Ok, so, I've been playing around at the China Zun in Beijing, and then I remembered seeing a video some time back of someone landing one of the Cubs on the Statue of Liberty island in a headwind, pretty much as if it had been a Harrier. And it sparked a thought of pure idiocy.
So, here I am in the Carbon Gravel, having set off from ZBNY, wearing my best Jack Nicholson grin, heading for the China Zun.
Well, I figure if the worst comes to the worst, it's only pixels, right?
The tricky bit (hah!) will be that the actual hard surface is elevated a good few feet off the visual surface of the helipad, as I discovered on my previous visits in the H135 and Bell 47. But it still seems like it ought to be possible, that roof looks maybe 100 feet wide and coming in slow enough with the maximum flaps might well work.
My usual thing, do the flight while recording it, and then use the playback to review it and take screenshots. Som here we go . . .
And there we have it. This is actually fully down (remember the surface is raised)
I guess the surface is out by between 3 - 6 feet.
Ok, full disclosure time. I actually misjudged the height of the landing surface and hit down too early - going nose down. The final two shots above come courtesy of slew mode. All real up till that point but the real ending was as below
But I may well try again. As far as the old saw about "is it a game or a simulator?" goes, my feeling is - who cares, when you can have this much fun!
cheers,
Andy