Helifest 2024
Attention All Rotor Wing Pilots
HeliFest
2024
Aerial Adventure
The 2024 inaugural HeliFest will take place starting August 5th, 2024. The official end will be no later than September 15th, 2024, or upon completion of the route by all contestants, if sooner.
This aerial adventure is open to all flight simulation platforms (FS98, FS2000, FS2004/FS9, FSX, MSFS 2020, P3D, X-Plane, etc.). The primary focus is to have fun while showcasing the different aircraft and scenery to be found within all the various flight sims.
This aerial adventure is open to all rotorcraft sim pilots across the web. Flight simulation enthusiasts participate in forums and other chat groups on a multitude of websites such as FlightSim.com. Everyone is welcome to join us at FlightSim.com no matter what flight simulation site you may call home. Get the word out to all simmers you know to join us on the grand adventure.
HeliFest 2024 will follow the route of the historic Simplon Orient Express of the 1930’s, landing at an airport in each city visited by the Orient Express from Paris France to Istanbul Turkey. Participants will fly 1300 miles, visit 11 airports, and traverse 7 countries, all while sharing their adventures along the way.
Primary Route
1. Paris France, Orly Airport, LFPO
2. Dijon France LFSD - Dist. 141.6nm
3. Lausanne Switzerland LSGL - Dist. 75.9nm
4. Milano Italy LIMC - Dist. 103.3nm
5. Venezia Italy LIPZ - Dist. 152.6nm
6. Trieste Italy LIPQ - Dist. 50.8nm
7. Vincovci Croatia LDOV - Dist. 224.5 nm or Osijek Croatia LDOS - Dist. 224.9nm
8. Beograd Serbia LYBE - Dist. 70.8 nm
9. Nis Serbia LYNI - Dist. 111.1nm
10. Sofia Bulgaria - Dist. LBSF 78.3nm
11. Istanbul Turkey LTFM or LTBA or LTFJ
Note:
· Vincovci Croatia, being a major rail hub, was a stop along the Orent Express. However, the closest airport, LDOV, is not available in all sim versions. Therefore, Osijek Croatia is the alternate being the next closest airport. Add-on FSX scenery is available for LVOD through FlightSim.
· Istanbul LTFM is not available in FS9. Therefore, Ataturk LTBA is the alternate being the next closest airport.
· Istanbul LTFM and LTBA are not available in all sims. LTFJ is an acceptable alternative.
Aircraft
Any general aviation or commercial rotorcraft is welcome to participate. Please, no armed, military or police craft. In addition to the “as delivered” and “off the shelf” default paint schemes that are always a pleasure to see, we encourage custom repaints, with various colors and HeliFest, personal or rally sponsor colors and/or logos.
The official HeliFest 2024 logo will be posted on the HeliFest 2024 page. This may be used by all participants for any aircraft repaints or any of your HeliFest 2024 related posts. In addition, links for airport charts and other documents of interest and other additional material for this event will be added to the HeliFest 2024 thread.
Entrant requirements, rules and guidelines will be added in the next couple of weeks.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me through the HeliFest 2024 thead or by direct private message on FlightSim.
Thank you and I look forward to seeing you in the skies of HeliFest 2024!
To clarify, this thread is for use by all participants, observers, enthusiasts, and anyone commenting on the HeliFest 2024 event.
You may also contact me via personal message here of FlightSim.
Comments
Looks like they have already started (only got my email from ProTrainer yesterday.
Link to flights already completed on Flightsim.com
https://www.flightsim.com/forums/topic/60869-club-chachapoya-helifest-2024/page/10/#comment-318277
Only got 4 days to complete it. Not possible for me at the moment
If I understand correctly it is highly modular so you can take your time and do the routes at your own pace, it can be timed or free-flight.
I have been checking out the flights posted on Flightsim.com and alot of people still fly helicopters using FSX!
It was more that Flightgear did not get a mention.
If have compiled the photoscenery for the route 9.30 GB if anybody is interested, mayby it would be nice to fly a sample flight as a comparison against the images from FSX/MS2020?
Helicopters dont fly in FSX, they just move around above the ground.
If your ok doing the orthos im sure we can generate some flight images.
I have collected the overall route photoscenery 1300 miles (14 Gb), sure we could do a sample sections and compare the images uploaded to FS.com.
From what ive seen so far of the uploaded screen shots, there not exactly stunning.
The Dijon-Lausanne-Milan sections are probably the most interesting
Following the railway tracks (though obviously not through the tunnels) is about 250 nm so would be about right for a FlighNight.
If you post the flightplan route I can run the photoscenery for this flight.
This should do it:
I could do this next Saturday (24th August) if no-one else was planning anything. Maybe even add some trains on the tracks.
Chooo Chooo!
If you follow the regulations for the Helifest, you need to maintain 100kts Ground speed. a Bit like a navigational rally.
Working on it now
Photoscenery for the above flight LFSD to LIMC - Onedrivelink
LFSD
https://1drv.ms/f/s!AmRcwtiRJxd9hJFynOp1Gqzhs4WmzQ?e=47C39a
Cheers Oly. I'll work on the trains next.
Here is a scenario for testing:
The folder is for *MERGING* into your existing data/AI folder. For the FlightNight, when we are a minute away from Raron, the scenario will be turned on. This scenario runs an Orient Express style Steamtrain along the track of the railway between Raron train station to just before the tunnel at Brig, Swizerland. To find it start at LSTA - Raron and fly north till you see the railway line just south of the river. It is only about 0.2 nm from the airport. If you open the map, you'll be able to see the location of the train.
If you spawn at the GA ramp, you'll be pointing north anyway and. after a couple of minutes it will go from left to right, in front of your very eyes.
From my experiments so far, tunnels don't work and neither do resets/repeats. The route takes about 15 minutes. When it runs out it will just sit there till you turn the scenario off. Do *!NOT!* then turn it back on again!!
Issues/thoughts:
Although it will go through trees (and probably most user-generated objects) the train will not go through OpenStreetMap buildings. It will climb over them.
The Nasal for selecting scenarios is in /data/gui/dialogs/scenario.xml - so it might be possible to use some of that to automate the loading of scenarios.
Looking at various topics, AI ground traffic has been borked for some time but the FG developers consider it to be a dead-end so this is probably as good as it will get.