Helicopter takeoff

dinovandoorn · Post by **dinovandoorn** » 12 Feb 2009, 13:47

Does someone have tried ever to create a sort of point close to the helicoter parking witch can act like a sort of alternative takeoff point/ mini-runway ?
Now the helo's from nick ( Chinook ) uses the normal runway while choppers in reallife not often use a runway for takeoff.
I tried something with afcad but this was never working...

Dino

Post by **BadPvtDan** » 12 Feb 2009, 14:54

I have taken off in helicopters hundreds of times and every time from a runway if one was available. If you are talking something with skids that is one thing but....Chinooks and Blackhawks...always the runway.

maddog65 · Post by **maddog65** » 12 Feb 2009, 15:44

I agree with Dan on this. Hopefully it will show up in the picture, but in case it doesn't in the upper right corner you can see a MH-60 coming in to a landing at the Chambers Field Heliport. Now over at the Dragon pad where the MH-53's are located they taxi to a Helo spot and take off from there.

Post by **Garysb** » 12 Feb 2009, 16:29

The answer to you question is yes but you have to use a AFCAD with its own runway and code imposed on top of the original AFCAD

Gary

maddog65 · Post by **maddog65** » 12 Feb 2009, 17:28

There used to be a tool / program that would add a helo spot. it was great for adding a spot on an oil rig. I can't remember where I saw it though.

Les

Cianofranc · Post by **Cianofranc** » 12 Feb 2009, 20:34

the tool is:
GENERATE HELIPAD
by George Davison.

This is an extract of readme.txt file:

Generate helipad generates files only for FS2004 and can interface to FS 2004 via FSUIPC to extract position data.

There are two functions to this program:

• Generate an airport facilities (AF2) file for a helipad, with or without a hardened surface
• Generate a Way point

Note, a waypoint is just a helipad with a very short runway such that AI traffic will attempt to land but go-around. To force the aircraft to fly to the next waypoint, make the departure time equal to the arrival time otherwise it will attempt to land three times and then disappear. For a discussion on using waypoints in AI flightplans, see the PAI-Military AI forum at:

http://www.flightsimmer.com/forums/show ... ge=1&pp=30

For hardened helipads, a flatten bgl is created at the height of ground beneath the helipad.

The filename is: "Generate Helipad V1.zip". I don't remember from where i downloaded it. Sorry!

That's it!

Luciano

flyerkg · Post by **flyerkg** » 13 Feb 2009, 02:28

maddog65 wrote:I agree with Dan on this. Hopefully it will show up in the picture, but in case it doesn't in the upper right corner you can see a MH-60 coming in to a landing at the Chambers Field Heliport. Now over at the Dragon pad where the MH-53's are located they taxi to a Helo spot and take off from there.

Chambers is even more unique because the area where the Dragons are does not connect to the main airfield area unless they open the gate and have the helos taxi across the road going the the Naval Station. And the area where the 60 is landing in the photo is completely separated from Rwy 10/28 as well. It has all the flight deck markings for the different types of ships that pilots will see after finishing FRS and going to the squadrons.
That is a good observation because in all my days of making AFCADs, I never built that area into my KNGU scenery.

Keith

maddog65 · Post by **maddog65** » 13 Feb 2009, 14:24

If you want I can give you what I have for the helo port at chambers. I made an exclude over in that area to get rid of the trees and houses and made an afcad. Now granted it doesn't show the landing spots for the ships but it is pretty accurate.

Les

Victory103 · Post by **Victory103** » 13 Feb 2009, 16:27

mad, I'd like to see that. When we used to fly our SH-60's up from NAS Jacksonville, we always went to the transit line. The New England AI package has a similar AFCAD for NAS Brunswick and Bangor Intl Airport, using a separate mini runway for the helos. I haven't tested to see if NB's AI AH-64's will land to a spot, like a helipad.

For the real world, we don't always use the runway, if I can request and be approved for a "present position departure", I will. My goal is to stay out of the fixed-wing guy's hair and be on my way, one of advantages of rotary wing flight.

flyerkg · Post by **flyerkg** » 13 Feb 2009, 17:35

Garysb wrote:The answer to you question is yes but you have to use a AFCAD with its own runway and code imposed on top of the original AFCAD

Gary

I used this concept for MCAS Miramar as well as KHRT Hurlburt Field and my helicopters operate independent of the main runway on a lot of my custom flight plans.

Keith

flyerkg · Post by **flyerkg** » 13 Feb 2009, 17:53

Victory103 wrote:mad, I'd like to see that. When we used to fly our SH-60's up from NAS Jacksonville, we always went to the transit line. The New England AI package has a similar AFCAD for NAS Brunswick and Bangor Intl Airport, using a separate mini runway for the helos. I haven't tested to see if NB's AI AH-64's will land to a spot, like a helipad.

For the real world, we don't always use the runway, if I can request and be approved for a "present position departure", I will. My goal is to stay out of the fixed-wing guy's hair and be on my way, one of advantages of rotary wing flight.

When considering operations to/from spots or present position departures, there is a product out by Flightsimtools.com for FSX that creates AI flights for your helos. I might buy it. Topics like this keep me from tossing my FS9 altogether. Now I might start playing with heliports wherever I can. My goal has always been to make close to real NAS Whiting Field South KNDZ. I think it would take a lot of wizardry to get AI helos to operate at multiple spots on the same cardinal heading.
That place was a madhouse.

Ford Friendly · Post by **Ford Friendly** » 13 Feb 2009, 19:17

flyerkg wrote:I might start playing with heliports wherever I can. My goal has always been to make close to real NAS Whiting Field South KNDZ. I think it would take a lot of wizardry to get AI helos to operate at multiple spots on the same cardinal heading.
That place was a madhouse.

There ar a couple neat little "tricks" that can make things very interesting.

Implement "parallel runways" using the "star" technique. There're a couple well-written posts over on the PAI forums on how to do this.

Implement multiple 1' wide(or whatever the minimal width is) runways set half a foot or so below the ground and each runway is connected to a limited number (even just 1) of parking spaces. A bit of experimentation can make even the stemme_as_heli.air file AI helos almost seem to act/takeoff from their parking spots. The keys are orientation of the runways and locating the hold short spot for each correctly (usually pretty close to the parking spot itself). I got this idea from something I saw a friend do in FS9 simulating a WW2 RAF squadron takeoff from a grassy field... 1 runway for each aircraft and links solely to that parking spot. I don't have that setup anymore; he's moved away; and we've lost contact.

Multiple afcads within "real world parking areas". What can be done on large scales can be shrunken to smaller scales. Simpler than above to design but requires more individual ICAOs, more afcads and more attention to flightplanning.

Heliports can be both fun and frustrating, especially when using pontoon-wearing helos.

Ford

bobbych · Post by **bobbych** » 13 Feb 2009, 20:53

[quote=but....Chinooks always the runway.[/quote]

not stricly true, I have taken off in the mighty Wokka, many many times, straight up, even tho a runway was availalbe

flyerkg · Post by **flyerkg** » 13 Feb 2009, 23:06

Ford Friendly wrote:
flyerkg wrote: Multiple afcads within "real world parking areas". What can be done on large scales can be shrunken to smaller scales. Simpler than above to design but requires more individual ICAOs, more afcads and more attention to flightplanning.

Ford

Ford, Thanks for all the good info. I have experimented with multiple AFCAD/ICAO settings with a few airbases. A few things have worked well and others, not so well. I have yet to use the below surface technique you describe. But I will give things a try.
Keith

Ford Friendly · Post by **Ford Friendly** » 14 Feb 2009, 00:56

The "half a foot below the ground" thing usually works best with a very thin (as in not-wide) runway hidden under photoscenery ground textures.

I have used it "successfully" under "normal" FSn-afcad and FSn-landclass ground textures in various places - notably water if you can consider that "ground". Visual "success" varies for some reason - that is, it's inconsistent as hell. Sometimes I get texture flicker and sometimes I don't and I haven't figured out why the difference yet.

flyerkg · Post by **flyerkg** » 14 Feb 2009, 05:16

maddog65 wrote:If you want I can give you what I have for the helo port at chambers. I made an exclude over in that area to get rid of the trees and houses and made an afcad. Now granted it doesn't show the landing spots for the ships but it is pretty accurate.

Les

The amount of effort we have to put into getting rid of erroneous trees and houses from the autogen in MSFS is almost agonizing.