Review (RC8): DCS: Black Shark - English Version
Part 1

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Documentation

As with any new flight sim, you want to familiarize yourself with the documentation. DCS: Black Shark has an abundance of reference information. Almost like the popular joke line, "too much information!". Almost. After seeing puny pamphlets from other titles passed-off as "manuals" that you still have to experiment with just to find basic functionality, the documents with this sim are a welcome change. Hello Falcon 4.0 and Janes Combat Simulations. Well, except of course these are pdfs and not "treeware". Will we see a publisher put these beauties into print? Yes. More on this topic later in the series.

For documentation, consider:

• The 385-page Flight Manual (22.9MB pdf)
• The 162-page GUI Manual (8.03MB pdf)
• The 56-page Quick Start Guide (13.1MB pdf)
• The 5-page Key Commands - Game Mode (278 kb)
• The 9-page Key Commands - Simulation Mode (396 kb)
• and of course, the readme.txt file (8 kb)

Initially, to get things setup in the sim, I suggest you familiarize yourself with the GUI Manual, then turn to the Flight Manual.

Download the two manuals. SimHQ has mirrored both documents on their downloads server.

• GUI Manual (right click, then save as)
• Flight Manual (right click, then save as)

For late-breaking information, SimHQ suggests:

• SimHQ DCS: Black Shark Forum
• Eagle Dynamics - DCS: Black Shark Forums
• Official DCS: Black Shark User FAQs

SimHQ community member "Para_Bellum" has just created an excellent start-up guide to get you off-the-ground. Read about it here in the SimHQ Forum.

One more you probably want to download is here. Thanks to SimHQ community member "The Nephilim" for the reference link to the real ABRIS system pdf document. Cool!

A couple of comments that need to be said about the 56-page Quick Start Guide. Pages 4-30 deal with Activation, Deactivation and Disk Protection. It would have been better to split the Quick Start into two pdfs. For noob or vet, reading the first-half of a Quick Start reference that deals with something other than actually getting the bird into the air can be frustrating, and the fact it deals with an already sensitive subject doesn't help either. In such a superb effort at documentation, this oversight does stand-out.

Trust me, ten minutes of reading equals hours of simulated flying fun. Welcome to study sim heaven.

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