Heli Traffic X
Heli Traffic X is a module that adds AI helicopter traffic to FSX.
This FSX plugin will instantly bring action to your helipads! You will get various kinds of helicopter traffic using any of the helicopters you have installed. It also offers excellent customization options.
Features:
- AI helicopters that take off and land at helipads, hover, and fly like helicopters, not like airplanes.
- Adds randomly generated point-to-point helicopter traffic.
- Adds scheduled traffic according to the schedules supplied by the user.
- Uses any default and add-on helicopters you have installed for AI traffic.
- Uses helipads defined in scenery files.
- Allows specifying additional landing helicopter spots.
- Allows customizing the random traffic density at every individual landing spot.
I guess I am the "tester" as I have already bought it. It works very realistic so far with the default FSX heli models. I have not figured out how to import new helis into it. The helis take off from the heli pads, hover up, then fly like a real helicopter, in turn they land the same way. You can place heli pads and make your own AI heli schedules as described.
What I like about it is that it keeps your AI helis off your main runways so they do not interfere with your normal AI traffic.
flyboy wrote:I guess I am the "tester" as I have already bought it. It works very realistic so far with the default FSX heli models. I have not figured out how to import new helis into it.
From looking at their support forum, it seems that there are 2 key elements to adding new helis into their system.
1. It needs to have a "helo" flight model however they define that.
Note however that Heli Traffic X can currently only operate helicopters with a helicopter flight model. This means, if you have an AI traffic package with helicopters that fly like airplanes (so that FSX AI would work with them), Heli Traffic X will not be able to manage those "helicopters". To use those visual models, you would have to change their flight model back to helicopter.
2. It only looks at helos installed in the rotorcraft folder.
I just might buy this over the weekend since realistic AI helos are something I've dreamed of having for so many years. I'm curious how are the ATC comms between the AI helos and FS? Even when I've made my short and invisible helo fields they are still cleared to "runway" and since they now launch/land from helipads, are they cleared to numbered spots? I can now flight plan AI to NAS Whiting Field South like crazy.
This program doesn't use the FSx AI engine to fly the helos so there is NO helo to ATC comms.
Edited to add this from their support forum:
The helicopters fly from point to point. They avoid other traffic and each other, but have no other interaction. In the future, we plan to add more complicate routes, like sightseeing and police patrol flights, but we don't plan ATC integration. So yes, the traffic is slightly "dumber" than airplane AI traffic.
Since the FSX AI traffic engine doesn't support helicopters, they are entirely controlled by the Heli Traffic X implementation. For this reason, there is less integration with existing traffic and airport procedures than you would get from airplane AI traffic add-ons, because those add-ons essentially supply data to the FSX AI traffic engine and do not have to bring their own AI engine.
The helicopters use AFCAD files for helipad information. You can also define your own landing spots (apart from helipads) from within the tool.
It cannot read existing traffic files. We may consider this in the future, but I cannot promise it for sure at this point.
Thanks for the info. I should at least check out the website support forum before asking dumb questions next time. I think in the early versions of Flight Simulator there were AI planes that flew in the scenery but there was not interaction between ATC and AI. But this is at least a step in the right direction.
I didn't see it as a dumb question. It was certainly one of my questions when I first read about the program.
Having downlaoded the free user's manual from the product page and not having seen the answer, I took a chacne that additional information would be available in the support forum.
I normally don't go to companies' support forums before buying anything - especially when one considers the way certain companies police their boards to prevent any appearance or criticism or negativity about their products.
This time I got lucky. It seems these guys are going to be the antithesis of a certain company now associated with Flight1 as their primary sales medium. Shrug.
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FWIW, I'm probably going to download this program this afternoon.
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One thing that does have me "concerned" is that I'll have to pay attention to which helo models are "true helo" fde and which use modified glider/aircraft fde's. I'm thinking that that might be the worst aspect of this "system within a system" - or should that be "system functioning beside a system"?
I know the AlphaSim scenery for USS BELLEAU WOOD has AV-8B Harriers and CH-46's that are built into the scenery for AI, but I'm not sure how you could take the same info and design something similar for AI Harriers though.
