Smoke doesn't react properly to a helicopter's rotor wash if the helicopter doesn't lift off the ground. Smoke does show some evidence of being affected, but it's more like there's a casual breeze passing by.
The moment you lift even a metre of the ground, the difference in the smoke's behaviour is clear. {F20000}
Throw a smoke grenade (or a few) around the helicopter, go in to third person and press Q so the engine starts, the rotor spins but the heli doesn't takeoff.
Observe the smoke. Now takeoff.
Smoke's reaction should be directly proportional to the speed of the rotor blades.
Video:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45160510/Arma3_bug_smoke.mp4
Have you ever wondered why a helicopter take-off is sometimes referred to as a “dust-off”
Speed of the rotor blades has little to do with the main factor is minimum blade pitch and collective application.
In essence the difference between just sitting there and take-off is like night and day with respect to downdraught.
Quick youtube e.g. (dust – slightly different to smoke YES, but it shows that pitch is the main factor in downdraught thus lift in the opposite direction up)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QyezNELNNM
Ah. Interesting. Very interesting. Thanks for the link and explanation!
But...i dunno. I mean, smoke still shouldn't just drift casually through spinning rotor blades, should it?
Mass closing ancient tickets with no activity for > 12 months; assume fixed or too trivial.
If this issue is still relevant in current dev build, please re-post.