Flight Testing
Mission-specific simulator training for helicopter pilots enhances safety by letting you practice any scenarios in any environment until standard operational procedures become second nature. Then, when a situation emerges in real life, one is prepared, one step ahead, ready to act without hesitation.
The TRU Odyssey H AW139 sim is a level D full-flight simulator for comprehensive helicopter training in the most challenging conditions, failures and missions. It is equipped with Phase 7 Avionics. The simulator can be configured to almost every need, regardless of mission type or weather scenario. In our case flying in the Helicopter Traffic Zone (HTZ) which is established around a gas or oil platform or rig with a helideck with new and large wind turbines in the neighbourhood. The HTZ, with a radius of 5 NM in The Netherlands, is there to safeguard the helicopter’s approaches and departures. But the new generation wind turbines of 12+ MW can have an impact on the HTZ; in height and wake turbulence (downstream).
Although this state of the art sim offers immersive and realistic training thanks to cockpit vibration, smoke generation, 3D clouds, any weather you can think of, specific object placement and night scenes, wind turbines are a different ball game. The 12+ MW are rather new at sea, so flight simulator developers have to take this into further account. Therefore, next to the positive results of our missions, the flight test resulted in a number of suggestions for future enhancements.
Technical stuff
This shot was taking during the pre-trials, because the sim was brand new. One give-away is that pilots don’t wear their head-sets and the pilot left is not 200% assisting the PIC (pilot in command).
This gave me time to take my FujiFilm X-E3 out of a flight bag and shoot some pictures at 6400 ISO, f4,5, 1/30, -2/3 at 16mils. Post-production was done after landing (safely I might add ;-). I used LR to balance the lighting in the cockpit and for toning. I added copyright signs (in PS). They are, alas, there to stay due to the fact that my photos were frequently copied. So, don't bother commenting on that.
Flight Testing
Mission-specific simulator training for helicopter pilots enhances safety by letting you practice any scenarios in any environment until standard operational procedures become second nature. Then, when a situation emerges in real life, one is prepared, one step ahead, ready to act without hesitation.
The TRU Odyssey H AW139 sim is a level D full-flight simulator for comprehensive helicopter training in the most challenging conditions, failures and missions. It is equipped with Phase 7 Avionics. The simulator can be configured to almost every need, regardless of mission type or weather scenario. In our case flying in the Helicopter Traffic Zone (HTZ) which is established around a gas or oil platform or rig with a helideck with new and large wind turbines in the neighbourhood. The HTZ, with a radius of 5 NM in The Netherlands, is there to safeguard the helicopter’s approaches and departures. But the new generation wind turbines of 12+ MW can have an impact on the HTZ; in height and wake turbulence (downstream).
Although this state of the art sim offers immersive and realistic training thanks to cockpit vibration, smoke generation, 3D clouds, any weather you can think of, specific object placement and night scenes, wind turbines are a different ball game. The 12+ MW are rather new at sea, so flight simulator developers have to take this into further account. Therefore, next to the positive results of our missions, the flight test resulted in a number of suggestions for future enhancements.
Technical stuff
This shot was taking during the pre-trials, because the sim was brand new. One give-away is that pilots don’t wear their head-sets and the pilot left is not 200% assisting the PIC (pilot in command).
This gave me time to take my FujiFilm X-E3 out of a flight bag and shoot some pictures at 6400 ISO, f4,5, 1/30, -2/3 at 16mils. Post-production was done after landing (safely I might add ;-). I used LR to balance the lighting in the cockpit and for toning. I added copyright signs (in PS). They are, alas, there to stay due to the fact that my photos were frequently copied. So, don't bother commenting on that.