Usage

  • move with mouse horizontally inside applet to rotate helicopter tail to the right or left
    (the actual tail-rotor setting is displayed below the artficial horizon).
  • move mouse vertically to move helicopter tail up and down.
  • drag with mouse right or left to rotate around horizontal axis.
  • drag up or down to zoom in or out.
  • reach all 3 waypoints with an altitude of less than 30 to complete mission.
    Between 2 waypoints you have to climb - at least for a short time - to an altitude
    of more than 50. The currently next waypoint is marked green in map.

    Activate applet keyboard response by clicking into it and hit
  • keys 'w' or 's' to change the ascend/descend angle setting of main rotor
    (the actual value is displayed right to the artificial horizon)
  • key 'm' to view or hide the map
  • keys '+' and '-' to change position of land/sea border
  • 'e' or 'd' to change 3D view aspect (camera position)
  • The key 'o' switches to the flight parameter options screen with a preliminary force-function editor
    (only the settings of the "ABS(sine)" screen are currently used by the simulation) :

    F(alpha) depends on additional payload / # of passengers , the helicopter's center of gravity, the actual fuel status.
    at the time of simulation and the type of simulated helicopter
    note:
    the markers for different helicopter-types inside the first option-screen are currently not representative and for testing only
    (you can move them with the mouse).

    • Minimum system requirements to run the applet/simulator

    There are 2 pages ( both can be reached via the main page "helicopt.htm" ; the used browser has to support frames ) :
    1.) the helicopter Java(TM) applet with T.R.S. Logo applet (top right) for systems with sufficient memory
    2.) just the helicopter applet @ the page "heli2.htm" (for slower machines, restricted "multi-threading" of the browser's Java VM ("virtual machine") or low-memory situations) .
    Both applets have been tested successfully on a 133 Mhz "Pentium I" / "AMD-K5" PC with 48 MBytes of RAM
    and an Operating System beginning from Windows(TM) '95 to Me/2000 and Windows XP with all "MS-InternetExplorer" browsers
    beginning from the Windows '95 version of MSIE 3.x and it works on the newest Netscape browser "Navigator" Versions 4.6 and 4.7 for Windows
    note: the 16 Bit version of MSIE 3.x for Windows(TM) 3.1 might fail displaying the simulator ; older PC versions of the "Navigator" failed to run the simulator due to a
    different JVM implementation.
    due to general request:

    History of the simulator

    It has begun years ago as a Java(TM) MS-JDK 1.0 demo-program from Sun Microsystems that just allowed a wireframe-object
    (e.g. 3D data taken from an external helicopter file called "hughes_500" at that time) to be rotated in 3D.
    I added (in about this sequence) :
    - cockpit graphics
    - coloured helicopter model
    - 3D landscape with black/white checker-graphics (just to be different to other 3D graphic-engines)
    - optional map with waypoint-control (to realize a sort of game for the younger generation)
    - simplified altitude control and low/high altitude requirements inside the game (to reflect e.g. the Canadian landscape situation with mountains)
    - simplified gravity model for the 2 tilt-angles of the helicopter
    - options screen to change flight-model parameters (A.F.M. = "angular force momentum")
    - Java-class internal wireframe data-file to accelerate download of the helicopter model a bit