I got a saitek X45 used for about $50, then re-purposed my playstation move camera as a head tracker with freetrack -- I had a lot of big red LEDs already from old electronics projects, so building the hat was free -- so it doesn't take hundreds of dollars of equipment to get in.
I agree, in general the KA-50's systems are pretty simple and straight forward. The data link procedure in particular is super easy. One thing the A-10 has going for it in terms of easy-of-use is that the mavericks are fire and forget, so you can launch 4 in rapid succession and then break off and get out of there all while they're still in flight and tracking.
I still don't think the KA-50 is super easy to fly. :) I'm absolutely terrible at hitting things with rockets (and circle strafing in general), like 1 tank kill for every 20 fired. I'm getting better, though. I've noticed KA-50 flying is also making me a better A-10 pilot.
I went through a similar process of being like "hey, this is really easy to fly! Not much harder than the choppers in BF3" and then I realized it defaults to the "game" flight model. Put it on sim and you'll notice a difference!
That seems like a lot of holding down the trim button. I guess I could give it a try.
I've never had any problems with alignment. The largest error I've seen with turn to target has been maybe a degree or two. You can set it to a mode where it re-aligns using the shkval. I use the auto-startup, so maybe you're not hitting that switch when you start? It's underneath the PVI (manual page 6-65 #22).
I've been flying a lot better ever since I learned a little about the autopilot. The autopilot is limited to 20% authority, which IRL is great for the aircraft's designers because they can disregard a bunch of redundancy since the worst it can do is make you correct up to 20% for a failed autopilot, but makes it so that I have to already have the aircraft pretty much doing what I want it to before I can engage the autopilot. For example, I already have to be in a nice trimmed hover before I engage the auto-hover mode, and then the autopilot just holds it for me while I'm staring at the shkval. When I'm not in auto-hover or route follow autopilot modes, I fly with the flight director on, which turns off the autopilot. It's important to realize that you want the autopilot off when maneuvering, otherwise you'll end up fighting its 20% all the time, which feels like random aircraft weirdness.
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