[twitch] Bizarre night at City Hall

[Keith Smith]

It's long, but pretty much non-stop action: http://www.twitch.tv/ksmith_pe/c/5885004

The night started as 2 helicopters out of CRQ to F70, looking for some rooftops to have some landing competitions, but ended up with 5 helicopters plus Catstrator in a Piper Warrior using a 60kt headwind so he could hover over at City Hall in downtown in LA.

That stakes were high with Cat (Ty) winning a free day of PE membership after setting down his Piper Warrior on the rooftop surrounded by helicopters.

Brian C joined the fun as a Jetranger, but was connected as "B206" (should be B06), so he appears as a Cessna 172.

Kevin Meyers' drone is mocked mercilessly as it careens in and out of City Hall, too. This was a night I don't think we'll ever forget.

[Peter Grey]

Well that explains why there have been so many aircraft connected but not talking to us. I was wondering what was going on.

[Keith Smith]

we overflew the FUL Delta 100ft above and came very close to calling for landing there (low fuel) but made it to Compton instead.

[Steven Winslow]

Alright, I have to ask: what scenery were you using? Gotta get me some of that! If I'd known about this get together I would have jumped into my R66 and hung out. Instead, I flew my B200 from HND to O16. Nice flight, but a bit lonely up there in NorCal.

[stevekirks]

Now my cheeks hurt! I really needed that after the week I've had.

[Keith Smith]

We'd absolutely love to have you guys along. The flights aren't planned (at least not yet), however, if you subscribe to the twitch streams (directory of streamers is here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3859), you'll get an email alert when we are streaming, then you can make the call if you'd like to join in.

This really did just start out as me doing an FSE flight, seeing helipilot on skype and saying, "wanna come along?" and then it grew from there over the next couple of hours until we had a bunch o' people at City Hall joining in.

The only bummer was that 123.45 wasn't working for one of the pilots, so we resorted to skype. That's the second time in a row it's happened so I'm going to try to work out what's going on there. It's definitely easier for people to join in if they can show up and just jump on the radio.

All of us literally were literally laughed out by the end of the night...that hasn't happened in a long time. I suspect I'll be flying helicopters for quite some time to come. I really want to master it, and I've got such a long road ahead. Watching helipilot7 and others who know what they're doing is pretty inspirational.

[Keith Smith]

helipilot just posted this 30 sec clip from his view of the, "FINE, I don't need you" part of the evenint: http://www.twitch.tv/helipilot7/c/5886054

My view is at 6:15 in the originally posted clip.

Don't be confused...he plunges to the right and heads down towards the ground. Seconds later, one of Kevin Meyers' drones comes careening through the building in an operation that Kevin considers to be "landing".

[Steven Winslow]

So….aside from the stock X-Plane Bell 206 and Robinson R22, I have the Alabeo R66. I've gotten almost comfortable with the R66, but I'd like to get to know some other models. What were you guys flying? What do you recommend? I've heard good things about the Dreamfoil Bell 206 and 407. The 412 from XTrident looks pretty cool, too. What do you recommend? I am definitely more of a fixed wing kind of guy, but flying helicopters you sure do see a lot more of the sights!

And what was that scenery, Keith? I know you can't land on just any building. They have to have a solid roof and you can fly right through most of the objects in X-Plane. Besides, that helipad was pretty damn cool!

[Keith Smith]

I have the altpilotx HD mesh V2. Ken mentioned that's what's providing the helipads. Many buildings do have solid roofs, btw, even without pads on them.

I was flying the Dreamfoil 206 Jetranger but I'm going to get back to the 407 now that I have a bit more experience. The 407 and 412 are very popular choices.

[kullery]

I got curious when I noticed in Google Earth that a one mile stretch of Wilshire Boulevard had at least 20 helipads.

I never knew that up until late last year the Los Angeles building code required rooftop helipads on buildings over 75 feet. According to this story, this is no longer a requirement.