The helicopter thread

[jpc55 185]

I like Helicopters too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   

[Humpty 751]

XP spoilt me

[Hordriss 2]

Having seen what the game promises in terms of the photorealistic real life globe, being able to see your own street etc, I'm hoping for Helicopters purely so I can land in the road or in a park in an area near my house.

In all seriousness though, if the new MS Flight Simulator lives up to the promise it will be incredible.

[FireRx 18]

Majority of my Flying in Sim is in helicopters, I have an entire fleet of different one.  I hope FS 2020 will have some developments by the time it goes "gold"

 

[Brentd2183 6]

I'm a majority helicopter flyer too, looking at the quality they are doing I'm ok with waiting and having them do helicopters the right way.  The question is when they do get around to it, which helicopters will they do?  It would be nice to put a poll up with some suggestions, something for MS to look at so they can work on partnerships.  If the majority of the team is in france than Airbus Helicopters should be a good partner,  the AS350 is one of the most popular single engine helicopters and if they ever wanted to do a twin engine you have the H135/H145.  Of course they could consider the old R22/R44 if they wanted us to have a piston powered helicopter or even the new Guimbal Cabri G2.  The Bell 407, S76 or Md500.  I imagine they would want to make an aircraft that is currently in production.  I fly the AS350, AS355, EC135 in real life so I might be a little  biased on what I'd like to see.  I'm hoping the buildings are all harden so all the photogramy buildings that have helipads are instantly available even if they are not officially considered helipads in the sim.  Looking through bing the quality is so good on some areas that rooftop pads would be usable without any extra input from MS.

[Brentd2183 6]

Just look around Boston and Worcester Massachusetts in windows Maps program.  Brigham and Womans, Beth Israel, BMC, Mass General, Umass Medical Center, Clinton Hospital, Marlboro Hospital are all there in high quality photogramy.  The amount of work it would have taken in the past to  create those hospital sceneries would have been intense and now they will all be there by default in the new sim.  We will really be able to enjoy it from the helicopter side once we get there.

[Pastaiolo 1,688]

With such a beautiful scenery, rotorcrafts are really the best candidates to enjoy every piece of it, especially the photogrammetry cities.

[andyjohnston.net 617]

I've put lots of time building scenery for my home area of Ottawa which I fly around making air-taxi flights between various destinations in the Robinson, and I would hope that they will be able to bring that aircraft back, sooner rather than later.

[Paraffin 2,197]

5 hours ago, Brentd2183 said:

I'm hoping the buildings are all harden so all the photogramy buildings that have helipads are instantly available even if they are not officially considered helipads in the sim.

It may be too much of a frame rate hit to have collision boxes (or "contact detection") on all the photogrammetry-based 3D buildings, but it might be done selectively. That's how it works in X-Plane: all buildings are non-collision detecting unless there is a helipad on the roof, in which case it's considered a solid object. That way you don't get a major frame rate hit in a complex urban environment.

The XP method relies on rooftop helipad locations that exist in the sim's nav database -- the ones that would be listed on charts. Maybe the Azure AI will be good enough to detect the typical markings for a rooftop helipad and just do it automatically, even for pads that don't exist in the database. 

Ideally, we would also want the sim to insert an autogen 3D helipad object to land on, so we're not just landing on a surface of blurred pixels based on the photogrammetry object.

[ual763 361]

Sergio, I know you love the whirlybirds.  So do I.  Personally, I hope that when helicopters are introduced, someone will create a Sikorsky S58.  I would spend hours upon hours flying it from airport to airport in Chicago, SF Bay, LA and NYC.  Each of these cities had helicopter airlines connecting the downtowns and surrounding airports back in the day.  This would be awesome in photogrammetric cities.  I think it is the coolest looking helicopter.

P.S. - World oil rig placements would be great too (with helipads).  It can be a generic model oil rig for all I care!

Edited March 30, 2020 by ual763

[Grounded 4]

Are you saying I can fly through most buildings?  I thought they talked about buildings affecting the wind, but you can fly through them?  Seems silly.  I hope they can just check for local collisions, i.e. when you get close.

[Mace 1,926]

On 3/30/2020 at 2:32 AM, Grounded said:

Are you saying I can fly through most buildings? 

The people who know the answer, probably can't tell us.

I agree it would be nice to have collision checks.  Maybe they can find a way to do it without framerate impact.  I saw a video the other day of a guy flying his helicopter around Los Angeles, noting the amazing lack of traffic due to the virus thing.  Anyway, he flew over downtown LA, and I noted the helipads on some buildings, and thought, "I wonder if the Azure AI will be smart enough to place hardened pads on those places..."  and here you guys beat me to it mentioning the exact thing in this thread.

[collander 1]

I fly helos in XP11 and DCS (and a long history of helos in Arma). I'm very interested in MSFS, but it's a no-go without a few helos. 

[Jonnoxx 53]

An experimental helo I'd like to see would be the coming JauntAir Gyrocopter (update to the famous Carter Copter concept).

 

 

 

 

 

This aircraft ticks so many boxes (survivability, quietness, smoothness etc) that I'm always surprised that the US military (or any other) has not grabbed this concept with both hands already.

When you look at the concept photos, this would seem to be right up with Airbus's experimental Eurocopter X3 programme (frankly, I personally think the JuantAir is much more svelte, and far AHEAD of the X3!).

There are some really impressive rotocraft people involved with JauntAir.  See https://www.jauntairmobility.com/partners/

If I was Airbus, I would be seriously thinking about partnering with them ASAP.

But in the meantime ... maybe the French can get in the back door by getting Asobo to get involved modelling this rotorcraft?

Only begging asking for a friend (er ... LOTS of them!)

😜

[Soul Rebel 38]

20 hours ago, Jonnoxx said:

 

When you look at the concept photos, this would seem to be right up with Airbus's experimental Eurocopter X3 programme (frankly, I personally think the JuantAir is much more svelte, and far AHEAD of the X3!).

There are some really impressive rotocraft people involved with JauntAir.  See https://www.jauntairmobility.com/partners/

If I was Airbus, I would be seriously thinking about partnering with them ASAP.

But in the meantime ... maybe the French can get in the back door by getting Asobo to get involved modelling this rotorcraft?

Only begging asking for a friend (er ... LOTS of them!)

😜

The Eurocopter X3 is a helicopter, this project is a gyrocopter, two completely different things.

I am a big helicopter's fan but sadly I don't think we are going to see helicopters in FS2020 in the near future. The new sim is still in Alpha and when they release it they will work in a patch first, and maybe then they will start working in something that is not a fixed wing.

We, helicopter's fans, are the big forgoten always 😒