(Live) traffic ai flight model for helicopters [2024]

Hi all!

Now that we’ve got helicopters on live traffic I guess it’s time to talk about their behavior :wink:

Currently these helicopters basically fly and act like regular airplanes as never on any FS iteration a dedicated helicopter ai model existed. This obviously has some downsides:

  1. They cannot hover which would especially be good for live traffic as helicopters may stand still or move incredibly slow in midair
  2. They cannot use any helipad, neither on oil rigs, nor on buildings or on airports. They will just skid to a ramp and always require a runway

Now as the sim has tons of helipads it would be a good point in time to add ways to see proper helicopter traffic.

On live traffic especially the challenge would be to “guess” from which helipad a helicopter takes off from or on which it lands because this information is often not fetched on VFR flights.

As there is anyway a delay of ~15 minutes on live traffic because of interpolation and other things the closest helipad could be chosen in such situations whenever a helicopter appears on ADSB at low altitude. If there is no helipad in closer proximity the helicopter may spawn or land on ground (as this could mean it’s a medical service, training or just some unknown unmarked helipad).

This functionality later on could also be used for flying taxis or hot air balloons (which would not takeoff or land at designed spots).

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