Helicopter fans looking forward to the DCS: Mi-24P are going to want to read this one! Russian based YouTuber ‘Varg TV’ hosted an interview with Aleksandr ‘PilotMi8’ Podvoisky yesterday revealing new information on the DCS: Mi-24P. Aleksandr is a former military pilot with 1200+ hours on the Mi-8 and has been working with Eagle Dynamics since 2011/12. The interview has a Q&A section, primarily focused on the Mi-24P, as well as new gameplay showing off the attack helicopter in action. The interview is in Russian, however, a translation has been made available to Stormbirds.blog that contains plenty of information about the helicopter and its use. Let’s dig into it!

Video and gameplay

The two-and-a-half-hour long video with Aleksandr ‘PilotMi8’ Podvoisky starts off with a Q&A and then proceeds to show off new gameplay around the 1 hour 24 minute mark on the video. Watch the video below.

Q&A translated

And now, with special thanks from community member 216th_Lucas, I have a translation and transcript of the interview available. Thanks Lucas for sending me the translation!

Q: Tell me a bit about yourself.
A: I was signed up for helicopters in 1981 after me and my friends decided to apply to become pilots. Graduated from the Saratov school, accelerated due to requirements imposed by the Afghan war. Served in Poland, the Far East. Flew the Mi-8TV, Mi-8MT, Mi-8MTV. Finished the military academy despite health problems. Became acquainted with the game during Flaming Cliffs, participated on forums, helped record the Ka-50 sounds on site, met and befriended director Igor Tishin who offered a job in Eagle Dynamics as soon as I left my old one.

Q: Is flying experience more important than coding experience?
A: I’ve been in this company since 2011, and I’ve learned a lot about helicopters I’ve flown, in particular about aerodynamics. Having flown an aircraft does not mean you’re fit to develop it for a flight simulator. Many pilots fly and do their job, they turn a certain switch because they’re told that’s what they’re supposed to do, and in both planes and helicopters they don’t even want to know about non-standard methods of doing things. I guess any pilot is capable of becoming a flight sim developer, but you need to have a special kind of focus for that, as for any job.

Q: When did you quit flying, and how many hours did you have by then?
A: Around 1200 hours. I stopped flying when I got into the academy, then from there I was sidelined for health reasons and didn’t return to flight duties.

Q: Will there be multicrew?
A: There will be multicrew, that’s what work has gone into during this delay. We only have one programmer on the multicrew coding, and he was busy on the Iroquis. He had to redo, review and add a lot of things to it. Because of that, this person had to pause his work on the systems. Because of the work on the UH-1, it became a lot easier to carry on this work to the Mi-24. When the Mi-24 is complete and we see how that went, we probably do the same process for the Mi-8. I’d be very happy to do that, and the leadership has this direction in mind too.

Q: Will the AI interface be like the menu on the F-14?
A: You can’t do it any other way. The main difference will be that instead of mouse or keyboard, you can initiate the crew interaction mode then use buttons on the stick to give commands, then leave crew interaction mode to pass those on at once. We’re still working on that. It won’t be like the AI crew on the Huey, that one is way too primitive. The Mi-24 AI will allow you to play as gunner or pilot, and you’ll be able to tell the pilot to make turns in certain directions, change altitude, speed, make attack runs and so on.

To make a lifelike AI, we did an observation model based on academic study done. It takes into account contrast and angular size to figure out the probability of this object being spotted. Between that there’s a priority dependency on experience, and we’ve added that too into the spotting model. The AI won’t see everything like the AI on other modules, and will be a lot closer to humans, same for the scanning patterns. In other words, they’ll pause to look at a certain area before proceeding. That’s already working, but we’re still refining it.

Q: Does he have a name, what language does he speak and will he tell jokes like Jester?
A: He speaks Russian, he has a name, but I won’t reveal it yet. About jokes, when I hear on third party campaigns the others telling jokes all the time, to be honest that just doesn’t happen in real life. Maybe a joke or two, and that’s if you have to fly over an hour or on the way back. But when you’re 10 minutes away from the ingress point in a combat area, people get serious and stop talking nonsense. Maybe some people are different, but I remember in flights to the range your head is busy with mission details. Perhaps we might add something for the return leg, I don’t know. We’re working on English voiceovers too, and you’ll be able to add any language you’d like by changing the files.

Q: Will there only be the P variant, and why?
A: Yes, only the P variant. We picked the P on request from pilots. Those who flew both the V and P unanimously said the P is better, one because the cockpit is simpler, second because the co-pilot has the same flight control arrangement as the pilot as the instruments are in front, instead of on the left side in the V because of the machine gun sight. Third, because the view is better without the machine gun sight. On the P, the co-pilot can independently operate all weapons except for the GUV pods.

Q: Are you planning on the VP variant?
A: No, people asked about it a lot though. But really, if it was so good, logically, why didn’t they produce it more? At the time of its production, the aiming system wasn’t good. Despite the fact that the GSh-23 has better muzzle velocity and lower dispersion than the M230 on the Apache, the Apache’s has much better accuracy due to its more advanced aiming computer. The Mi-35M can make those corrections and is on a different level, but at the time of the Mi-24VP you’re asking for the results weren’t good.

But in short, pilot requests, available documentation, and we thought for online play it would be more interesting to be able to crew the operator position on the Mi-24P than the one of the Mi-24V. If the pilot is incapacitated, the operator has basically identical controls and can continue the mission alone.

Q: If the AI pilot or co-pilot is wounded, will they inform you of that?
A: We’re thinking about that, of course. Initially there won’t be a message because we want to create a comprehensive human damage model.

Q: Will there be visible airborne troop deployment?
A: Troops aren’t the speciality of the Mi-24P team. There are guys working on it and looking at how to make that better. This is complex and cool, maybe one day eventually get around to visual deployment.

Q: What’s planned for the initial release and what will be worked out afterwards?
A: We’re still going to do an iterative release because having everything done at once is just impossible for us. We’ll know the final list of what’s ready for initial release later, and we’ll announce it before it’s on sale. The weapons will work, it’ll fly, and multicrew should be in.

Q: Will there be the President-S self-protection suite?
A: No, we don’t plan on that. There’s no documentation nor clear example of its use on the Mi-24P.

Q: Will it be possible to mine areas?
A: In real life, mining is done with the KMGU container. Adding that to the module wouldn’t be hard. The problem is that air dropped mines aren’t a very well developed concept in DCS. Right now you have them as a static object, you place it and that’s it. But helicopter mines that need to be dropped and have their own self-destruction fusings and so on would require a lot of work. Right now it won’t be a thing.

Q: Will the Mi-8 flight model be reviewed after the Mi-24 is completed?
A: We have a system where if we manage to find new solutions to simulate aerodynamic phenomena on new modules, we implement that on older modules as well once we have the available manpower.

Q: Will the gunner have any laser designation system, and if yes is it stabilised?
A: No, the gunner has no laser whatsoever. There is a sighting system that’s hydraulically stabilised relative to the helicopter so vibrations don’t influence the image quality. It’s not like a tank’s sight where the crosshairs stay on the same point regardless of the vehicle’s movement, it’ll still move together with the helicopter.

Q: Will vibrations be modelled?
A: It’ll be similar to the Mi-8, only the Mi-24 vibrates a lot less in comparison.

Q: Is the aircraft going to be modelled on a specific unit like the Ka-50, or on a general standard?
A: The differences between Mi-24 units are smaller, mostly related to early or late production runs. We’re basing it on the standard most found in active duty. The average Mi-24P.

Q: Will the initial release be in spring?
A: Yes, we think so. I can’t name an exact date, but it should be this spring.

Q: Will it be possible to man the machine gun on the crew compartment?
A: Not initially. We need to create the 3D models for the gun and gunner, but the modellers are busy. Functionally it should be just like the Huey’s.

Q: Will there be air-to-air missiles?
A: Not initially. We employed the R-60 on it in Afghanistan, but as an air-to-ground weapon. We’re working on this so that infrared seekers on missiles can see temperature contrast not only on aerial but on all objects. That’s not our team’s work, but they’re on it.

Q: Are you planning to do video lessons and familiarisation ones like the F-16 and F/A-18 or a training campaign?
A: We’re only planning to make a combat campaign, no trainaing campaign and some video lessons. Usually at release the users make so many good tutorial videos, but we’ll try to make some of our own. I can’t promise it though.

Q: Will there be additional navigation systems besides the internal ones, such as the NS430?
A: We think we’ll keep the NS430 as a 2D overlay, a 3D implementation isn’t in the roadmap so far.

Q: Will it be possible to add your own map images to the moving map?
A: I need to think about that, we’re don’t have an answer to it yet.

Q: Will there be NVGs?
A: Not right away. Maybe later, but that would require changing the lighting and textures. We might do it, but no promises. On the actual Mi-24 that’s not a thing.

Q: Will there be icing visuals?
A: That question is for the core guys, if they figure out how to make it pretty and realistic, we’ll add it. We’re not working on that ourselves, our job is just to make the icing lamp go on and off on the warning panels you guys forget to look at. It’ll be just like the Mi-8. If the JF-17 managed to do it on the module side, I’ll write it down here and ask the guys what we can do about it. No promises though.

Q: How will gunner spotting and engagement work?
A: Spotting is finding targets. The operator will say something like “commander, tally target 10 o’clock, range 3 to 3.5km”. Engagement is when the virtual operator looks through the periscope and sees a target in its field of vision, places a mark then says “commander, ready to employ weapons”. The commander sees this moving mark repeated on the gunsight, together with a fixed net. This symbolises launch authorisation – the missiles cannot be fired by the gunner until the pilot aligns the net boresighted with the helicopter with the moving one represented by the target designation. We’re trying to make it so the operator has the same difficulties a real person would have on manually holding the sight on target.

Q: Will the AI be able to control the aircraft in case the player is killed?

A: I don’t think that shouldn’t be too hard to make. The AI version of the Mi-24P is flying, so we could try to make it take over if the player dies. Maybe it’ll take control and fly off. I don’t know how that would be interesting, but it’s not hard to do.

Q: Will it be possible to play as the crew chief on the troop compartment?
A: In combat missions the crew chief isn’t there. In Afghanistan they sometimes flew with him there, but overall the Mi-24 only flies with two crewmen. They’d only take a crew chief when the machine gun was mounted, but that also wasn’t done too often. The chief would do his job at the base, as in the hot and high conditions of Afghanistan they already had to do running take-offs. The Mi-24 has the same engines as the Mi-8 but a smaller rotor diameter, so performance degrades faster with altitude.

Q: Will the aerodynamic effects of the wings be modelled?
A: At Eagle Dynamics we simulate the effects of wings, engines, rotors, fuselage together, we’ll obviously include that. The wings worsen hover performance, but allow you to use lower power settings in forward flight.

Q: Can you reach 500km/h?
A: You’re free to try! The good thing about simulators is that you can experiment limits of aircraft which pilots can’t, due to constraints of equipment, regulations and the desire to live. Nobody knows how it looks when you reach those speeds in real life, and we can’t model every single aspect of structural interactions and so on. We’ll think of some visualisation to show when we find it appropriate for it to fall apart.

Q: Will there be a new damage model, with real calculations per round?
A: Right now our damage model is in the conceptual stage. We’re planning the implementation of the new one as it’s rolled out, but initially it’s going to be a traditional one like in other modules.

Q: Will there be thermobaric warheads for the Shturm missiles?
A: Right now we’re including the anti-tank variants. For thermobaric weapons there has to be work on the visuals and the results of that too, as thermobaric effects aren’t there yet and our infantry models were not created with that in mind. There needs to be some groundwork done by other teams for us to implement that.

Q: Will the sounds be recorded from the Mi-8?
A: No no no, the Mi-24 audio is special. We went around with microphones and processed them so that the sounds are realistic from all positions and combine nicely. The sound director has their own system. We’ve recorded and processed the audio, they’ve been regulated and tuned by the test pilots until everyone liked them. Audio in game never sounds identical to real life audio, but we’re trying our best to make it as close as we can get it to be.

Q: Will there be the Lipa IR jammer?
A: The commands will be in the cockpit but the jammer won’t be there. When the helicopters are sent to the factory these days, the IR jammer is removed. All you have is the mount left. This is because the Lipa was created against very early IR guidance. Newer missiles are not bothered by it, even if we were to make the model and simulate it, the system would be useless against the weapons in DCS.

Q: Are there going to be MWS?
A: The ASO-2V can be programmed to release in certain patterns, but in terms of missile detection you need the President-S or some western equivalent to be installed. This system is not on the Mi-24 at the moment, maybe in the future if we can find the right materials.

Q: What weapons will be available?
A: S-8, S-5, S-13 and S-24 rockets, initially the 9M114 Shturm and later the 9M120 Ataka. In terms of warheads, if the weapons are made available in the base game we’ll add thermobaric ones too. There’ll also be the R-60 after the thermal system is overhauled in game to engage ground targets. GUV pods like the Mi-8, no UPK-23 because they’re basically nonexistent in Russian Mi-24P models and are only used by export Mi-35P users, and the 30mm cannon.

Q: How many people are working on the module?
A: The exact number is a secret, sometimes more, sometimes less people.

Q: Will the cockpit be weathered or new?
A: We didn’t see a big difference between fresh and old aircraft. There were small differences that aren’t useful for the pilot. It’ll be a single cockpit.

Q: Will it be possible to turn off the AI entirely and fly alone?
A: Some co-workers had concerns about the AI being too good. We’ve created a layered system for it. The first layer is the work within the cockpit – he’ll turn on everything needed for weapons without communicating this via audio, at most showing a checkmark to the pilot via an interface. The weapons need to be activated by the gunner, otherwise the pilot can’t fire them. For some PVP servers who want people to fly it like a fighter with a single crew and no additional help, we’ll add the option to stop the AI from giving target talk-ons and so on.

Q: If the player is on the gunner seat, will the AI fly with a simple flight model?
A: Why do that? The AI is a great pilot, no need for simple flight models. The one difficulty we’re having is for the AI to make a perfect landing in certain exotic conditions, but we already have it flying well in all nominal flight regimes.

Q: How different are the Mi-24 and Mi-8 flight models, and what did you change?
A: The difference is very deep. We calculate the individual aerodynamics for individual sections of each blade, which are then integrated into the blade, and then integrated into the rotor hub. This calculation is made 166 times per second. The same goes for the fuselage, wings and so on. The resultant of this gives what’s happening. In terms of difference, the blades, rotor length, fuselage shape and wings are not the same on both helicopters so it’s an entirely new flight model. The principle for simulating them is the same, but results are different.

Q: How is the Raduga-Sh sight modelled?
A: The person in the front seat, after the switches are set and the system warm-up is done, approaches the periscope which will cover the screen. The person can choose the zoom level between 3x and 10x. The sight is steered with either mouse, keyboard, stick buttons or axes. A big difference is that the operator does not control angular position but rather angular speed. This is a big difference. If you move the mouse left for example, if you move it a bit the sight will move slowly to the left. If you move a lot it’ll move faster. If you stop giving additional inputs, it’s going to keep moving until you give a right input to nullify the angular speed. The sight moves 45º to either side, with 60º line of sight accordingly, and +15º/-20º vertically with the same LOS result. The sight will stay on target only if the helicopter is stationary, otherwise the operator has to continuously update its position. Doing so is an art, you can’t just place the pipper target and go drink tea like the Ka-50. It’s a semi-automatic system. The missile will go wherever the sight is set, regardless if it’s a tree, a tank or a bird, it doesn’t care. You have to keep the sight on target. It’s still stabilised and drifts very slowly so there are cases where the mark won’t move. If the pilot manoeuvres with more than 20º of bank, the gyroscope hits its limit and that’s it, the sight will jump away. That’ll be modelled, it’s not in there right now but it will be.

Q: How is the Mi-24 in a hover? Many say it can’t hover for long and the engines don’t have enough power for that.
A: Those are just fairytales. If you fill up the feed tank and the temperature is around 0ºC, the Mi-24 can hover on cruise power all the way until fuel runs out. On take-off power, you can hover for six minutes. You can do it for longer until they break, but in real life if you exceed those limits (like hovering for an hour on take-off power) the engines will be removed from service after that flight. For example, my comrades when we flew in Chechnya said all flights were made on take-off power because you want to have speed and power at hand in combat. The engines don’t fall apart after 6 minutes, or even 1 hour, the death is gradual. The blades on the turbine slowly change geometry and lose their aerodynamic properties, the momentum on the turbine drops and power becomes less available. For the pilot, you’ll see the EGT increase over the course of a month for the same setting. After six months flying like that, a helicopter that works on such conditions will have eaten through engines meant to last for a year. By then it won’t fly well, won’t hover for long and so on. In game we can add some limits, but in real life I can tell you I’ve never ever heard of an engine failure on the TV-117 engine that did not have an external cause.

Q: What will the team work on after the Mi-24 releases?
A: After the Mi-24 is out, we’ll work on the Mi-24. The amount of bugs 1000 users find instead of 10

is obviously going to be higher, so we’ll be working on that for the foreseeable future. When that’s done, it depends on what the bosses will assign us to.

Q: How close is VR to real flying?
A: I can’t say I’ve flown much in VR, but from my limited experience it’s night and day from a monitor. You get stereo vision and helps compensate the lack of acceleration on your body.

Q: Will the PZU dust filter be removable?
A: We haven’t though about that. It’s an exotic thing, there might be some performance improvements but I’ve only seen that in Arctic regiments where there’s no dust at all.

Q: Will there be a Ka-52?
A: That’s question is not for me. If Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] walks in tomorrow and says “let’s do a Ka-52″ then maybe the bosses say yes, maybe not. I don’t know anything about it.

Q: Will the autopilot work, especially the route mode?

A: It’s going to work exactly as the manual says, in full.

Q: What skins will be included?
A: There will be both new and weathered. No noseart.

Q: How does the moving map work?
A: The map indicator is true to life – we aren’t making animations of the pilot opening the window by hand and so on at the edge, once you get there it automatically flips. The indicator accumulates errors from the DISS. There’ll be 2km and 10km maps. You can do position fixes.

Q: Will there be external tanks?
A: Not immediately.

Q: How many missiles can it take?
A: Two, four, six or eight. Two people [including yours truly, on the forums!] asked for the ability to load a single missile on each rack but I’m against that idea. It’s not worth the programmer’s time just to simulate specific exotic loadouts from Afghanistan or Syria.

Q: Will both traditional and incremental trimmers work?
A: Yes. The regular trimmer, like the Mi-8, fixates the stick on a new position when pressed. It also

updates the autopilot’s referential. You can also use the four-way hat to trim, that changes the stick position but does not affect the autopilot.

Q: How does the gunsight work?
A: The cross on the gunsight shows where the operator is looking on the URS setting. If you switch to the fixed cannon, the cross shows the computations from the air data computer and tells you where will rounds land if you fire right now. The pilot initially places the fixed crosshairs on the target and waits for the mobile one to move. He then gradually straightens out the helicopter. When the angular offset between the mobile and fixed pippers is at its smallets, the pilot carefully moves to align both and only then opens fire. This applies to both cannons and rockets. There’s a manual mode where you add corrections with the dials, but pilots don’t use it often. Traditionally you just fire, watch where it lands and correct accordingly as that’s simpler. The pilot chooses the weapon on the dial for the appropriate sight calculations.

For those flying solo from the front cockpit, if you recall the sights need to be aligned so the missile can launch. What do you do then? The workaround is to enter manual launch mode, place the target within the front cockpit glass, launch the missile and only then you go into the periscope and place it on the target. You have to do that really quickly though.

Q: Will the announcer system be the same as the Mi-8?
A: Yes, broadly speaking. It’s already functional but still needs to go through testing.

Q: Will there be an English cockpit?
A: Yes, it’s ready.

Q: How will engine damage work?
A: Just like the Mi-8.

Q: Will there be the Igla-V missile?
A: No, the Igla-V is an exotic loadout, we don’t have any good information on that. We’re having the R-60 instead.

Q: Are you working on the Apache?
A: No, I’m not on the team, but I’ve flown it. It’s very pleasant.

Q: How optimised is the module, will it be as heavy as the F-14?
A: No, nothing like the F-14. On my notebook I get between 60 and 72 FPS.

Q: How does the Apache compare to the Mi-24?
A: Why do you people care so much about the Apache? It’s too early to get a feel for it anyway, whenever there is one we’ll talk. Right now it flies and all that, but it’s nowhere close.

Q: What happened to the Ka-50 update?
A: You get the impression that I’m working on all helicopters. If that was the case I’d just explode and die! Sorry, the Ka-50 is not on my plate. I think Chizh is the one leading it.

Q: When will there be multicrew on the Mi-8?
A: I’d love to do all I want to the modules that are already out, but in military science there’s a fundament of concentrating forces at the right time and place. If we split resources into every single project, nothing would ever get done. We’ll concentrate on the Mi-24, if no other problem or large assignment comes up, I’ll ask the bosses to allow me to put my team on the Mi-8 multicrew. No promises.

Q: Are assists planned for the Mi-8, as right now you do the job of three people alone?
A: Yes, I know that problem. Aleksandr Titarenko wants to help us with this despite having no connection to the project. He spent a lot of time on our Mi-8, he’s a civilian pilot with over 4000 hours on it, and did a lot of sling loading in the far north. The improvements to that area are all due to his work before the bug got in the way now. He also participated in the design of the other crewmembers. We have some groundwork done on that area, but we want to do it once we finish with the current project. I’d be really great if it didn’t feel so dead and instead had a crew feeling. As a rule a crew isn’t just to flick switches and start up, it’s about extra eyes, input, analysis and help.

We had an experience when a feed pump failed at high altitude, with a helicopter fresh from the factory. I started thinking “I have to land somewhere” and looked around. It was night, visibility was bad, all I knew is that we were flying somewhere around this area, I could see a road and that’s it, dark fields left and right. I kept thinking that I wanted to land before the engines quit instead of autorotating. To my right the engineer was looking lost at the warning panel. Then there’s the co-pilot on the other side of the cabin, he says as if nothing is happening, “commander, we’re flying along the specified route, ETA to Omsk 59 minutes.” Just the intonation he used calmed me down, I started thinking logically instead and analysing why the pumps failed. We decided to descend. That was a violation, but we knew that breaking a clearance was less serious than an emergency landing. Once we reached our new altitude, the pump worked again. The cause turned out to have been an air blockage. Everything worked normally and we flew the rest of the leg at 150 metres.

The crew is a big deal, and if we could get the game to such a level the Mi-8 would be a whole new module. But for that we need free resources. We’re going to try to get our helicopters to that level.

Q: Would it be possible for the co-pilot to automatically load waypoints and call them out based on the flight plan on the mission editor?
A: Yes, a crew needs to help the commander. I’ll write this down. That’s also a task for the operator in the Mi-24, we’re doing that for him and want to do the same for the Mi-8.

Q: Can the Mi-24 operator give range to target?
A: Well, yes. We’re doing this realistically – there’s a certain error associated with visually guessing

the range. An AI of higher skill will make better guesses than a lower one. There’s no way to gauge distance except for a rangefinder graphic on the periscope.

Q: Will there be damage models added to the armour plates, structural parts, fuel tanks and their consequences on the Mi-8?
A: I’d like that to be done, but any damage model feature needs a lot of work. We haven’t had the available needs to do that. But we’re discussing it, sooner or later it’ll come.

Q: Will there be a the cockpit gun on the Mi-8?
A: No, the 7.62mm PKT against today’s infantry in DCS doesn’t do anything. It’d take this very valuable window in the middle of the cockpit, which is very important to check speed and hover trends. It would be an insignificant gameplay addition at a very high price in quality of life.

Q: Will the Mi-8’s SAR winch be modelled?
A: I understand the request. For it to make sense in game though, you need to add someone to rescue and so on. There’s no point in lifting an empty hook. Shot down pilots who can communicate their positions, injured people in need of rescue where you can’t land, that’s a world of its own. We’d need to get the animation team to make assets to rescue in the first place. For the module team it’d be a relatively small workload, but as there’s a lot to do from other teams we aren’t planning on it now.

Q: Will it be possible to add the two additional fuel tanks on the Mi-8?
A: We’ve been asked about that a lot. It’d be something for the 3D guys mostly, the programmers just add the weight on those areas in the flight model. But what I want to know is where the hell are you flying so long for? Where do you need enough fuel for four hours in DCS? I doubt the gameplay value of that. We can do it, but we can’t see it being worth.

Q: How will the Mi-24 sight work in VR?
A: We’ve agreed to make it seen only on one eye, based on feedback from the ED VR guys. They said they’ll take care of it.

Q: Are you planning to add the Vitebsk-S countermeasures to the Mi-8? A: No, not at the moment.

Q: Are you planning to add the bombsight on the Mi-8?
A: As someone who has never seen a single bomb dropped using that, I can tell you that bombing with this sight in combat situations is suicide. We’ve only seen it used to accurately bomb ice blocking a river near a bridge, the bombsight was used to make sure the bridge wasn’t damaged. It’s not as simple as it seems either, you need active communication between all three members to do it properly. Lots of work for little gain, so I’m against that right now.

Q: Are you going to work on loss of tail rotor effectiveness?
A: We’re thinking of how to implement LTE, it’s very complex and requires a lot of aerodynamics work to do it properly. The level of coding and academic work to do it is enormous. We won’t do it “just to do it”, but we’re going to work it in somehow.

Q: Will there be upgrades to the F-5?
A: We’re going to upgrade the cockpit and external models, those are the only upgrades planned so far. If there are any serious bugs please write to me so we can check, but as far as I know the visual upgrades are the only pending items on the company’s large to-do list for 3D models.

Q: Subjectively, what does the Mi-24 does better and worse than the Mi-8?
A: They made an asymmetrical helicopter that, in combat speeds (180km/h to 270km/h) flies exactly where you point it. Diving attacks need very little correction compared to the Mi-8. The pilots love how it flies and shoots right where it’s pointed at, particularly with the cannon.