JYAI HH-60W Jolly Green Giant II

[John Young]

So far with the scenery and flight planning, I have 5 "W's" of the 55th RQS and 8 from the 305th RQS operating nicely at Davis Monthan.

Aviano, on the other hand is proving a pig. John Stinstrom's scenery works reasonably well (with a few fixes) as does the helicopter AFCAD overlay I have made. However, I have been unable to set up a circuit flight plan because whichever runway direction I choose, the helicopter hits the high mountains that are in very close proximity to the north. I can set the circuit altitude to 6500ft (airfield is at 410ft) and that enables the helicopter to clear the mountains after departure. However, that doesn't prevent a collision on the leg to the approach. Both IFS and VFR plans crash the helicopter in the mountains. I have also tried changing the pattern direction, but with no success.

Abandoning circuit flight plans, I set up a waypoint AFCAD about 40 minutes flight time to the south at 2000 ft over the Adriatic Sea. That avoids the mountains altogether. This is the flight plan, where LIA1 is the Aviano overlay and LIA2 is the waypoint:

AC#6,487,1%,2Hr,IFR,10:00:00,TNG/10:42:00,020,F,487,LIA2,10:45:00,11:45:00,020,F,487,LIA1

The helicopter reaches the waypoint at 10:40. overshoots and does one more TNG at 11:02 then leaves the waypoint and heads back to Aviano. However, although it passes the base 5 nm away. it continues north on a rogue course and never lands.

Can anyone suggest a fix please?

In the meantime, I have a go at Kadena.

John

[Firebird]

John, what I think is happening here is that the issue is because it is an IFR flightplan and the timing from IFR plans sometimes stretch things too far.

What I always do is treat each part of the flight as a separate leg. So in you case the first part is from Aviano to the waypoint. Then you have to add a leg from LIA2 to LIA2 for the actual TNG, then the third part is the RTB.
So try something like this to see if it helps.

AC#6,487,1%,2Hr,IFR,10:00:00,TNG/10:42:00,020,F,487,LIA2,10:45:00,11:00:00,020,F,487,LIA2,11:02:00,11:55:00,020,F,487,LIA1

I deliberately shortened the time for the RTB so that it would stay in your 2hr plan window.

[John Young]

Thanks Steve. Just ran two tests. In the first, the helicopter crashed on the waypoint on it's third TNG at 11:25 and disappeared. In the second the helicopter crashed on the way out to the waypoint.

I'll have another go in the morning and see if that fares better.

John

[John Young]

No, that definitely doesn’t work Steve. I’ve tried your FP 3 times now and what happens is that after completing 2 IFR TNGs successfully, the helicopter lands on the waypoint runway the 3rd time around. Because there are no parking spots it then disappears. I assume it’s trying to pass time until it’s ready for your 3rd leg back to base.

The two leg plan, as I posted, has always worked for me in the past, so I tried a few more tests. With an IFR plan, the helicopter passes Aviano on the return to base at about 5NM to the NW, but at 8000ft and on a heading of 23 degrees. I am assuming the AI Engine is assigning a safe height to continue into the mountains. I don’t know why it needs to do that when the helicopter only needs to turn right to line up with the runway at 47 degrees, avoiding the mountains altogether.

A VFR plan also enables the initial TNG, but then the helicopter goes rogue at 2000ft, the assigned altitude, doesn’t head into the mountains, but just keeps heading west.

I’m not too happy with Aviano. The JS scenery is functional in FSX with a new flatten area that I can provide. However there are many transparency issues. These can be partly overcome by converting John’s object library to FSX format, but in doing that it creates very severe co-planar flickering on the hanger front where the helicopters park. I can’t change John’s scenery because I don’t have permission to do so.

After 6 hours testing the helicopters at Aviano, I don’t want to waste further time. I think I will just provide the helicopters and the overlay and let users decide how they want to use them. I’ll move on and see what I can do with Kadena.

John

[Firebird]

For the helo to land the runway has to be long enough, back in the early days of the group the waypoints had runways too short for the aircraft to land on and therefore they would continue to TNG until the next leg time.

Obviously, I don't know the runway length of your waypoints but it might be worth severely shortening them to see if that makes a difference. I have a feeling that runway parms that we used to use were 3' wide by 10' long, however whether or not these are acceptable in sims later than FS9 I don't know.

Depending upon your waypoints it might be worth trying that to see if it helps.

[John Young]

Alas no. My original waypoint runway length was 10ft, but even reducing it the 4ft, about the minimum I can draw with AFX, still enables the helicopter to land on it and then disappear.

As a further test with your 3 leg flight plan, I launched FSX at Aviano at a time 15 minutes before the helicopter was due back. It was not visible on the parking spot, which was reassuring and even more so when I found it in the traffic view window after spawning inbound to the airfield. However, it then went through exactly the same gyrations as the one in my 2-leg plan did, passing 5 miles from the airfield and never able to line up with the runway to land.

I really don't want to spend any more time on this. It takes 40 minutes to carry out each test.

John

[Firebird]

I will have a think about this and let you know if I think of anything.

[John Young]

Just a quick update. The JG's are working fine at Davis Monthan, Kadena and Moffett. Steve has kindly offered to have a look at Aviano to try and see why the helos won't return to base there after successfully doing 3 TNGs at a waypoint half an hour away, and breaking away for the return.

Moffett is particularly interesting with a new California ANG complex on the NE side of the airfield that is home to the JGs, Pavehawks and C-130 Combat Talons. All the aircraft are operating nicely and I'm about half way through making the new ANG scenery objects to update the scenery that Brent did.

John

[John Young]

These are the JGG's at Davis Monthan:



And at Kadena:



Aviano, as previously reported is problematical:



The helicopters depart for the waypoint half an hour away to the south and perform 3 overshoots before heading back to base at Aviano. Alas, they never land because the AI engine has pushed them to 6000ft above the airfield elevation as they pass 5 miles away. I presume that's to clear the mountains that are very close to the airfield to the north, for some reason. Steve is having a look at the behaviour for me.

Moffett Field is working fine. I have spent some time adding the new California ANG complex to Brent's scenery:







Finally, I want to have a look at Moody next, as the other significant JGG base, to see what I can do there. I won't be doing Kirtland for the reasons we have discussed in other threads.

John

[John Young]

Just did a quick assessment of the prospects for Moody AFB and the 11 JGGs based there. I can find no freeware custom scenery, but the default FSX and P3D is usable. However, neither has any parking spots in the AFCADs. I found the repaints in the hangar for the A-10s and C-130s that are also based there and the latter also includes flight plans.

I should really do this one because it has the greatest number of JGGs based there amongst the airfields that operate the type. If anyone has a modified AFCAD for either the FSX or P3D default Moody AFB that accommodates the A-10s and C-130s, could they PM me a copy please? I might as well make the JGG overlay for that one, rather than doing it all from scratch.

John

[geoffj]

John,

Have you had a look at this one for FSX by Jim Cook? https://library.avsim.net/download.php?DLID=121993. It is quite an old download (2008) but users could easily adjust if they wanted to. I did an ADEX file in 2023 to update the parking using the AFX file as a basis and Google maps as a reference, didn't take too much time or effort. Might be worth a look to see if an overlay can be accommodated.

Geoff

[John Young]

Thanks Geoff.

Yes, I have seen that one, but it’s not suitable. The parking spots are all wrong. There are not enough of them and they have no anti-pushback nodes on them. Moody is home to 70 A-10s (the JC AFCAD only has parking for 18) that are parked under shelters and those are not present. I can’t change the AFCAD myself because it’s not mine and it’s too complex a job to ask users to do it.

I could make a usable version of Moody myself, but it’s a lot of work for a project that started as a simple request to upgrade my Pave Hawk “G” model and make a “W”. What is putting me off is the dismal response to my Minot AFB project that took around 800 hours to do, yet has only produced 214 FSX and 110 P3D downloads from around the world. That for a major and very detailed USAF base. I can’t justify that amount of effort any more, particularly when 96% of users download and never say a thing.

I’ll ponder Moody a bit more, but I think there are more useful things to do, particularly in this good weather.

John

[Jorgen]

John, a quote: "and never say a thing".

Well, it's time for me to pipe up then, here are 2 screenshots of my installation of your Minot, with my peculiar mix of flight plans.

In the first one, look at the end of the row of parked birdies... in the next, that particular bird is taxiing.

Jorgen

[Jorgen]

Ah, the order got reversed... the first screenshot is now the bottom one.

Jorgen

[Jorgen]

Forgot to add something: in the bottom schreenshot, you can just make out a Huey directly over the T-45. It has just taken off from Minot and is on its merry way out to a silo. At least 3 others are on the way in other directions.

Jorgen

[John Young]

I wasn't sure what you were trying to demonstrate in the second screen shot Jorgen, other than a T-45 on a taxiway. If the first one was to demonstrate camouflaged B-52's, then why not take the screen shot from the other side of the blast barriers and make them more prominent? I'm not sure either, why I spent so much time trying to get the scenery right for 2025, with, as you say, "your peculiar mix of flight plans". As long as you are happy though, that's all that matters.

John

[John Young]

I finally managed to upload the HH-60W package this morning. It features 43 HH-60W’s and 4 sceneries (Davis Monthan, Moffett Field, Kadena and Aviano) with flight plans.

I got bogged down for several days, trying to work out why the helicopters would not land back at Aviano after successfully breaking away from the destination waypoint I set up, half an hour away over the Adriatic Sea. They would get to within 3 miles of the airfield but at an altitude of 6000ft, I think to clear the mountains that are very close by. This was using my helicopter AFCAD overlay with John Stinstrom’s detailed scenery of Aviano.

It then dawned on me that my files might all be fine, but the problem might be when using them with the John’s Aviano. That appeared to be the case, because having then tried them with the default Aviano, they worked fine and the helicopters landed back successfully. I have not been able to work out what causes the problem with John’s AFCAD, which otherwise, looks fine.

I have included both options in the upload so users can choose to use the detail of the JS scenery, including NATO fixed wing traffic, but without returning HH-60W’s, or a barren FSX/P3D default Aviano with returning HH-60W’s. There are 4 HH-60W’s present in both options.

Please allow time for Martin to process the upload and make it available in the Hangar.



John

[Jonjon]

Hello John,

Many thanks for this new pack!
Impressive as usual, even more when we realize what it became instead of just a modification of your previous pavehawk

You're a king!

Fred

[Victory103]

Outstanding work again John, thanks for taking on a small request. I've seen the issues in the JS scenery as well in P3Dv5, I moved (FP) the LN Pavehawks when they moved IRL and always seemed to have issues.