator X came out back in late 2006 and is the last installment of the vaunted Flight Simulator series prior to the release of the much maligned MS Flight platform which proved to be an abysmal failure (ultimately resulting in its discontinuation). I last had flown MS FS 2002 logging dozens of hours in a Cessna prop plane and Lear Jet becoming somewhat of a master using VOR to VOR routing, but quickly lost interest in the genre and completely skipped Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight.

DCS Black Shark 2 Testing

After a nine month hiatus from the game and an epic rant I decided to dust off my flight stick and do some basic flight and daylight attacks on stationary targets to see if anything has changed. All of a sudden I can now hit targets with the 9K121 Vikhr anti-tank missiles as long as I am at a sufficient height and distance (perhaps this was my issue before, however I don’t recall having this problem in the original Black Shark).

Orbiter Space Flight Simulator Delta Glider Test Flight

Orbiter Space Flight Simulator 2010 is a real-time 3D space flight simulator developed by Dr. Martin Schweiger that was first released in November 2000 and has gone through several updates with the most recent having been released in August 2010. The program is available for free and weighs in at approximately 2 GB as a compressed download and 3 GB when stored in a folder (it can be run directly from a folder without writing anything to the system registry).

The game attempts to simulate space flight by using Newtonian physics in an effort to correct a perceived lack of realistic physics based flight models in other space flight simulators that were available at the time of initial development. It models with a high degree of accuracy planetary motion, gravitational effects, atmospheric flight and orbital decay among other things. It allows the user to experience both manned and unmanned space flight missions.

DCS Black Shark 2

I picked this up on a Steam sale this week for $10 and would have been better off buying more beer instead. Compared to the original DCSBS, this game is a letdown in several areas. The current retail price on Steam is back up to $39.99 (the same price on the DCS site which also offers the BS1 to BS2 upgrade for $29.99). The game simply is not worth that amount of money for what it brings to the table in terms of improvements to the original game.

The game is fully integrated into DCS World in that (for Steam users) there is no outside menu selection to get to BS2: you have to start DCSW and then select BS2. It does not work this way for the A-10C module as that exists outside of DCSW and can be launched as a completely separate game on Steam. BS1 had the Steam overlay and you could take screen shots and upload them to Steam, in BS2 (and apparently all of DCSW) there is no screen overlay and no Steam screen shot support.

DCS Black Shark Convoy Hunt

This is a single player mission in which a flight of two Ka-50 Black Sharks fly close air support against three convoys of American and Georgian forces where the US is providing the mobile anti-aircraft platforms and other vehicles, while Georgia is providing several emplaced AA cannons along the route. The convoy itself is mostly fuel trucks, supply trucks and HMMWV’s.

The mission briefing/description is straight to the point: “Special intelligence has indicated that up to three supply convoys may be heading west to Kobuleti from Tskavroka, Alambari, and Zeda-Sameba.  Search out and destroy these convoys before they can reach Kobuleti.” The mission goal is “Destroy at least one of the convoys before it can reach Kobuleti.”

DCS Black Shark Back in the Saddle

The last time I made a comprehensive post about DCS Black Shark was back in October and shortly after that entry I almost died. No kidding, I got deathly ill, was hospitalized and had to have part of my lungs removed. I fully blame the game, just so you know. Let’s hope that does not happen this time J I pulled out my Thrustmaster T.Flight Hotas X and removed several layers of caked on dust to bring it back to life.

For this short reintroduction flight I am performing a CAS action against a Georgian SAM SA-8 Osa 9A33 antiaircraft platform. While I am a man of many missiles myself, for this effort I am going in hot with nothing but HE and AP rounds on target. I am the only airframe going out on this sortie from and back to UGSB (Batumi International Airport) that I and my virtual Russian comrades are commandeering in the hospital state of Georgia.

IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946 - Aircraft Sampler

Until the release of Cliffs of Dover back in March*, IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946 (which itself was released 2006) was considered to be the final installment in the very successful flight simulation series put for by 1C: Maddox Games which dated back to the original IL-2 released in 2001.

Although I have that original game (Christmas present from my mother-in-law back in 2002!), for anyone remotely interested in this series who wants to experience all of the glory prior to Clunky Donut (Cliffs of Dover), the only route to go is to purchase 1946. It is still enjoyable and challenging to fly.

Combat School (Night)

This scenario is an update to the CombatSchool (Day) sortie with a change up in the enemy force list to add a significant threat to the Shark, that being a SAM SA-8 Osa 9A33 mobile short-range tactical surface-to-air missile system (NATO reporting name SA-8 Gecko). On a separate missile test, I flew the same attack route at high altitude and the unit acquired and engaged Lab Rat and sent him to death number two.

The targets are in all the same spots as the daytime sortie and are: an MBT T-72B located on a crossroads outside of Medzhinistskali, the previously referenced Gecko unit to the east of Sameba, another MBT T-72B approximately 3.65 km northeast of the SAM unit, an Mi-8MT scout helicopter flying a pattern between Batumi and Makhindzhauri and finally a MRL BM-21 Grad along the coastline.

Combat School (Day)

This sortie would take me on a punishing route through which I am to attack three stationary AA sites and one five vehicle convoy traveling along a road interspersed with civilian traffic. In plotting out the waypoints in the mission editor, I wound up with eight which may have exceeded the threshold that the ABRIS system can handle (not sure about that in easy avionics game mode, however the whole mission went to hell full throttle after I requested clearance to land at Kobuleti).

The bird I am flying today is decked out in the demo paint scheme and numbered 22. It is black, menacing and all but a terror to look at save for the teal and white “Black Shark” logo slapped on the back. My load out is a rather standard 12X9A4172 (pods 4 and 1) and 40*S-80FP (pods 3 and 2). And of course the house dressing, the Shipunov 2A42 30mm cannon with a load of HE and AP rounds.  The Vikhr anti-tank missiles have a range of 8km while the main gun has a range of 0.5-2km in game.

Flight School

I’ve owned DCS: Black Shark for a couple of years now. It is one of the few games I ran out to a GameStop (then EB Games) here in Jacksonville and paid full price for. I got into the game pretty good and even had a great friend pick up a copy so we could fly some multiplayer missions. Like any game, it waned and eventually collected hard disk dusk along with my flight controller. Then quite inexplicably it was one of several games I purchased a second time when I had a major Steam boner (don’t ask).

My interest in DCS: BS (no pun intended) stemmed directly from flying LOMAC, which I flew the A-10A to death in that game. Eventually I bought a computer capable of running A-10C and bought that through Steam, finally ending up installing the free component of DCS: World when it came out on Steam (obviously my DCS: BS1 is not compatible with DCS: W). So I have all these flight simulations sitting around needing attention, and guess what? My flight skills deteriorated over time.