WINWING KA-50 Blackshark Collective and Gemini Base Review DCS 

Yup, same here. Mounted to my Monstertech MFC with quick release adapter. Takes me less than a minute to switch between collective and Thrustmaster Warthog throttle. Going by this review, the Winwing stuff would have been endless frustration

It’s crazy we’ve gotten two competing designs so close together, collectives were the realm of DIY prior. I love the compact Orion setup and Virpil’s purpose built mechanism looks great, hope they got the friction right with it.

WinWing just doing what Chinese companies do: See a company make something, copy it and cut corners in copying it.

@@RedKiteRender The Virpil mechanism is good, but not perfect. It needs to be tightened up occasionally, but for me st least, it is smooth. I ordered Neogel for it, to see if I can further improve on it. But again, it is very smooth to begin with.

@@RedKiteRender friction is probably similar, fact is the stiction issue you mentioned with this collective is also on the Virpil, and probably others. It’s kind of unavoidable on this type of device in this price range. You would have to have some extra mechanics involved to try and mimic the real thing and how it holds the collective in place to get around the stiction issue.

I'd love to review it, but Virpil have not responded to me sadly. I don't really have the money to throw around on buying everything unfortunately!

dont play in the rain

i was on through the inferno after restart and it was raining i was like hell yeah lets see these wipers do work and was severely disjointed

@@robstone7325 Really? That's how you deal with all problems in your life?

Thats how all hoggit subreddit folks do everything in life....give up a the slightest friction.

Lol, what a long way has it come so that is the biggest complain atm. 😇

Ah, i did not! I shall make a note to check that out later, sounds awesome! for all the lack of visual design in SimAppPro they've done a fantastic job of getting useful features in.

@@RedKiteRender I just got my collective set up done. In SimAppPro, I can't acquire 65535 or 0 after calibrating RxRy, hence unable to gain enough lift/power in DCS KA50. Any suggestion?

@@kkcsteven Make sure you're calibrating the correct Axis, might be RxRx instead.

Hmm i shall try, i’ve had the unit a couple of weeks by time of this review and hadn’t noticed any change. I’ll give it a deliberate workout and see if it improves.

That might work, although leverage will be working against you, and it might foul the base. Certainly something worth a shot, but i'm reluctant to modify hardware i'm reviewing so it didn't cross my mind!

Three things that KA-50 doesn't have against AH-64D are: 1) Air-to-Air radar 2) FLIR for night operation 3) Rotating cannon at extreme close range engagements (think about helicopter dog fighting in a city, inside 1 km circle). Otherwise KA-50 will have a better capabilities. The pilots has said that AH-64D Longbow radar was not so impressive as it is wanted to be said and had lot hoped to be improved. So instead any 8 km detection range we should be more likely seeing something around 3-4 km and that with just partially some vehicles on good visibility and then those without any camouflage (that renders them invisible to radar and FLIR). The KA-50 will have a Vikhr that is Mach 1.8 (600 m/s) with fragmentation proximity fuze warhead for A/A use and 12 of them. Where AH-64D using Hellfires doesn't have than impact fuze. If AH-64D doesn't get Stinger missiles (2+2) then KA-50 with IGLA missiles will have even easier "Fire'n'Forget" capability for quick snapshots. The Shkval system doesn't show up at the Laser Warning System than possibly just couple seconds before impact as the laser energy is so weak and not focused. Where laser guided hellfires are imminent detection from any range lighting up KA-50 LWS. At night the KA-50 is in trouble, but lot of things can be done with the illumination rockets. It doesn't affect the AH-64D FLIR as it doesn't care, but if pilot wears the NVG then he is blinded on the moment the illumination rocket is lit up and denies their use of NVG. When AH-64D is inside or otherside of the 1-1.5 km radius that is lit up, the KA-50 has same capability or advantage to operate with TV as with FLIR. The main benefit that AH-64D has is two eye pairs instead one, and better visibility outside. But take two KA-50 (2 players) vs single AH-64D (2 players) and the situation is worse to AH-64D as force multiplier is very big for KA-50.

Value for money is one of those subjective things, thats hard to quantify, It seems a fair price to me, do wish they'd made a specialised base for chair mounting though! Man i'd love an Apache collective!

Yeah, and when you're forking out lots of money for these devices it's important to look after them! Whilst i don't have cats anymore sadly, i certainly feel your suffering with cat hair!

All the Orion base buttons work just like normal!

Which makes this collective grip a very enticing option as I already have the orion base. Thanks for the info! 😃🤙

The problem I see with that is, to have the collective at the good position, the base will be a bit backward, and therefore the buttons will be hard to reach. Especially if you use an extension :)

That might work, although leverage will be working against you, and it might foul the base. Certainly something worth a shot, but i'm reluctant to modify hardware i'm reviewing so it didn't cross my mind!

Sadly not heard anything, really interested to see how that detent plate works out.

You need to do a calibration in SimAppPro of the throttle axis for the new travel range.

@@RedKiteRender Nice. I will try this immediately. Thanks

Any current DCS helicopter it's plenty good for, Apache being the exception.

As i mentioned, non issue without extension. With, it’ll depend. Set to the minimum length, with the minimum friction required to hold it balanced between the axis i don’t think it has any significant detriment to my flying, just feel. Trouble is without a dampening piston of some sort i think it will be tricky to make something hold it and be buttery smooth.

@@RedKiteRender That's fair. I suppose it's difficult to convey that sort of feel-based information through text (or spoken word in a video, I guess)- like, I'd consider the stiction issues the TM Warthog base develops to be on the unacceptable end of things, and while this is an entirely different mechanism, would you be able to compare the stiction to that?

Not as bad as the warthog, unless you excessively tighten the friction.That said my Warthog eventually got so bad it could hold full forward deflection if i lightly released my pressure on it!

@@RedKiteRender I have a similar experience with the warthog, and that's part of why I bought an Orion after you promo'd it (which is to say to any Winwing or other HOTAS manufacturers, pls send redkite more stuff to demo and review). Thanks for the replies! May end up picking this thing up and just using a small table beside my chair to avoid the stiction issues altogether, and the extension is cheap enough that it's probably worth getting just in case I decide to go that route anyway.

Try using the stronger spring if it's too loose for you.

@@RedKiteRender I'm using to the stronger one but what cam do you use?

@@TheNorwayDude995 The smooth / detentless one

@@RedKiteRender Ok, thanks for the info.

Exactly the same, the throttle mechanism is the same, minus detents.

Yes it works alongside any other usb game or flight controller.

Having a collective instead of a throttle, makes things a little easier, but it won't make a difference enough to improve your flying if you're struggling, that'll take practice :)

@@RedKiteRender ah ok I see, I kinda have difficulties holding the chopper still in mid air aka hovering. Feels like it is way way to sensitive.

@@DDtch6669 Add some curvature, say 20-30 units to both pitch and roll, that'll dull the inputs and make it easier to do small corrections. As for engine power on the throttle, remember that pitching reduces the lift, requiring more to stay up, make small corrections and try to find a 'neutral position, observe for changes and make micro corrections then return to the rough neutral position before the result. So you're gently bumping the power up/down temporarily to give the aircraft a nudge in the right direction.

@@RedKiteRender Thanks for your help! I will try it. Love DCS. I'm also quite new to it after playing ARMA 3 for quite some time.

That's because most helicopters have automatic governors. Sometimes it's damaged (unnoticed, its a leading cause of helicopter engine failure in dcs) Some older civil helicopters don't even have a governor.

I think it'll be short on switches, given the Apache has a dual head with multiple hats and axis. You'd need some modifiers to make it work, but may be doable.

@@RedKiteRender Casmo did a video on the apache's collective and it seems like the entire lower head just isn't used in general so it probably won't be too much of an issue.

A drawback to this, it increases the cost per collective head. But, i think i like this way round more, so they can tailor the twist to the aircraft!