The timing might be impeccable, but you should watch this short video:
If I recall, a bit of this work is being pushed to 3rd party, however, this is important information is for any level of development.
Maybe the issues near landing is not as important (in a simulator, however wish it is included), but a lot of information packed in here is, such as the distance the wash lasts, etc. I know wake turbulence is a wanted item (A hard item), but if nothing else, note these things down and watch the recommended video’s. At least to discuss with the 3rd party contract.
Looking forward to great helicopters. Thanks for the hard work!
The crazy part is this is not really taught much in training at all. Wake turbulence obviously they teach the students about but only when it comes to following another aircraft. They never really go into detail about it to fixed wing pilots regarding helicopters.
Many things near the landing event are more important than before in the sim with the addition of helicopters. They can do direct to helipad landings and use the aprons area during takeoffs at low level flying. So this will affect the traffic too. You will barely see helicopters using the runways at a busy international airport, for instance, although is more common at smaller airfields. And they can use the rooftops on buildings too. So traffic itself and ATC would need a review to start with.
On the physics side we have torque, ground effect, vortex rings, wake effect and autorotation as the most important ones I would say. I saw a video of volocopter about the airflow dynamics during hover and I presume those things could be seen in sim. In addition to that the project leader in Asobo is a big fan of them (or I understood that at least), so I bet he will put all the best during the implementation.
I agree with you totally! I was at KTPA(a lot of Southwest Airline 737’s there in a small fixed wing, and I felt push from an Idle engine, and immediately cross controlled towards it. Not saying this helped, but It is something to consider in the long future. Something to put on the(we have nothing else) list…
Great post. My post was not to say this was more important than other aspects, it was simply to point out the complexities. Many of these are free on the FAA .gov websites. (thankfully for everyone around the world). It does not encompass everything, sure, but does the basics and more. A little experience thrown in and it really helps a lot.
I am just using this as a display on how much helicopters can affect flight, both their own, and others. And there was a lot of AIrbus helo references for those that are more native to that.
I suspect one of the main uses of the new CFD airflow simulation is to model this sort of effect on the helicopter and its blades. There is even a parameter that allows the airflow simulation to be reinjected into the prop / rotor model.
Great video !! Thanks!
Would not have thought that the wake effect could be so catastrophic still after a few seconds of the fly-by .
Despite the fact that I witnessed how dangerous it can become for a small airplane to taxi only in some distance away from a heavy taxiing ( I mean taxiing !) helicopter.
I must have been lucky. My PPL and CPL instructor also flew helicopters. Big helicopters. He wouldn’t ever shut up about how much wake they produce. I guess he wasn’t lying after all!
I had the opposite on my helo CPL checkride - hovering on a taxiway and a G IV was landing on the runway next to us and we got nailed hard. Didn’t lose control but got slapped around pretty good.
It’s awfully nasty stuff. I remember hitting an A380’s wake on departure out of Munich a few years back. I never knew an A320 could be tossed around as easily as it was. It literally felt like we were strapped on to the back of a crisp packet being blown around inside a tornado. Autopilot kicked out and for what felt like an eternity (but was probably only a few seconds) all hell broke loose. Everyone was strapped in thank god but the passengers and cabin crew were completely shaken up. That’s the day wake turbulence really earned my respect.
I remember In my accident safety class ages ago - there was a story about a Cessna following a 727 on final or something and got rolled by the wake turbulence… the instructor just continued the roll and supposedly touched down as they rolled level.
Thanks folks. The discussion has now wandered to real world aviation, which you can carry on using the Aviation Channel on the MSFS Discord. We’ll keep conversations here oriented to current developments on the sim.
