Port Your Own Helipad?

[JALxml]

A bit of a whacky suggestion. I’m interested in helicopters in MSFS. But they’re slow-flying and it can be time-consuming to fly from an airport to interesting vistas, then return to a landing spot. I’m not overly familiar with the Logbook logic but it seems you get brownie points for takeoff and landings so I hate to mess up my statistics by spawning in the air, go sightseeing and then just land in some field - which I just did, an after an initial landing shortly into my flight, a real takeoff from the field, and then a final (almost crash) landing in another field (but, hey, I came to a stop and shutoff my rotor!), I got zero credits for takeoffs or landings.

If I were really dedicated, I guess I could use the SDK to create a helipad just about anywhere that I wanted to go sightseeing. Instead I wondered, "Why have to spawn in midair away from an official airport?! Why not, if there were a decent flat piece of ground near where you wanted to tour when one is using the World Map, just put a helipad out in the middle of nowhere and get credit in the sim for taking off and landing from the magically created helipad? For lakes, one might even create the helipad on a barge, float, or pier out in the lake. Same for shorelines and sand beaches and farmers’ fields, etc. When your flight was done, your helipad could be saved with the flight or erased.

This may sound totally whacky. But, hey! We’re getting Top Gun and pole races in the Nevada desert. Why not somehow put more freedom into the sim for where a helicopter should be able to take off and land from with credit? Since I was flying the H145, maybe my lack of takeoff and landing credit was just because the H145 is still in beta release and not fully and thoroughly incorporated into MSFS mechanics yet. But being able to temporarily place a heliport at will in the sim and then negotiate skillful takeoffs and landings avoiding trees, mountainsides, buildings, etc., would add some additional sport to flying, IMHO, and I don’t think would be too far off the wall as heliports/helipads have been put in some pretty unusual places IRL.

[DanH1951]

Hi,
I fly the H145 as well and got credit for the takeoffs and landings, but not outside of airports.
Dan

[Crunchmeister71]

People have built fictional airports for the sim, or even recreated old decommissioned airports that have long been bulldozed over with no trace remaining. There should be no reason that you couldn’t create a custom, fictional helipad in the sim.

There’s a guy who did a mod for my local airport (CYGK). In the process, he also added the helipad at our local hospital a few miles away from the airport. As far as I know, it’s a fully functional, valid helipad in the sim that can be used if you’re flying a rotary wing aircraft. So it can be done.

[JALxml]

@Crunchmeister71

There should be no reason that you couldn’t create a custom, fictional helipad in the sim.

I have installed the SDK, gotten Blender, and bought Steam’s bargain version of Substance Paint (now called Substance 3D, I think). And I read various threads here about creating airports but I’m lazy!

What I’d like is something like a paintball gun for my mouse. I squirt at the world map highly zoomed in and the tool would automagically create a helipad where I want so I don’t have to fly a zillion miles from the nearest official airport or heliport to see some sight out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe to keep some realism, the helipad tool might balk if I try to put the pad on the side of a cliff or the side of a skyscraper! But with a helipad tool, one might still get credit for takeoffs and landings, and have fun deciding where to situate the helipad relative to what you wanted to fly by when airborne, etc. It’s just an ephemeral thought. With so many other more important things to add or fix in the sim, a helipad tool doesn’t deserve any real serious thought right now. Maybe the easiest thing would just for Asobo to give credit for a helicopter taking off and landing just about anywhere?