Chopper Practice

[[BBF] Lawyer]

Hey everyone,

right now i'm the main chopper pilot and while i do enjoy flying i know i still need more practice, and so do you, i'm not always going to be there, and more importantly, i dont always want to be flying (i do like shooting things... you know, the old fashioned way, with guns.) so we need to set some time to get some chopper practice, i'm hoping sometime within the week we can go over some basics, in the mean time.

things to go over

Aerocombat manuavering: using the terrain to your advantage, being below the radar, flying through tight spaces, and rapid descents and turns.

Communication: 'Eyes Ears and Fingers, its not so dirty up here', 'pilots look up, gunners look out'

Dog Fighting: Weapon Loadouts, When to fire, flares glare and getting in peoples hair.




Using the Terrain to your advantage: A big mistake alot of people do is leaving their chopper in the open, this is really easy to do because lets face it, your idea of a chopper is death from above, commanding the ground from up high, this is true but it doesn't mean you have to sit out in the open, you can command just as much ground from behind a tall building, through a ravine or from far back from the battle field.

If your enemy is in a tank, be back from them, if their in the air, get above them, if their on the ground, be on top of them. Tree's, buildings, hills and mountains all prove cover, not just from rounds but from lock ons. Learning your terrain, knowing where to move and how to move through it can give you an idea of where you target is. For example on caspian border if you hear the lock on, and you dive and follow the river coming from US spawn, you pass around Hill top and the signal stops, likely they are at the truck depot or the radio tower, if you still hear it all the way to russian spawn, you likely have something in the air.

Being Below the Radar: This is both dangerous and advantagous to the cunning pilot, being below the radar (really really close to the ground) makes it harder for you to be locked onto, with stealth in both pilot and gunner positions a lock is nearly impossible. However the danger arises in that small arms fire can take out the pilot, tank shells can easily hit you and kill you, and of course good old cumulous granite if you can use the terrain to your advantage you can quickly resolve the small arms fire and tank rounds problem allowing a clean straffe run to your target.

Flying through tight spaces: I'm sure you've all seen it, that pilot that just flew through the warehouse to avoid being taken out by something, then ripping a quick turn to port and diving down a narrow treed road off to the safety of their spawn, well while i cant really give any advice to how its achieved all i can say is practice practice practice, become familiar with your map and know where you can make such turns, and how much you need to turn. Being able to fly through tight spaces not only improves your chopper handling but your reaction time in combat, this can be very very handy.

Rapid Turns and Descents: Maybe not the biggest concern out there but a rapid right turn and decent from 300 feet can proved a massive speed boost and also trick lesser pilots into thinking your going down (this is a theory based on the number of bailouts i incure when i do this) a rapid turn can be very useful when attacking tanks, as a regular turn can often be predicted and thus shot upon. The easiest way to explain it is to used your rudders while turning, pointing the nose down and the helicopter to in the desired direction essentialling bringing the tail up.

Eyes Ears and Fingers: As a chopper you have the best field of view, you can see incoming armor, air, and infantry, a gunner with zoom optics is best suited for this as they get birds eye view, while in the air the gunner is actually the one who should be calling out targets, the pilot needs to be listening for these targets. Together both gunner and pilot take out armors targets and defandants who might otherwise cause problems. This is esspecially important when engaging in air to air combat and when being locked onto, Gunners need to be looking for anyone on the ground who might be standing still (most people dont keep moving while locking on) or simply just anyone running around with a giant tube on their shoulders, once found they need to relay that info to the pilot so the pilot can either get out of line of sight, or turn to face their shooter. On top of this the gunner needs to inform the pilot when they see a launch (not a lock) and a smoke trail, as its much more effective to fire flares after the launch, as the rocket will follow the flares.

Pilots Look Up, Gunners Look Out: This is pretty simple, as a pilot you have 200 degree's of vision, give or take for a three diminsion cockpit, the pilot needs to constantly be looking around with free look, especially when enemy jets are up, knowing where your enemy is located is key to victory. When your moving forward scan back and forth and always look up, you never know when a jet is coming down at you. Gunners need to be looking out for their pilot, as mentioned before informing the pilot where a tank is, or where a rocketeer is can be the difference between living and dying. Pilots wont know whats below them, they cant look down, but gunners can, so spotting a guy at a flag can help the pilot know their was a target there, even if you killed them or didn't, the pilot can turn around fire into any buildings and the gunner and clear targets.

Weapon Loadouts:

Flares Vs ECM Jammers: this is largely up to pilots choice, i find ECM is good for if you have stealth and dont want them to get a lock, while Flares is good if your running something else and want to distract the missiles. Personally Flares win for me as they are easier to use and much more effective against enemy rockets.

Laser, guided, what ever the other is: Laser designators are good if you have alot of people running guided rockets, simply looking at the target will cause a targetting recticle. However lose sight or turn away and its gone, as a chopper you rarely want to be in one place for long so this throws it for me, Guided Rockets however increase accuracy of your missile pods, causing more hits even at greater ranges (this is where it wins for me) from above you can completely kill a tank with a full load of rockets or at the least disable it enough for your gunner to kill. Theirs another

Thermal Vs Zoom: Thermal optics sounds good, except for the fact that it has limited range, and induces a glare effect when changing, i also noticed its slower when moving. Zoom optics gets you closer in, when fighting another that extra zoom 9/10 helps more often then thermal, thermal is only good if you cant find your target, which as a gunner wont be a problem if you can see close up to the fight, just remember to zoom out when not shooting.

When to fire: This applies in two ways, firstly when to fire your weapon, for your primary weapons this is less delicate, those reload quickly and need only the following guidelines, only fire when you have a clean shot, especially with pilots, your missiles make a very distinct sound which can give away your position, and only fire what you need, if your working with your gunner a full volley of missiles is unneeded to take out a tank, half that should be enough to disable it at which point they often jump out to repair and your gunner can finish them. Secondly, when to fire your flares, as a pilot you dont want to waste your flares, they are life blood of flying, so obviously you dont want to let them be wasted just because you have a lock. if you are certain your lock on is coming from an enemy chopper wait until you see the missiles fire and then wait until they are halfway between you and your target, during this time you shjould be getting a lock on them, when you fire your flares their missiles will chase those. Once you have a lock wait until they panic and fire their flares, if they dont, fire a single rocket, if they follow you in waiting till halfway they will fire their flares and you can lock on again and fire your second, even if they dont fire the first time they risk being killed by a second rocket which you want to time so that even if they do fire their flares, by the time you have a lock you'll have another rocket which will do the trick. If your lock is coming from the ground your gunner needs to be scanning for missile trails and people standing still, once that rocket leaves their tube your gunner or you wants to fire their flares or inform the other to flare it up.


a lot of this is all practice, and its just as important to practice gunning as it is to flying, a good pilot is nothing without a good gunner and a good gunner is just ground meat without a good pilot.

[[BBF]CowBoyDave]

Moving to tips & strat section

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I'm down for practice when you have a day and time set. I'm free most nights.

[[BBF] Lawyer]

If anyone is free this Sunday around our usual practice time hop on the server, I'd like to lock the server and do some flying and gunning practice.