Angels of Caucasus [Helicopter / Fire-fighting Rescue Sandbox] - Single and Multiplayer

Update 20250502: DCS bug fixes

You are an 'Angel' - a member of one of the world's elite Search And Rescue airborne rescue and fire-fighting squad.

Take to the skies (and bring up to 23 friends) in your Hind, Huey, Hip, Kiowa, Hook or Gazelle [Black Shark and Apache can join, but can't rescue nor fight fires], fight fires and rescue people all over beautiful Batumi or in the Elbrus alpine regions.

Angels of Caucasus
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Version 2025-05-02

Helicopter Rescue and Fire-Fighting Sandbox

You are an "Angel", a member of the world's elite Air Rescue organization. Your task is to help fight fires and evacuate injured people fr om all over Batumi, and the alpine regions around mount Elbrus. Once rescued, return them to the nearest Hospital.

It's summertime. Batumi is big and as populous as it is popular. The heat has turned the environment into tinder, and it can take its toll on many, leading them to questionable decisions; also in summertime, adventurous souls heed the call of the mountains, making them climb wh ere they should better not have treaded. In short, there will always be more people requiring your assistance than you can provide - so bring a friend or two if you can: this mission is fully multiplayer capable, and keeps track of your accomplishments, even between mission restarts.

There are multiple slots available (hot and cold) for Hueys, Hooks, Hips, Gazelles, Kiowas and Hinds), allowing for many pilots simultaneously in Batumi; there are additional slots (hot and cold) at the alpine operations center near Elbrus.

[There's also one slot each for the Apache and Black Shark at Batumi, but those helicopters can't perform SAR nor fire-fighting]

SAR
You perform SARs by flying towards the evacuee (they all have locator devices for your ADF). Pearly Gates, your Command Authority, can vector you towards your evacuee. Once you get within 1km, help on the ground will mark the spot with smoke, and you'll be guided by your chief for the last 100m.

Land close enough to pick up the evacuee. If landing is not possible (rescue over open water, steep or inaccessible ground or forest in the mountains), you can attempt a winch rescue which requires you to hover within range and altitude for some 20 seconds. Once the evacuee is on board, you are to return them to the nearest hospital. Batumi Field Hospital is located at Batumi airfield, while the Elbrus alpine evacuation center is located in Elbrus, some 5 km northwest of the Alpine Flight Center. Both hospitals are marked with red smoke.

On approach to Batumi, please be mindful of other traffic, both fixed-wing and - possibly - other Angels. When operating in the mountains, keep and eye on your dials. Up there, the air is rare, and won't carry as much weight as you expect. At over 5600m (18000ft) height, the twin peaks of mount Elbrus are no laughing matter, so take only as much fuel as you think you need.

FIRE FIGHTING
Only the following helicopters are fitted with tanks to fight fires:
- Huey (1200kg)
- Hip (4000kg)
- Hind (2400kg)
- Hook (9000kg)
- Kiowa (500kg)

To fight fires, you first top off your tanks with flame retardant (from Batumi's tarmac, Batumi evac zone, marked with red smoke) or water (from a lake/river), and then drop it into the blaze.

Topping off your tanks:
When inside a refill zone, go to communications - Other - Firefighting and choose "Activate Intake" to fill up your flame-retardant tanks. Filling your tanks is instantaneous.

When hovering over open water (lake/river), and at 10m AGL or less: go to communications - Other - Firefighting and choose "Activate Intake" to fill up your flame-retardant tanks. You’ll hear your intake pumps activate, and your chief starts giving you live updates. Your pumps can acquire 100 liters (kg) of water per second, so keep this in mind while hovering. Filling up the Huey (1200l) takes 12 seconds, while topping off the Hook at that rate takes 90 seconds.
Once your tanks are topped off, your intake pumps disengage automatically

Dropping Flame Retardant / Water into fire:
Note: currently, there is no difference in efficacy between water and flame retardant (this may change in later versions)

Move towards a fire cell and prepare to drop water. You can choose between two different methods:

MANUAL: choose Comms - Other - Firefighting and sel ect "Manual Release". This empties the contents of your tanks at 1000kg/sec until they are empty. The impact point is derived fr om your current speed and direction. While the tanks are emptied, you can hear the turbo-pumps pushing out the liquids. I recommend that you bind the F2 key for manual release using some appropriate software for greater precision.
ALT-triggered: Go above 300 m AGL (900 ft), and then Comms-->Other-->Firefighting and choosing "Arm Autodrop Trigger". An aural soft tone blips once per second to remind you that the altitude trigger is armed. Once your altitude gets below 100m AGL (328ft), that triggers release.
Note: Altitude-triggered release is more difficult, and intended for advanced pilots who can judge their approach.

Once release has started, it ends after the entire contents has been emptied. The drop pumps are rated at 1000kg/sec, meaning that the Huey (1200l capacity) is empty after 1.2 seconds, while the Hook (9000l) has 9 seconds of water/retardant, and can therefore cover larger areas.

After you successfully drop water/flame retardant into a cell, the amount of fuel left in that cell is reduced. Once all fuel in the cell is consumed, that fire cell dies out, and can't re-ignite. Dropping water around a burning cell can prevent the fire from spreading in that direction. If you succeed in extinguishing all fire cells in a blaze, all pilots that have successfully contributed to fighting that fire are awarded an number of points based on the size of the conflagration.

You can always query your status from HighPerch. Initially, your Rank is "Probie", and that rank increases with the number and size of fires that you help to put out.

Note: Refueling
Keep in mind that in order to carry more flame retardant, your helicopter is only fueled to 50%. Keep an eye on your fuel gauge, and when you return to the airfield to refuel, do not top off your gas tanks. Fill them to 50% to avoid falling out of the sky.

IMPORTANT NOTE
In Multiplayer, Angels uses an 'eye-candy' script called 'stopGap' that fills empty player slots with static representations of their aircraft, making the airfields look *much* nicer. However, there is a DCS synchronization bug that requires that the server (and only the server) run a tiny script called 'stopGap GUI'.
Please see here: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3331434/

Other notes:
If run on a server, this mission auto-restarts every 8 hours. It's an endless csar sandbox mission
This mission can persist all your accomplishments (landings, time, rescues) per airframe if you have persistence enabled (this requires that your DCS is 'de-sanitized').
If you also have one of the other "Angels" missions (e.g. "Angels of the Levant") and persistence is enabled, the missions share all player's accomplishments.

Acknowledgements
PearlyGates by ElevenLabs
Mission created with DML by CFrag
uses stopGap

Features
- Supports more than 25 Players in Hind, Huey, Hip, Gazelle and Kiowa
- dynamic, randomized rescue missions inside Batumi city proper, forest, over water (Batumi Harbor and bay) and the Elbrus alpine regions
- Dynamic Airfield Scenery (provided by stopGap)
- Persistent accomplishments
- "St. Peter's" Choir - persistent list of most heroic angels
- Civilian air traffic (fixed and rotary wing)
- Endless sandbox
- "dynamic scenery" for evacuees