Jonathan Bailey

No, it's a train sim but has working aircraft imagery as scenery. One can virtually ride in the helicopter to get a bird's eye view of the train layout below.

It's a sort of "Disneylandization" of the aviation world. Most of us will never have the privilege to pilot a real airplane so PC games makes the make-believe version of it "affordable" for most. The computer allows people to "be" what they can't really be in the real world.

This is the world-famous Trainz Railroad Simulator software. On my model train layout, I have operating aircraft including this helicopter which autonomously flies, lands and takes off. This helipad is at a USFS ranger station. The Forest Service is fed. govt. so the military aids it at times. This imaginary chopper might be on a fire-fighting or rural disaster recovery mission. This Huey is likely Reserves or National Guard. The weekend warriors do a lot of this kind of stuff. Originally, the helipad was textured in gravel but I later thought better of it so now the helipad is asphalt. Gravel might get sucked up by prop wash and hurt the bird. The concierge-service airport fuel truck is only 35 feet away from the "H" on the helipad. The bird is supposed to land right on the "H". The main rotor is no longer than 24.5 feet in radius according to my built-in Surveyor ruler so it has adequate safe clearance from the fuel truck. The civilian contract worker in the orange jumpsuit is supposed to be my hot refueller.

I'm flattered to hear that I have the gift of visions that look forward into Tomorrowland.

Oh, that must have been several years ago. I can't remember about my flight-suit post. I think it is no longer here.I used to post my flight sim shots and helicopters in custom paint schemes. Nowadays, PC railroad simulation is my bag. Still, I have an animated helicopter in that even. I can set up operational fixed wing planes, DeHavilland float planes, commercial jets, Boeing 747's as well, in my train sim as well as flying scenery. Helicopters are handy for taking aerial shots of what is on the ground. Low and slow flight. Can't do that in a fixed-wing airplane. Ideally, model R/C helicopters would make good flying aircraft over a model railroad layout because of the space limitations. They can get into tight places.

No, the flight suits of the chopper crew were designed by the authors of the helicopter game content. I was in an army aviation attack helicopter unit that had Cobras and Hueys and the warrant officers who piloted them wore those olive drab jumpsuits but olive drab helmets as well, not white ones. I used a railroad worker figure in orange jumpsuit to mimic a civilian employee who might be refueling thirsty Hueys on important missions up in the boonies, perhaps with concierge service as a defense contractor. I got the privilege as an American soldier, a truck mechanic, to ride in the gunner seat of a Cobra while looking through the movable gun sight. Some crew chiefs in my unit at Ford Ord, CA with the 7th ID Light in 1992 who repaired them never even got to ride on those! They shook like a paint mixer when they slowed way down in the air which made my nerves twitch just a bit. I flew on a Huey in that unit too which didn't shake quite as bad. My impression then was that army helicopters were crude machines.

Yes, please see my video of this animation posted on You Tube. The army heli is the first thing shown in the video at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srp0IifuD68 The first 25 minutes is a virtual air tour of the train layout with aerial camera views from the helicopter. At about 25 minutes, the helicopter comes in for an approach and landing. The landing may seem unnatural as the aircraft does not flare rearward on touchdown. That's because the "helicopter" is a really a "railroad train" according to the rules of the game software. The PC game thinks it's an engine (locomotive) so it cannot behave like an aircraft does in flight in some respects like hovering down vertically and lifting off vertically. The helicopter image comes down and takes off along a gradual grade angle which is an "invisible train track" which is the "trajectory" or flight path of the bird. The heli flies at 25 mph statute, ground speed, while airborne. It could fly much faster though but I wanted slow flight to give a good aerial shot.

Hello, I have a virtual model railroad PC game. On my train layout there is a model of a US Army Huey that flies over the layout. It occasionally lands and takes off from a helipad of the US Forest Service ranger station with a lookout tower up on a forested mesa. There is a swath of forest as evidenced by a line of tree stumps that have been cut down to make a clear landing approach for these aircraft. In the real world, would it be unusual to see military birds landing at a forest ranger station? Do military aircraft sometimes assist the forest service in certain operations as fire-fighting? Could the National Guard or Army Reserves be doing weekend training? I used an olive drab military helicopter because that looks most appropriate for work in the boonies. I don't have a bird specifically marked for forest service use. The other helis I have for my PC simulator game available are city police Bell Jet Rangers. To add realism, I also have a fuel truck parked at a safe distance from the helipad with orange cones to mark its parking spot. I cannot model the grounding cables for the truck, however, but the fueling attendant is wearing a bright orange jumpsuit, probably fire-proof. A safe distance for the truck from the helipad is about double the length of a turning main rotor blade on the Huey. My virtual G-scale model helicopter is a pretended electric R/C bird that has true collective/cyclic pitch mechanisms, a single main rotor and is piloted by autonomous computer control with an on-board avionics system similar to GPS (or perhaps VOR??) for navigation. A science-fiction model bird to say the least.

Probably some kind of super-big hovering aircraft with jet thrust like a Marine Harrier. Well, train wrecks are probably just cut up into small, lighter pieces on site with torches where normal utility helicopters can lift the workable pieces away. Train wrecks and semi trucks over mountain embankments should be thoroughly cleaned up for environmental reasons. Of course, if the government wants to spend your tax dollars on helicopters to do the job....

How much weight can the world's most potent H/L helicopter hoist? Can a heli possibly be built with enough muscle to even lift a diesel train locomotive weighing from 250 to 300 tons? If a new breed of SUPER heavy-lift choppers were invented, this would be a boon for heavy recovery operations as semi truck wrecks and freight train derailments in the mountains. It is all about scaling everything up. If man can build outrageous-sized ships which can sail the seas, outrageous-sized airplanes which carry a number of army tanks, and outrageous-sized rockets which jet man to the moon, man can build outrageous-sized utility aircraft as well. Large airships are sometimes even used for heavy logging in the mountains. I have seen some of the lifting potential of flying machines fashioned by man. Here is a scene in my train simulator where a Super Puma heli is lifting a derailed grain hopper back up the embankment. A cute Hollywood touch though probably a bit fantastic.The RR sim is Trainz in the mode where the virtual train layout is built called Surveyor. All those arrows, circles, dots and lines and things are various builder's tools and will not show up during actual game play.

At least can an RC model do this? Is this not fake?

Have you ever noticed how cluttered the cockpits look in helicopters and even fixed-wing planes? Seemingly hundreds of gauges, switches and push buttons. Lights like a white house Christmas tree! One might think you need a doctorate in rocket science just to master all the gadgets. Then there are the weird labels on these controls "GOV", "MASTER BATTERY", "FD" and "BCN", for example. Grandfather said that Charles Limburgh flew all the way across the Atlantic navigating only on an altimeter and a compass in the 1920's and landed safely. Could any pilot navigate today on so little in the way of instruments? I have flown enough birds in PC flight sims to know how horrific the cockpits look inside. Many of those switches are not even controllable in the game. A sea of toggle switches all across the dash. Why would I want to turn on the "NO SMKNG" or "FSTN STBT" sign in a simulated jet anyway? Even the radios have hundreds of buttons and weird labels. Nothing like a 9-volt transistor radio for simplicity for sure.

What are lights controlled by a switch labeled BEACON? Is beacon different from strobe? What is with all these clunky toggle switches in aircraft anyway? Why not a simpler rotary switch as in cars for various lighting functions? How about automatic lighting whereby the correct lights come on under the right circumstances?

In that case one is FOLLOWING the aircraft in front of them if the red light is on the left. I learned this in PC flight sims. In boating speak, these are sometimes called running lights. On boats, ships and aircraft sport these lights as far as man-made vehicles go as much as I know.

When I was about age 13, my grandfather had told me that all airplanes have a green light on the starboard side and a red light on the port side. This is the same for boats and helicopters. I believe these are called "navigation lights" both nautically and in aeronautical usage. Correct? I was wondering why the green starboard light seems to be more blueish-green than true green? To tell you the truth, I like the blueish-green light better than true-green lights. Like blue-green numbers on a digital alarm clock, easier on the eyes. Most of the green navigation lights I have seen seem to have a blueish tint anyway. Also, do army helicopters have red/green navigation lights? I have never noticed them on military birds before. I understand the importance of navigation lights for safety. If you see a red and green light at night in the dark and the red light is to the RIGHT of the green light as you face these lights, the boat or aircraft is coming right toward you!