--Helicopters--

I wanted to start this thread about helos, and all of the things incorporated into them. 
(If you have a comment on a subject, Please quote the "#" of the topic, to show where it relates to)
Let's start with this_
#1- Training:
I'd like to start a few matches to help new comers with basic & elite Helo; flying, landing, evading, firing, maneuvering etc.  -I will attempt to host these matches sometime around the end of Dec. to the begging of Jan..  Anyone interested, please send me a personal message on this site, or tell me in the comments._
 #2-   The Do's and Don'ts:
Let's go over the basics that separate you from a valued pilot, and a "chopper noob"
*When to use a helo.
    Helo's are great for taking out hostile armor/infantry and good for distracting an enemy or keeping big baddies occupied. In the right hands, they can be a lethal game changer. If you aren't in a situation that greatly requires a helo, make sure you are making the right decision by using it. If there is hostile AA up, than taking off is a death sentance. rather take out the AA first so another pilot can take off.
*Don't be greedy.
   Lots of regular people online like to use helos so they can have some fun flying. Thats fine, but in DFA our objective is to have fun by winning. You can use the helo, just don't focus on it unless that is a task objective, or an order given by one of the squad leads.
*last and not least, Do your job.
   If you get into the helo knowing you can't fly well, just try gunning. let another player pilot for you. = ] I will be doing my best to train members with flying tactics. -Flying is much more than being able to take off = P
If the helo isn't there, im sure we could use your help on the front lines._

#3-Chopper noobs.
A simple one, if anyone was team killed for a helo on an online public match, let it go. it's not worth F-ing with a chopper noob. Trust me, i know it's fun to totally rape the idiots who killed you, but it's still a waste of time.
better just to grab a tank and start stealing their kills. = ]

I will add more on this very very soon, please comment freely until then : )   - Dec/17/2010.

Which Members of the Clan are the best Pilots to Learn From?

I would say, in no particular order:

- Hazey
- Kurnalkuddles
- Riafomh

Here are some notes on Helicopters:

- Unlike games like GTA and so forth where you can move the camera around yourself to see in different directions, you are limited to looking forward only. Additionally, although being sideways allows the gunner on that side to view the whole area, you as the pilot cannot. Being sideways also makes you a nice big fat juicy profile for RPGs/Rockets, for which you have almost no warning that you are about to be hit, soooo.......

- Keep your profile slim by trying to always keep your front facing the enemy. If you can, try not to circle the enemy with a sideways profile (allowing only one gunner to fire), but instead circle around your enemy with a much slimmer front-only profile (and BOTH gunners can fire), and you will also be able to see rockets coming at you better.

- The Helicopter is slower to move/react in a forward/backward direction, and you have a bigger profile from the side, whereas the choppers seem to move/react quicker in a sideways direction, and your profile is slimmer; it is easier to dodge rockets this way.

- Being in the habit of facing forward will also make you more effective when you start using the attack helicopters, such as the Apache or the Havoc. Learning to fly this way means always having your bird's missiles aimed at your enemies, instead of making clumsy passes and having to turn around.

- Keep moving !!! A stationary or slow target is much easier to hit. However, while I used to pride myself (at first, before I knew any better) on my great flying skills and how I never got shot down, I was also flying so erratically that my gunner(s) could never hit anything. Find the balance between flying steady enough for your gunners to hit something, and moving enough so as not to get shot down. Neither extreme is good.

- Change your patterns. Coming in for your 3rd pass? Come from a different direction or something, and make that Engineer who just ran across the compound to meet you, curse as he has to run across to a different side again.

- IT'S A CHOPPER !!! You don't have to meet your enemy straight on through the front lines. Go around behind, flank, etc., especially on maps with bad choke points where your chopper is the best way to get in past the front lines and drop off some people.

- There are plenty of 'chopper-access-only' places on the maps, such as the top of the Lighthouse on Valparaiso, but especially along some of the steep sides at the edges of maps. These are great places to drop off Snipers (indeed, anyone), so you should be watching for them getting in your bird and make a point of flying over those spots so that your team can take advantage of them.

- Purposefully select your Vehicle Specs. Got a lot of enemy Engineers with Tracers? Use Vehicular Smoke to counter that. Large, large maps? Anti-Air won't let you get close? Use Optics to missile them from across the board.

Okay, here is a different way of thinking about how your helicopter flies:

- Although not as difficult as REAL helicopter flight, the physics in this game are pretty damned good.

- Think of it this way: Imagine your top rotors not to be some horizontal circle of energy, but think instead of your helicopter 'dangling' below them, like hanging on a string. In hovering flight your rotors are level, you are hanging straight down, and your 'string' is going straight up. Although there is nothing there, try to imagine the 'string' is (temporarily) attached to the 'ceiling'.

- When you move your sticks you tilt your helicopter's rotors; think of the 'string' as still going up perpendicular to your rotors, therefore they are now at an angle from you, like they are now attached to the ceiling over there, causing you to 'swing' into place underneath where it now is. This is why helicopters side-slip so much, and why you need to 'pull up on the collective' (the handle down to the left of the pilot, which determines how much power is going to the rotors), or in our case right trigger, to keep your height up whenever you move. They have 'nerfed' this element of flying to make it not impossible to fly.

- But basically, after that long-winded diatribe, what I am getting at is to think of your bird as 'hanging' from a point, like a giant hand (thumb and forefinger) 'dangling' it there. You control the hand - now just dangle your bird over here, dangle your bird over there, etc., etc.

Some good pointers : )Im a crappy pilot with attack choppers compared to Moliat and those guys, but im ussually good with giving my gunners a good shot in the UH60T and the Mi24. Nothing i hate more than being in the gunny's seat and not being able to shot the RPG guy thats about to take us out.

I would love some tips!
In most maps with choppers I hate to be infantry (atamaca, valdez, heavy metal) they are to damn big!
And in a tank I feel like a sitting duck lol

The biggest problem I face when flying, is movement, for some reason I can't seem to get the speed on in it, I see so many chpper pilots fly / circle 2/3x as fast as me ..


ALSO A TIP!
As many probable don't know, ALT.Veh.Spec in an attack heli = deadly.
Most of you know the pilot then carries a 2nd missle, like a bomb, what many prob won't know, is that this is a homing missle to ANY target traced (stationary's, tanks, choppers, INFANTRY(yet tracing infantry is useless lol)
This is a good thing, since that hellfire missle prettymuch can oneshot a tank.
Now, what most DON'T know, is that the GUNNER with ALT.Veh.Spec, HAS TRACER DARTS!

Gunner with tracer darts + pilot with lock-on hellfire missle = win

Blizzard wrote:The biggest problem I face when flying, is movement, for some reason I can't seem to get the speed on in it, I see so many chpper pilots fly / circle 2/3x as fast as me ..

The best way I can put this is to consider the attack helicopter's abilities rather than limitations. If you strain its agility to the limit, you'll find how nimble and quick it really is. In order to do a quick circle-strafe you need to gather a lot of momentum before initiating the strafe. I find the best way to do this is by tilting your tail downwards and just let the helicopter plumit towards the ground, then tilt it back up and start the circle strafe. You'll have a very high velocity at all times if you keep the gradient of the circle strafe at a good degree, for instance adjust a little bit every 0.5 seconds to stay in a circular motion.

Blizzard wrote:
Gunner with tracer darts + pilot with lock-on hellfire missle = win

That's our tank buster combination, and it's awesome! What we often do though is to have the gunner use vehicle armor to absorb the impact of a rocket, and rather have ground troops use tracer darts. That way they can trace the enemy vehicles more frequently and accurately, and also trace nasty obstacles like shielded HMGs and TOWs for more effective air support.

Moliat, I was wondering if you could give me a hand on the training sessions in the near future, given the fact that you are one of the CLs. I was scedualing it for the weekend after christmas, whutcha think?

Sure thing

<Posts marked with an asterisk (*) beyond this point have been merged into this topic>

Did you know?... (when flying the Apache or Havoc...)

(As you probably do know...) Each of these helicopters, when you have the 'Alt Weapon' Vehicle Spec, has a Hellfire(?) or equivalent missile that fires when you hit Right Bumper. Usually not too useful as you just get the one shot which usually just goes straight ahead (followed by a longish cool-down). This is actually of course a 'guided' missile, which if you have your Reticle aimed up on a 'painted' target (ie: Tracer-Darted), such as a Tank or enemy Heli, your missile will home in on it - you don't even have to wait for those little 'locked on' numbers to appear! (but you do need to be aimed on the target when you fire...)

Well guess what, boys and girls! (And this is the cool part...) If the gunner in the chopper also has 'Alt Weapon' Vehicle Spec on, then when firing the under-belly gun, when he hits Right Bumper - you guessed it - it fires a freakin' Tracer Dart!

I had an absolute hoot playing one day with a fellow (not DFA, but I invited him to join) while we were combo-ing in the Attack Choppers on Heavy Metal, Tracer-Darting tanks and helis from the Gunner's chair and Missiling our targets from the Pilot's chair.

It was awesome. You gotta try it.

If you can get some good synergy going, you can 'back-to-back' Dart-&-Missle, Thwoot-BOOM.

Now that's how these choppers were meant to be used... A little more realistic (but deadly) too, IMO.

(*)

It's what we call the "Tank-buster combo", and what I usually do is let my gunner know when we he should trace, as I will fly completely steady for a couple of seconds, making it very easy to land tracer darts. Afterwards you just strafe behind him, fire the hellfire and a salvo of unguided rockets and the tank is dead in less than 2 seconds.

(*)

So this has been around for awhile then, and I am just figuring this out now?....

(Sigh)

Oh well, I was at least over level 20 when I first learned what the Recon Balls were all about.... (did I just admit that out loud?...)

(*)

We discussed this a while back in chopper practise event =p
but yeah can be very strong.
DID you know, when flying an appache solo, you can still rape when playing right?

For those who played Battlefield 2, those should be familiar with the term "seat-switching"
(in bf2 the gunner pilot also had a tv-guided missle, a missle the gunner could steer by clicking on the screen real fast), most players went solo in choppers to do this, switching seat real fast.
You can do this in bc2 aswell, but a lil harder, cuz the chopper will fall down and you need to switch back fast enuff to not crash.
But, switch seat, trace the chopper / tank, switch back and hellfire them

(*)

The same thing works with switching to the 30mm when fighting an enemy chopper. It has saved me on multiple occasions to switch to the gunner seat, fire an accurate salvo and hop back into pilot seat and fire a rocket salvo.

(*)

yeah, and dropping choppers with no spinning blades usually means nobody is inside, and is therefore not a target to enemy (mostly)

(*)

This is a video demonstrating what Ria was talking about in case anyone cares =)

Also you can also lock onto tracers left by your teammates. So it may be wiser to have engineers closer to the front lines to they can trace tanks while the gunner deals with infantry around the engineer.

(*)

I never did make that chopper practice event. Wanted to badly though.

I think I've put in enough flying time in the attack choppers to aid in training. If someone would like to learn how to fly, im almost always available online!

I can help someone out if need be. I can teach beginning techniques. I'm currently figuring out my own personal tactic for the huey. I will probably write a guide on it at some point.

Kakurra, schedule this shit (after the tournament is over, of course)!

Im in for the pilot training as well. As Kazo found out today: I NEED HELP! I try to practice in Onslaught mode.....but improving at the speed of geology

It's a bit off and on, but lately I have been having some awesome rounds flying the Huey in Vietnam (translation = able to fly around without getting shot down in 2 seconds). I have a specific way of flying it, which I can certainly share.

I know my way around with the Apache, and am decent with the Black Hawk and Huey, I'd be more than happy to help out. I also have Onslaught, so I can help you out with some specifics if you'd like, gdead65

Moliat wrote:I know my way around with the Apache, and am decent with the Black Hawk and Huey, I'd be more than happy to help out. I also have Onslaught, so I can help you out with some specifics if you'd like, gdead65

thanks for your time!!! Every bit of knowledge helps.