"Thomas" wrote in
:

I notice on the JU88 video the KA32 taxis all over the airfield
before taking off. On the helicopter flights I've made from
commercial airports, the same thing happened. Any idea why this is
done?

The Scilly Isles heli from penzance does the same, and it takes of
(all be it rather steeply) like a fixed wing aircraft. I assumed this
was to save fuel.



In the JU-88 vid, it looked like the KA-32 was just taxying to the helipad
for departure - that's common practice at my home airport where there's a
lot of helicopter activity. Helps ATC coordinate while optimising
helicopter operations a little more than pretending to be a f/w.

As for penzance - I haven't been there, but if they're close to Max Weight,
they may prefer to use the runway for a bit of a rolling takeoff. Also,
some ATCers don't really know (or want to know) how to deal with
helicopters so they force them to act like a f/w around their airfield -
this is generally also the case under IFR regardless. Some or perhaps all
of those reasons might be it.

toady.