JonMyrlennBailey
Well-known member
Up to now you may have just had your birds on the ground idling or had them hover in place.
Earlier I tried to fly train-vehicle helis around a closed loop circle of elevated invisible track and they speed out of control, derailed and crashed to the ground.
I just thought of something, tried it and it worked!
Place yellow cheese slice markers on the invisible track and assign MPH values to slow them down. I have my police helicopter circling a crime scene on the ground at the Mojave Sub Tehachapi station in California at a modest 25 MPH on a circle about 2 city blocks in diameter and about 100 feet above the ground level, absolute altitude.
Start (keystroke B) your chopper in Driver/Session and issue the heli driver (pilot) the command DRIVE (same as an order to fly in this case) and, before driving, make sure the direction control is in the neutral position and move the power control to full throttle to get realistic loud, high-RPM engine sound. Real helicopters run at a high governed throttle speed constantly regardless of airspeed. They use a combination of collective/cyclic blade pitch control and torque pedals for regulating forward movement, reverse movement, hover, vertical climb, vertical descent, turning and altitude.
The heli will keep flying around in a circle indefinitely. Who says you have to have a small tight circle? You could have your helis flying on long loops over your route continuously this way.
The aircraft even banks, leans inward, naturally in the turn.
PS - yellow cheese slice markers = invisible speed triggers
To hover a heli in place and lower it back to the ground gently, use the H key as a toggle if you have a piece of ground-level invisible track.
Using colored invisible track like red makes laying it easy in Surveyor. The track is only truly unseen in Driver.
Earlier I tried to fly train-vehicle helis around a closed loop circle of elevated invisible track and they speed out of control, derailed and crashed to the ground.
I just thought of something, tried it and it worked!
Place yellow cheese slice markers on the invisible track and assign MPH values to slow them down. I have my police helicopter circling a crime scene on the ground at the Mojave Sub Tehachapi station in California at a modest 25 MPH on a circle about 2 city blocks in diameter and about 100 feet above the ground level, absolute altitude.
Start (keystroke B) your chopper in Driver/Session and issue the heli driver (pilot) the command DRIVE (same as an order to fly in this case) and, before driving, make sure the direction control is in the neutral position and move the power control to full throttle to get realistic loud, high-RPM engine sound. Real helicopters run at a high governed throttle speed constantly regardless of airspeed. They use a combination of collective/cyclic blade pitch control and torque pedals for regulating forward movement, reverse movement, hover, vertical climb, vertical descent, turning and altitude.
The heli will keep flying around in a circle indefinitely. Who says you have to have a small tight circle? You could have your helis flying on long loops over your route continuously this way.
The aircraft even banks, leans inward, naturally in the turn.
PS - yellow cheese slice markers = invisible speed triggers
To hover a heli in place and lower it back to the ground gently, use the H key as a toggle if you have a piece of ground-level invisible track.
Using colored invisible track like red makes laying it easy in Surveyor. The track is only truly unseen in Driver.
Last edited: