I only fly transport helos normaly. But thier is little to flying, but a lot to flying well.
I cannot stress getting a joystick with rudder and throttal controll enugh. Although this can be done with a keyboard, most people with a bit of practice can fly better with a stick. Since you have instantly the ability to slightly inch arround a building for a gunner, then dodge and RPG.
For basic flight, just you your HUD. Watch the artifical horizion closly when near the ground. Learn what ammount of power each chopper takes to hover. For example the black hawk will slowly sink at 20. Get used to overcorrecting ALOT.
For you plane pilots out thier, keep in mind the physics for operating a helicopter are 100% differnt. In a jet your ability to stay in the air is due to your wings, and the air going underaand arround them. all thrust beeing from the rear pushing forward. Using flaps the wings use the push of the air to change direction.
In a helo that is totaly off. Helos have 2 main source of thrust, the main rotar, centered in the body of the helo. Which is a pure downward force. Then a secondary tail thrust, that in real life would counter balance the twist generated by the main rotar, in a varable degree so as to act as a rudder. But in this game gives rise to your rudder only.
Why is knowing that important? It will give you an idea how to handle the machine. For example, when you are locked in a jet you have basicly 3 options.
Full balls to the wall speed to outrun the tracking hopfully before a shot can get off.
Erratic manuvers to try and make any projectils miss.
flairs to make heat guided missles miss.
In a helo you have differnt options.
you have the same options (although trying to outrun them only works due to the fact 1-2 missle will likly not kill a helo at full health. Transort helos with an engieer in them eslecialy.)
Yet you have a new one. Masking, which basicly means taking cover. You can cut power to drop to a low altitude, using buildings, hills, perhaps even trees of fences as cover.
The 2nd part about understanding helo physics over plane is in one of the skills I mentioned. overcomponsating. in order to move forward, you must change the thrust that is keeping the helo in the air, to moving it. Wich naturaly causes you then to loose altitude unless you either increase power, or level out again. Either way, since your thrust is the only thing keeping airborn is the direction of your thrust, balancing tilt vs thrust is near impossible to do perfectly. What you want to get is the basics of it down, and work on quickly correcting what goes wrong.
For example.
As soon as you get in the helo, you push the power to 100%. Start rising. Now, as soon as you tilt forward, you will start slowing your ascent, and moving forward. If you are going to slow, you push forward further, although now find yourself looking at the ground, but moving forward bloodly well fast enugh. once again, you need to pull back on the stick, and level out till you at least stop loosing altiude. finding and angle you like for the speed, yet now you are gaining alitide again. So you cut back on the throttal, which . . . so forth and so on. Every action will have a varity of reactions.
Keep in mide of course and object in motion stays in motion.
When you are moving forward at 400kph leveling out and adjusting your throttal so you are not gaing or loosing alitiude will not stop you. You will slow and eventualy stop. You can of course revese the direction of your thrust to stop.
The only way to get used to this is either a good understanding of physics and force, or practice. Once you can fly in any direction (forward, backward, diagonal ect) and then stop, get used to hovering. Once you can hover get used to landing. Try landing quickly, and softly, for a varity of directions. (for the post above, tips on landing. . . watch your HUD more than the land. if you can see land well, you are going to land on your nose. try to keep the bird fully level, then slowly decrease the throttle. . . or from altiude, quickly decrease, then when you get lower, increase and slowly decrease again. Level the copper out always before it touches down.)
Once that is done, mix them togeather a bit. Try flying a bit forward and to the right, coming to a stop 10m off the ground, then moving hard to the right, and landing quickly.
Once you have that done, now you are ready to work on masking. It will use all of what you just practiced.
Load up a map with a helo and preferably a city. 64 gulf or somthing similar (to bad most decent helo practice maps are multiplayer only. but you can practice on an empty server).
Grapb your chopper of choice, and preactice the above skills between buildings. Please note, going between buildings is mainly for preactice, thier is often little other reason to do this.
Fly arround a few places and try to find unsusal spots you can hide your helo behind.
Now with a decent grasp of how to fly, land and mask you can try flying in multiplayer.
Attack hellos should use masking before an attack. Try to get into a decent spot, pop up and lay down some death. Remember, your gunners view is a bit below yours, about 20 degrees or so.
Also, you would want to keep moving to make yourself harder to hit with anti tank rockets. Yet try to line up decent shots for TV guided missles aginst armor or other such tough enemies.
Transports
Well masking may help before you attack, but not near as much, Personaly as a helo pilot I was much in favor of the recent changes, except taking the capture bonus away from gunners. The rest of the sure, not speeding the flag, great. Not getting points for what you are vital in helping with sucks. Yet you can of course either drop off people fully, by hovering or landing (I recomend a low hover, that people could easly either look up and get into, or jump and get into your chopper again). Or if you have VOIP and a good squad, you can drop off all but your gunners, then provide cover or hide safly near by. Come back and pick them up again.
Transports are more of a squad vehicle. Try to be a squad leader if you are flying one. Preferably a medic or resupply. This allows you to have an extreamly moble spawn point.
Remember your gunners can only fire to the sides, and depending on your team, you may have some small arm rear fire.
As a medic your chopper personell are more likly to live, as they do take shots. IF you are primarly doing drop offs for your squad, this may be best so they can come in at full heath or close each time.
As a resupply your squad has endless ammo. If you are using the transport as a gunship, this is your route. You can have arround 3 people fireing what ever they would have on foot at your enemy as well. Noob toobs, and grenades can be especialy effective here . . . also a good spec ops with some C4 can truly wreak havok.
IMO attack helos are nice for the badges, ribons and overall blowing things up. But tansports are much more difficult to use effectivly, thier for much more rewarding when you do dominate with them.
Thats all I can come up with off the top of my head. Hope it makes sence
Last edited by Umbra Acciptris (2005-10-29 04:01:53)
