Optional target UI for helicopter SAR, cargo and construction missions

I suggest adding the option for a target UI element that can be enabled in the assistance menu. Maybe something like a dot that moves in a circle and the dot represents the sling load over the target area. Add to that a bar with a height indicator to see how close your are to 30 ft.

Unfortunately it is really hard to hover a helicopter in sim. There is just a lack of physical feedback and the inability to assess distances. Besides VR there is also the problem of looking around freely. I can use quick views but then I constantly have to switch around which causes the loss of any reference point for hovering stable. And from cockpit view it is just impossible to see where the load is because the mirrors on the H125 also don’t work. Some of that is just the reality of a sim, not much can be done here in my opinion (besides the mirrors).

Because of that we need other assists like described at the top. In real life you also have ground personal that give you feedback via radio. Maybe that could be implemented? Right now it is a frustrating experience to do SAR hoist missions or sling loading because you just have no idea where you are and it’s already hard enough to keep the helicopter in a stable hover

7 Likes

agree voted

I suggest this:

An assistance system representing the work of a winch operator is incorporated, both for hoists and sling missions.

Once these conditions are met, the system becomes active:

  • Target is in a 15 meter radius around the helicopter
  • Helicopter is moving with less than 20 kts in any direction
  • Helicopter is less than 200 ft above the target

here are two options:

→ Audio System:
The Sim gives audio feedback as the “winch operator” referencing the helicopters relative position to the target. Callouts could be:
“Target X o’clock, Y meters forward, Z meters left, altitude good”
“On Target, up/down X meters”
“On Target, altitude good”
reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi6pEPpM-L8&t=892s 13:00 Minutes

→ GUI System in the EFB
Graphical system showing a circle of 15 meter radius around the helicopter. A concentric circle every 5 meters inside for orientation. Orientation is Heading Up always. The Helicopter is represented as a symbol to scale and always centered.
The target is represented by a dot of 1-2 meter diameter.
Helicopter altitude is represented by a slider on a bar to the side of the circle UI.
The optimal altitude is represented as a green area in said bar.

Reference sketch:

11 Likes

It would be helpful if at sling loading missions there is more indication on where the load is.
Now its all guess work or using outside view to determine if the load is correctly on the drop zone.

In DCS there is a loadmaster giving instructions on how to move to get the load on target.
And there is a drop zone indicator you can make visible to assist.
This would help to get the load on the drop zone instead of the guess work that’s in now needed without any visual indication on where the load is.

Working mirrors would also help. There are mirrors present but are totally useless for there purpose

2 Likes

Absolutely!

Only way for me to drop with precision is external view and shadow as a reference.

1 Like

You can use the EFB map (max zoon level) to decently see the drop/hover circle in both hook transport and construction and judge your position.

In the simulator, due to limited vision, it is difficult to determine the position of the helicopter above the casualty or the load. It is impossible for novice simulator helicopter pilots.

Currently, these missions are almost unplayable.

I ask the development team to please add a position determining display add-on to these missions.

It would be a great help if the co-pilot or other person would give the pilot instructions by voice or speech to raise or lower the helicopter, or to hover over the target.

5 Likes

I noticed the mirror they attach to the side doesn’t work even on highest graphics settings, we certainly need something as an alternative…

2 Likes

In the simulator, due to limited vision, it is difficult to determine the position of the helicopter above the casualty or the load. It is impossible for novice simulator helicopter pilots.

Currently, these missions are almost unplayable.

I ask the development team to please add a position determining display add-on to these missions.

It would be a great help if the co-pilot or other person would give the pilot instructions by voice or speech to raise or lower the helicopter, or to hover over the target.

5 Likes

This is really necessary.

Would love to have a voice say “3 to the right, 1 forward” etc… you’re just lost and it’s just not realistic (and far off making fun doing such missions).

2 Likes

I also think that this is absolutely necessary, ideally visually and acoustically. :+1: :+1:
Apart from that, we need functioning mirrors and a better position of the EFB in the H125, the view of a mirror is partially obscured.
Another important device would be a scale in the helicopter. This would allow you to see when the full load is hanging on the helicopter and the load is touching the ground.

2 Likes

Can’t upvote this enough, without this it is really impossible for me to find the target on these precision hover missions.

Since the H125 is basicly impossible to fly in hover atm due to being waaaay too twitchy I tried the Chinook. There I can hover quite well, but find it impossible to actually WHERE to go in the hover once the target disappears below the copter. Even the existign feedback you get there is useless, because it is so delayed that you have drifted out of the pickup area before it tells you that you are in it.

I mean, this should in theory really be not that hard to implement, put something like a virtual helipad in the sky where you should hover to pickup and drop the cargo instead of this useless tiny circle on the ground. And even better would be a copilot that actually helps you hit the target instead sitting silently there and just yapping some useless flavour text when enroute…

1 Like

Fully agree with the topic and upvoted too. However, I found on another thread an interim solution.
Zoom max in the tablet, this will actually work as a target UI. Also set the altitude radar to 30ft and keep it above for hovering.
It made my virtual pilot life so much easier.

2 Likes

Just tried my first hoist SAR mission. And it is even worse gameplay here. Really makes me not wan to fly any helicopter career missions before this gets improved.

Not just the fact, that it is still the same tiny target without any proper way to tell where you need to go. Now I also need to tell when to hoist? I mean, that’s like 100% the wrong way around from the real ops. I’m just the pilot here, THEY should tell me where to go and once in positon do the hoisting. Like, you know, a team working together…

Oh, and especially in the SAR missions. The tiny target is actually wrong and not what they do in RL… Because there they actually try to stay AWAY from the people to be rescued, to not blast them with rotor downwash…

1 Like

I will repost what I already suggested in H125 thread:

I was thinking how we could make sling loading work assuming we can’t have working mirrors (P2P or whatever technology must be used), I came up with this idea:


*

I know it looks immersion breaking, but it’s no less immersion breaking at the moment in the game IMHO. The “shadow” could get sharper the closer the load gets to the ground and more blured the higher it is over the ground, the “grid” could use thicker lines over the target area (and maybe some kind of circle to indicate the borders of the area where we are supposed to put down the load). Actually, the grid can be completely invisible and only appear over the target too

For a reference here is how a commercial H125 simulator does it (it’s loftdynamics and it uses VR with a mix-reality cockpit), if we can’t have it, then we need some kind of workaround hence my concept idea

2 Likes

Audible crew guidance is sorely needed for these operations. The UI would be great but we need audio callouts as well. Real world operations would never be done in the fashion we have in the sim, with no feedback for the pilot. It makes the missions a ludicrous parody, which is even a greater shame because you can see they made a real effort with the cable dynamics.

The sling loading is so underdeveloped I almost considered the missing features a bug, but I guess Wishlist is the appropriate area.

Look to DCS for the bare bones support we need here devs.

3 Likes

… and at least something that either marks where the end of the rope is (for hoover) or much much more hints from the “crew” that for now only tells you
“on target” or “not on target”.
How to guess both the hight and the position of that rope… :see_no_evil:

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So much this.
Makes you wonder if any dev have actually tried to hover the end of the rope near the goods to get “approved”.
Why do we need this “game” wrecking change into 3rd person view?

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Great discussion and definitely needs crew member talk. We’ve got trivial passenger telephone conversations for nice effect, but no useful/necessary crew voice for these kinds of things.

On my first Freelance SAR mission I lost visual with the victim’s smoke while maneuvering for an approach because the smoke went out. You have to land so darn close and everywhere with a bit of clearing I tried in the vicinity of where it was, wasn’t close enough. There was a rescue team member, announcing something like “we have touch” once in a while, I guess when I was close, but absolutely no use in guidance to where to land or find the person. The bloke I had with me in the heli was of zero use at all, just dead weight.

I read somewhere that you can get out and walk nearer to the victim and succeed, for example if they’re on a steep slope nearby a landing area, so I tried to go for a walk around the area to find my well hidden victim. I failed the mission because I went too far from my heli. This method does work, because I have succeeded with it, but only for a small distance (I don’t know exactly what the limit is but something like 100m).

These missions could be so good if they sort this nonsense out.

3 Likes

In MSFS I use EFB, you can use max zoom-in for top-down positioning and Radar Alt for height (in H125 aim for 50ft mark)

1 Like