Helicopters

[PLightstar]

Im getting quite good with the heavier Heli's on DC but I still can't master the Apache, any tips on a budding Heli pilot.

 

[adams901]

The main mistake most people make is they handle it like a tank, dont make sudden hard direction adjustments.

With practice you will get better and be able to treat it more roughly, myself and CDR have only just mastered the ability to loop it, I havent put it to use in combat yet but im sure it will create a comical moment.

Of course more detailed help could be given if you listed the main problem you have (IE: landing to heavy, not landing at all).

 

[PLightstar]

Its becasue with the troop carriers they handle heavy and you can pull off manuovers quite easily, but the Apache is hard so keep under control and land.

 

[Cdr]

heh, you must try the Littlebirds (can be found on Urban Siege, Lost Village, BattleAxe, Bocage), they're by far the best to fly.

If you want I can dig up my old post from the BW forums about heli flying?

Also, new to DC .6, when in the blackhawk, by releasing the throttle (if you use keys, or by setting the throttle to 0 if you use a joystick) and pressing the Secondary Fire button (Right hand mouse by default), it will come into an almost auto-hover, the blades will spin slowly and you'll slowly decend to the ground*.

As far as I'm aware this only works for the BH.






*I've not tried it myself, so I can't confirm if this is true.

 

[Darthshearer]

Im DL the patch now cant wait to have a blast im a Heli with my new Joystick

 

[Insane]

i need to buy a new joystick my old thrustmaster has developed a slight "lean" to the left during normal play.

im starting to get decent with heli flying with the keyboard, very light touches and taps get you somewhere.. i can almost hover a littlebird in urban seige...

but it'll all change when i get a joystick.. and it wont be forcefeedback

 

[Deadmanwalking]

i need to buy a new joystick my old thrustmaster has developed a slight "lean" to the left during normal play.

im starting to get decent with heli flying with the keyboard, very light touches and taps get you somewhere.. i can almost hover a littlebird in urban seige...

but it'll all change when i get a joystick.. and it wont be forcefeedback

So that's the excuse eh?

 

[Deady]

Pile in, spam GET IN GET IN

Fly off

JUMP OUT,

shout BAIL OUT as you start falling.

Done.

 

[Athan]

The *big* mistake people make with the helicopters is banking. To start with forget rolling/banking, just use the rudder to turn. And by 'handle like a tank' I think adams means the way the response is *delayed*. If you want to turn left, use a little left rudder and wait. Even in the nice fast helis there's still some delay. If you don't wait you'll end up turning too much, then try to compensate, but do that too much, and you'll just go zigzagging all over the place.

I'd heard about that auto-hover thing, but got the impression from the discussion that they'd only had it in some semi-internal test and taken it out for release. I'll have to go try it now. Bah, landing is an art, at least they've only (allegedly) done this on the BH. The trick to landing is that you need to cancel the forward momentum. You do this by nosing up and applying a little throttle, and then levelling out again. Basically the heli thrust only works in the direction the main roto is pointing.

-Ath, who needs more practice in the new helis

 

[Cdr]

heh

Dont dismiss banking, its a very easy and quick way to change direction. Obviously you need to practice it, and it's not really something you should be doing from the start.

 

[Deady]

Everytime i landed it always slowly tipped over left unless i got out, which cancelled the "left tipping".

 

[Cdr]

heh aye, it does that a lot. The trick is to land forward, with little or no sideways movement. You only need to be going sideways a bit and you'll tip over when you touch the ground.

 

[Darthshearer]

I think we need to go onto an empty server Cdr so you can teach me how to play this dood

 

[Cdr]

hehe sure, whenever you want

 

[Darthshearer]

I took off 4 times and managed to crash 4 times! The crew of the chopper were NOT happy!

 

[Athan]

Just to be sure, you ARE doing the obvious of using the F11 (external forward facing) view when landing, right ? Makes things a whole lot easier. I just wish the shadows would show up a bit further from the ground for a reference point.

-Ath

 

[Embattle]

I took off 4 times and managed to crash 4 times! The crew of the chopper were NOT happy!

Don't try it with a busy server

 

[Darthshearer]

Aye good points there, although it would help if I could get away from the take off zone!

 

[Embattle]

One of the easiest helicopters to fly is the MH-53, a lot problems in helis is caused by trying to move it too fast...often resulting in a loss of control:

 

[RandomBastard]

I can take off in helis,
i can fly them...
and i can survive crashing them!
Cant land em for shit tho

 

[Darthshearer]

hehe at least you can take off

That chooper looks cool, so does the helicopter

 

[adams901]

hehe at least you can take off

That chooper looks cool, so does the helicopter

This guy could take off as well, another person who needs to learn how to fly.

http://www.jfktower.com/jfktwr/files/helocrash.wmv

 

[Cdr]

ouch

Feck me

 

[Clown]

Reminds me of me
I rock helicopters!

 

[Darthshearer]

Adams thats a class clip. I like the comments!

"What the hells going on?"
"He just learning to fly he aint had anytime on it, he just ate the big one"

Class!

 

[Dukat]

lol i remember when i first got into DC, my motto for games has always been 'if its got wings i can fly it' and so far i've managed to fly everything, took me a good few hours get the hang of helicopters tho.

the idea like everyone has so far said, is to be carefull and gentle with it, use the nose view imo as it gives teh best reference point as to whats going on, start with jsut a simple take off, back down again flight, then try take off and go forwards a way before setting the thing down again, the next time try doing a turn in it, just take it easy and make sure u practice in an empty server in a big open space (im not sure if the maps have changed but when i played DC el alamein was big open and easy to practice on.)

after a while u should be ok with flying around, jsut try to keep moving forward and remember to tilt the nose up as u land, like a plane but at (much) slower speeds. hovering is the hardest thing to do for me, the way i learnt to do it was to watch the floor and try to stop it from moving (sounds funny i know but once u learn the controls of the heli its simple to just watch which way the floor is going and adjust to compensate.)

just take it one step at a time and try not to go off humming 'air wolf' and attempting things that will just make u crash its all about controlling the aircraft and only doing things in it that u are confident about doing.

PS. i found the harriers on the wake island map to be harder to control (in VTOL mode) than helis... did anyone else?

 

[PLightstar]

I've become quite good at flying heli's now.

The only problem is guessing what angle to come in on to land, I usally miss the LZ by about 5m, but nobody complains.

I've even managed to land people on the buildings in Lost Village, or hover above a place so troops can jump out before I move out and pick more people out.

The thing I gotta Iron out is Manovering the Heli with gunner inside, trying to provide suppressing fire.

 

[Athan]

The thing I gotta Iron out is Manovering the Heli with gunner inside, trying to provide suppressing fire.

Yes, it's a pain. Simply because if you maneuver so that your gunners get a nice stable shot you're also a sitting duck for SAMs. It's even worse in the Merlin (new big USA heli) as the main gun is on the BACK so you have to hover with your arse pointing at the target and can only see that way if you use the appropriate external view, which then means your view is entirely reversed. Yes it has a right hand side smaller gun too, but I'm sure the minigun is much more effective .

Anyway, in a BH I try to just circle at a nice distance (*try* to make the SAM shots harder), such that the gunner on that side gets a nice stable shot. All the twin miniguns mean now is I can do this on either side rather than having to face the RHS towards the target.

Basically though I'd give up on trying to support in this way, the SAMs are just too powerful, use the helis as pure transport, and tbh there's little reason for the troops not to just jump out and only open parachute when very close to the ground. That way you get to stay high (out of SAM range, maps with enemy planes are even more of a pain), and they get to not be a nice floating target on the way down (if they opened the parachute right off).

-Ath