At the Vertical Aviation International Heli-Expo show in February, helicopter flight simulators that use virtual reality (VR) glasses to replace bulky and expensive visual displays seemed to be all over the place. The two newest devices, Leonardo’s VxR (AW119) and TRU Simulation's Bell 505, were in use every day of the show, as was Loft Dynamics’ H125 VR simulator and a setup in the Rotor Safety Zone with two Precision Flight Controls VR simulators running on Ryan Aerospace motion bases.
I’d flown the Loft H125 at last year’s show, and this year with a fresh commercial rotorcraft add-on rating in hand, I tried out both the VxR and the 505. Each uses Varjo XR-3 mixed-reality glasses, which include hand-tracking that allows the user to interact with controls, avionics, and systems knobs, buttons, and switches in the cockpit and provides a high-resolution view of the outside world. The glasses replace large fixed visual systems, which take up a lot of space and are expensive to build. Both Leonardo and TRU, as well as other VR simulator manufacturers, promote the ability to easily move the simulator from place to place, and all they need is a relatively small space compared with full-flight simulators and even some fixed-base flight training devices.
Leonardo VxR
I flew the VxR first and, once strapped into the seat, I placed the Varjo glasses on my head and adjusted them for a firm fit. After Leonardo simulator engineer Ermes Marcigaglia ran some calibration tests, I could see the outside view perfectly matched with the simulated AW119’s windows and interior. The cool thing about VR glasses is that the user can look in any direction and see what would be viewable in real life. This gives a better visual experience than full-flight simulators, which are limited to the field of view available on their fixed visual displays. I could turn and look in the back and see the cabin of the simulated helicopter, for example, or look to either side to ensure tail rotor clearance.
Marcigaglia started the helicopter in cruise flight at about 1,000 feet over Baltimore and gave me control. Then he switched on the six degrees of freedom (6-DOF) motion base. I flew around to get a feel for the controls and noted that the simulator, which is designed to replicate the AW119 fairly precisely, is heavy on the controls. These VR simulators include electric control loading, which allows them to mimic the control feel of a real helicopter.
Marrying the VxR’s control loading, the motion base, and the VR was a complex job, and the Leonardo team has been working on this device since August 2022. The Heli-Expo exhibit was the first time it was shown publicly, according to Paolo Petrosso, Leonardo v-p of simulation and training services.
I flew toward downtown Baltimore, then slowed and descended and tried flying around a tall smokestack while keeping the nose pointed at the stack. The visuals were top-notch, and it felt as if I was able to get the helicopter to respond to my commands without much trouble. It probably helped that the AW119’s controls are heavy, as I would soon find out, compared with those on the 505.
I turned toward a nearby hospital helipad on top of a building, and Marcigaglia switched to a nighttime scene so it would be easier to see the pad. Dredging up memories of the night landings I had done at the downtown Portland, Oregon, helipad on top of a six-story building, I tried to ease the simulated helicopter into the lighted landing spot. I was too fast on the first attempt so I turned around for a second try, and here is where I experienced a drawback of these simulators.
Although I was able to slow the helicopter to a more sedate pace and land on the pad without crashing, I was missing the proprioceptive cues that come with flying a real helicopter. A perfect approach, without obstacles, looks like a smooth descent at not too steep or shallow an angle but involves decelerating consistently until arriving at a hover just above the landing spot. It takes hours of practice to perfect this, and until I flew these simulators, I didn’t realize the important role that feel plays. In the simulators, I just couldn’t get that oh-so-sweet, on-the-rails-but-slowing-down feeling I experienced in the helicopter, so I had to rely more on visual perception and what the instruments were telling me.
The motion base and control loading do help, but the problem with the visuals is that without the feel that comes from moving through space, or the cues from deceleration, and all the other subtle inputs, it’s difficult to tell whether you are on the proper path and decelerating correctly just by looking through the VR glasses. I ended up looking outside, then back at the instruments a lot to make sure I was slowing down at the right time and in the right amount. It was also challenging to judge my height above the ground to set up a hover. However, I believe that I would get more used to this after spending more time in the simulator. Not to mention I had never flown a helicopter this large.
The same disconnect between the view outside and what the helicopter was doing occurred after accelerating to take off and lifting off. The speed increased as I transitioned from hover to climb, but I couldn’t feel the helicopter accelerating so I quickly got going too fast and had to reduce collective and slow down.
Having never done a full-down autorotation on my own, I tried one in the VxR. Marcigaglia repositioned the VxR over Martin State Airport at about 1,000 feet, and I lowered the collective and entered the autorotation. I got a little slower than the recommended 80 knots, but the descent was fairly smooth. Here again, I had trouble judging height, although Marcigaglia helpfully called out my altitude so I knew when to begin raising the nose, and then leveling off. I was a bit too high when I started pulling collective, however, so I ended up crashing onto the runway. More practice is clearly needed.
After resetting the simulator, I lifted off again, then landed on a helipad—still a rough landing but everyone aboard the simulated helicopter survived.
TRU Bell 505
TRU's Bell 505 also features 6-DOF motion and electric control loading, which is a TRU specialty. The 505 simulator will be located at the Bell Training Academy in Fort Worth, Texas. “It enhances training and real-world scenarios,” said Tim Otteson, an academy instructor who helped me with the demo. VR simulation allows pilots to practice emergencies and operations like vertical reference maneuvers and complex slope landings without the risk involved in the real helicopter.
Although Bell Academy instructors take pride in doing full-down autorotations and emergency practice in real helicopters, he said, “We’re limited in what we can do.” No one does actual engine or tail rotor failures in the real helicopter because it isn’t safe or possible in the case of the tail rotor. “But we can do those in this device,” he said, “with a level of fidelity that traditionally you don’t get in an FTD [flight training device].”
For my flight in the 505 simulator, Otteson set me up at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport in New York City. I lifted off and tried to hover but had a little trouble keeping the lighter 505 right where I wanted it, so I pulled up on the collective, lowered the nose, and took off toward the Brooklyn Bridge. Climbing over the Manhattan Bridge, I flew over the city at 1,000 feet, then turned south along the Hudson River, heading toward the Statue of Liberty.
Otteson showed me a foggy scenario where the visibility was much lower below the helicopter while I could still see the tops of the city’s buildings. I descended to 400 feet and did some right circles around the statue, which was rendered in striking detail. From there I flew northeast toward Governors Island, where the simulation features a sloped ramp with a square landing pad at the top. Along the slope, there are numbered segments, each with a steeper slope from the bottom of the ramp to the flat top.
Naturally, because slopes weren’t my strongest skill during training, I had to see whether I could land the 505 on one of the sloped segments. I picked the segment marked 6 (degrees) and approached it head-on to see whether I could make a straight-in slope landing, something I’d never done before. After some back and forth with the touchy controls, I managed to get the helicopter down in one piece.
Then I moved it back and tried landing on the square pad at the top of the slope. Again, I had trouble judging my rate of closure with the spot and had to try a couple of times before finally crashing into the prominence.
Otteson rebooted and I flew back to the Downtown Heliport to try a few landings and hovering. Although I messed up the first landing attempt by hitting the tailboom (yes, I felt it, which is a tribute to the motion base), I finally got more comfortable and was able to hover taxi around the heliport relatively smoothly and land and takeoff with a little more precision.
Having the real flight controls and Garmin G1000H avionics in the 505 simulator made it all the more real, and it was fun to see my ghostly white simulated hands through the Varjo XR-3 glasses as I reached up to turn a knob or flip a switch.
TRU is planning to obtain level-7 flight training device approval for the 505 simulator, although no company has yet obtained FAA approval for a VR-based simulator. Loft, which has EASA approval, is also seeking FAA approval for its simulator, as is Leonardo with the VxR.
While flying with VR glasses is challenging, these training devices are exactly what the helicopter industry needs. They cost a fraction of the price of full-flight simulators and take up far less space. Their ability to replicate real emergencies, including inadvertent flight into instrument meteorological conditions, is unparalleled. The big advantage of these simulators is that they all use real performance and handling data from the helicopter manufacturers, thus ensuring a high level of fidelity.
Training centers likely find them useful, larger fleet operators will be able to afford one, and groups of operators might join together to buy one. These simulators’ other advantage is that they can easily be switched between helicopter types. The VxR, for example, can replicate the twin-engine AW109 or single-engine AW119 without having to create an entirely new device. Even without the glasses, students could employ these to practice using avionics and running the systems.
More than 40 pilots flew the VxR at Heli-Expo, according to Leonardo's head of flight training, Roberto Bianchini, and most were AW109 and AW119 pilots. “They were very happy,” he said. “They think this is the future.”