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SU11 Helipads

rhumbaflappy

rhumbaflappy

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Attached is an example of a helipad. Things have changed a bit. I just added it to c59, but it could have been a new airport.
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The Microsoft examples don't have parking associated with the helipads,, so I left it out as well.
 

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Has anyone refined the art of placing a pad on a raised platform?

I'm getting the helicopter starting on the ground quite a way away with no start.

Adding a start in what I thought was the right place had it upside down at ground level.

It looks like the start has a different relationship to the position compared to other aircraft.

Edit - The centre of the start is the centre of the helicopter's mesh. That's not the case with other starts.
 
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Attached is a transparent cube, with helipad and parking. I include the .blender file as well. First, place the model. Second, place the helipad object type as this will now snap to the elevation of the top of the cube. Third, add a parking spot (if desired). The cube has a box collision.

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Attached is a project that creates heliports for the MSFS Gulf of Mexico oil rigs present in microsoft-usa-point-of-interest. The Heliports are labeled as G0001 to G2225. Yep, 2225 landable heliports. It will slow down the World Map.

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Here's a valid Helipad Start attached to CSK3 near Montreal Quebec, but the actual Start is at C59, in Delavan Wisconsin, thousands of kilometers away. It is not visible on the World Map. But if you choose CSKE, and then choose a start position, HELIPAD01 shows up as a choice... and that is at a grassy area by C59, The elevation (alt) is ignored!


XML: 
 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<FSData version="9.0">
  <Airport state="Quebec" city="Montreal" name="Mascouche" ident="CSK3" lat="45.71880016475920" lon="-73.59895884990689" alt="22.84200000000000" magvar="16.000000" trafficScalar="1.000000" airportTestRadius="1300802.62247102637775" applyFlatten="FALSE" isOnTIN="FALSE">
    <Start type="HELIPAD" number="1" designator="NONE" lat="42.63016820517689" lon="-88.60047750268538" alt="300.00" heading="0.00000000000000" />>
  </Airport>
</FSData>
 
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Thanks for the transparent cube - clever solution.
In this video, at 12:00, Federico uses a collision surface from the SDK to support a pad on a building. I haven't tried it myself yet.

I looks like MSFS forces the helicopter to spawn with engines running if a helipad is selected as start position. Anyone know of a workaround to prevent that happening?
Dave
 
David_UK said:
I looks like MSFS forces the helicopter to spawn with engines running if a helipad is selected as start position. Anyone know of a workaround to prevent that happening?
Click to expand...
Use TaxiwayParking. I used that in the above helipad.zip. You get a choice of using the Start or the TaxiwayParking.
 
David_UK said:
Yeah, thanks I saw that. Trouble is a user would have to be briefed to select the parking spot instead of the helipad.
Click to expand...
If you zoom way in, you'll see there is a slightly offset parking spot.
 
I had no problem adding helipads to the oil rig placements in AK and CA, but trying to add parking spots - just snapped to terrain / water. Did you have any luck with placing parking spots on an elevated surface?
Also - did Asobo ever update the oil rigs w collision? Previously, they didn't and you'll fall through... so a bunch of us had to add helideck plugs w collision to make it work...

407 CA08.jpg
 
The above Gulf Oil Rigs.zip has a model with an invisible cylinder and a cylinder collision for all the gulf oil rigs. I didn't add parking there. In the helipad.zip, there is a model, and collision box, and a parking spot.
 
ok, cool... so your parking spots are working on an elevated surface? or the helipad asset is for ground use?

also, did you do your placement procedurally? updating 40 rigs by hand in my scenery was a PitA - can't imagine doing 2000 :P
 
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The invisible mesh and the collision box (or cylinder) needs to be set a ground level, I believe. This makes a solid column to the ground.
I made one library object to solidify the landing pad, and separate heliports for each rig. I made a C# program to place (and offset) the landable mesh object from the decompiled Microsoft placement of the over 2000 rigs. I'm 70 years old. Not enough time to place them individually. :laughing:
 
rhumbaflappy said:
The invisible mesh and the collision box (or cylinder) needs to be set a ground level, I believe. This makes a solid column to the ground.
I made one library object to solidify the landing pad, and separate heliports for each rig. I made a C# program to place (and offset) the landable mesh object from the decompiled Microsoft placement of the over 2000 rigs. I'm 70 years old. Not enough time to place them individually. :laughing:
Click to expand...
hehe, I did CA and AK because they were under 20 rigs each, I've got Adratic rigs as well - but there were well over 50-60, and passed on doing that ;) Also, my data was much better for CA and AK, so I felt it was more worthwhile.

scripting all that is ace! I wish I'd automated the process as well ;)
I'll give the cylinder collision a try and see if fixes the parking spot issue - thx!
 
Unless something has changed, parking spots can still only be placed on official terrain so you'll have to terraform to raise it up, which obviously isn't viable for many cases.

I guess they invented helipads to avoid having to adjust that.

Interestingly I've noted a few airports have helipads showing up even though they haven't been modified since SU11. UK2000's EGFF has a couple in slightly strange locations.
 
You can place parking in a heliport on a raised model. Just make sure the model uses a collision box or cylinder for the platform, and the collision is extended down to the ground level.
 
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