Helicopters : landing

[Lord Ryan 0]

Hello,

Its very hard to land a chopper (for me) at a certain point,thats if i get to land it (lol)

any tips to land it properly and easily without using autohover??

and why to choppers loose altitude when accelerating??

thanks for answer

[Lord Ryan 0]

??

[Spitfire 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Lord Ryan @ Nov. 09 2002,15:03)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Hello,

Its very hard to land a chopper (for me) at a certain point,thats if i get to land it (lol)

any tips to land it properly and easily without using autohover??

and why to choppers loose altitude when accelerating??

thanks for answer<span id='postcolor'>

It's been a while since the last time I flew with keyboard (as you assumedly do) but here are a few guidelines for landing the chopper in general.

Answering to your last question first helps to understand the force that keeps the chopper in the air. You lose altitude when accelerating because some of the lift force your rotor is generating is directed forward to accelerate your chopper. In real life it's not this straightforward, but bear in mind that you control the amount of thrust with your collective (Q and Z -buttons) and you set the direction of that thrust vector with your cyclic (W,S,D,A buttons or mouse, whichever you are using). When you push the cyclic to accelerate (tilt the rotor forward, that is) the direction of the lift vector will change from vertical transferring some of the force to the horizontal component, thus making the amount of vertical component to decrease and making you lose altitude.

So, keeping this in mind, when you approach the landing zone and decelerate, remember that your chopper will climb if you don't touch the collective (some of the kinetic energy will transform into potential energy). Usually this results in a too high approach position from which you can't see the landing zone well enough. So lower your collective (press Z) when you are decelerating so you don't gain too much altitude.

You should not land totally vertically, but in a shallow glide so you can keep your eye on the landing zone at all times. Make sure that your speed is not too high while your are in this "glide". Try to keep it under 50 km/h, preferably less if you are not familiar executing the landing flare just before touchdown.

One more point: When I used to fly more without a joystick I noticed that it's easier to land using the keyboard as the cyclic rather than the mouse. At other times it's often better to use the mouse, it helps with aiming in gunships.

[Lord Ryan 0]

ok tanks a lot

[advocatexxx 0]

If anything you should consider getting a joystick (as I did a few weeks ago). Like Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 which only costs around 39.99.

You can do full rolls/spins with airplanes and have full yaw control in choppers.

Chinook is now actually flyable.

[Lord Ryan 0]

i have a microsoft sidewinder (the cheapest one i think) but i never used it yet

[Jamesia 0]

*cough* trying to beef up his no. of posts

[cybrid 0]

My advice is to just keep praticing till you get it. A few months ago used to fly choppers all the time and could land so well I could be a huey piolet in Viet Nam, but now I'm out of practice. (btw i don't used auto-hover)

[Harnu 0]

From the Radishville FAQ: (I wrote it)

Radishville FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

·  How do I fly a chopper?

Flying is simple. Press and hold Q to take off and gain altitude. E or W to go forward. And S to straghten out. A is strafe left, x is turn left, d is strafe right, c is turn right. Mouse makes maneuvering easy too. (Or joystick if you have one) Gunners are bad unless they are AI. Always use manual fire. Human gunners are bad because the pilot and the gunner are at different pings. Thus, they see moving objects at slightly different spots. Making it hard for rockets. To manual fire, select manual fire in your actions menu. Lock your target. Then line up your target with the dot. And fire away.

The guns can lock onto infantry and and tanks/cars helocopters. FFAR's or 57MM Rockets lock onto only heavy ground units. Like cars or tanks. Same with TOW'S AT's (4-8) and Hellfire's. They can only lock onto them, and these are the only smart missiles. They will guide their way to the target. However, minimal positioning before firing is required.

Landing is easy too. I have 3 types of landing. 1, hit auto hover to stop, lower to the ground and land. 2. strafe left and right while approaving LZ, this is effective for avoiding AA aswell. This will slow you and then pull up a little bit to stop. 3. Fast insertion method. This is the most complicated and requires practice. If you need to land fast, i.e. a fast insertion. Fly parallel to your target. When it is almost right next to you, hit, (this is if its on your left) A, Z, and X. This will lower you, drop speed and turn you. Do this when you are low and you will come within a few meters of the ground. Make sure you are at or below 5m or altitude. Your team then gets out fast, and you fly away. Thats the chopper for you, more to come later.

[Lord Ryan 0]

ok but when i put the dot on a house and i fire a 57mm rocket,it hits a bit below the house so i must put the dot slightly over the house to hit it (without targeting)

why is that?

[iNeo 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Lord Ryan @ Nov. 09 2002,20:43)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">ok but when i put the dot on a house and i fire a 57mm rocket,it hits a bit below the house so i must put the dot slightly over the house to hit it (without targeting)

why is that?<span id='postcolor'>

"'Bullet' drop"? Gravity pulls down the rocket, the greater distance, the more loss of height.

[Placebo 29]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Jamesia @ Nov. 09 2002,16:00)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">*cough* trying to beef up his no. of posts<span id='postcolor'>

Spammage = bannage Mr. Jamesia

[Harnu 0]

It's just way way it works. You get used to it. Just aim a lil bit higher with unguided rockets and it'll be a sure thing.

[Jamesia 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (placebo @ Nov. 09 2002,19:56)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">0--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Jamesia @ Nov. 09 2002,160)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">*cough* trying to beef up his no. of posts<span id='postcolor'>

Spammage = bannage Mr. Jamesia <span id='postcolor'>

I was refering to him actually

[Placebo 29]

LOL I thought you might have been

I did a search for chopper and helicopter, neither of those brought up flying tutes that I could see (although I'm sure there are threads about how to fly) so I figured I'd let it go

[Jamesia 0]

Its possible to land a chopper in the forests on malden.

well, a blackhawk anyway.

[Harnu 0]

Ya, but that takes cadet mode and 3rd person unless you really put a lot of time into it.

[Jinef 2]

If they had realistic controls option for helis then flying would be much more fun, you cannot roll/strafe properlly so it makes you a turkey shoot. I'm always playing games like SAR 3 because of the thrill of difficult lzs e.g. lower carefully on to a road in between two sky scrapers.

Flying helicopters in OFP is easy, just point and go. but the main cause of death in my experience is AA missiles. So i usually fly at 4-5 metre height and go at 180 knts .

[Harnu 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Jinef @ Nov. 10 2002,02:19)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">If they had realistic controls option for helis then flying would be much more fun, you cannot roll/strafe properlly so it makes you a turkey shoot...<span id='postcolor'>

That's because OFP isn't a flight simulator.

[Assault (CAN) 1]

If you have a joystick, does the game automatically switch back to mouse control once you leave the chooper or plane? and vice versa?

Tyler

[Tovarish 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Assault (CAN) @ Nov. 10 2002,03:51)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">If you have a joystick, does the game automatically switch back to mouse control once you leave the chooper or plane? and vice versa?

Tyler<span id='postcolor'>

If you have a joystick, you still have mouse/keyboard control while flying. I for example, use joystick when I'm flying choppers, but I find that it's a lot easier to land with mouse, so I just hit autohover, let go of the stick and reach for my mouse

[Lord Ryan 0]

ok thanks for answering the aming question i thought it was FADE that went on my purchased copy :-p