Flying & Dying

[Sabin Stargem 0]

I have been recently been trying to learn how to fly. Unfortunately, while I got the basics down, I can't do it well. For example, in Rat's Nest I can't keep up with the leader because I can't maintain high speed without crashing. Is there a way to keep my speed and height?

Also, I usually die in air to air combat. I suspect that my enemies are hitting my copter's tail rotor, but I am not sure. Is this a cause of copter loss? The copter also sometimes just falls down for no reason I know of...gah, I am bad at this.

[max power 21]

If you push the nose down to go forward and press the up stance (climb) button, it'll load the rotors a bit more and give you alittle more forward speed. In air to air combat, it's all about energy management, especially helecopter to helecopter. You want to try and stay above and behind the enemy helecopter, so he can't get the turret on you. Come at him at the maximum energy state you can, preferably after speeding down a mountain side. Lift the nose up when you are about to make contact and climb. Try to stay above his turret, and use this altitude to get your guns on him. See if you can go over top of him, and then pivot when you're about to fall out of the sky. See if you can get on his tail. If he gets behind you, run, and jink, get your speed up and look for a hill to climb and do it all again.

[InqWiper 0]

While flying the V80 I think its alot easier if you change weapon to the rockets or AT missiles instead of the cannon. If you fly at 100 altitude and then dont use the keys to change altitude the chopper will try to keep the altitude at 100. This means that if you keep your altitude under 100 by leaning the chopper forward you will always be travelling about as fast as you can. The helicopters are much more vulnerable in the rotor. I think you can down a mi-24 with 2 hits in the rotor for example.

Lean the chopper so much forward that it never reaches the altitude it is trying to reach if you want to go fast.

[somebloke 0]

Are you using a keyboard or a joystick?

[Sabin Stargem 0]

Keyboard and the mouse are what I use.

[max power 21]

The only craft it really makes sense to fly with a joystick is the fixed wing craft. I use the keyboard and joystick and I spend a lot of the time with the view unlocked... so I fly with the keyboard and look around with the mouse, unless I'm on a rocket run or something.

[Sabin Stargem 0]

Plantiff's advice kinda worked for me. I managed to maintain about 1,000 meters from the leader - usually, I can only do 3,000 or so. So far, the advice seems pretty sound...

Thank you!

[max power 21]

If you're maintaining the distance, that means that you're flying the same speed he is. If that is true, then the problem is that you're not accellerating quickly enough. Try to anticipate when he's going to take off to the next waypoint.

Flying in a super tight formation in the helecopters isn't really that important, as you're not setting up a base of fire to suppress or destroy another element composed of multiple agressors. The helecopter pilots in ofp are suicidal anyways. While they're dancing around over the target taking shilka-fire, I'm conducting pop-up attacks from behind terrain. If you know that there's only one AA threat out there, you can just try to see-first shoot-first at the edge of your missile range, but I think that the popup attacks with ATGMS and cannon are the safest way to fly the whirlybirds anyways.

This isn't reaaally applicable in many BIS missions, but a good pop-up attack routine for when there are multiple AAA sites looks like:

enter threat-range

autohover behind some obstruction

pop up, aquire target

move

pop up, shoot

move

pop up, aquire target

etc.

They'll never have a chance ... unless they're using strelas... then it's more like a 25% chance of you getting hit. Once all the helecopter eating machines are gone, if you're using a mod where machinegunners are threats to helecopters, you can get some altitude and make high speed passes until you locate them, then give them the rocket-attention they crave. Cannons are always best to use on non-threats and soft-targets.

[havocsquad 0]

You need a good joystick, I cannot stress it enough that a joystick is essential for any helo or fixed-wing aircraft flying.

You might do okay for a while with the keyboard, but after awhile it gets old real quick. You can pick up a good joystick for about $30 or abou 16 Euro, I recommend Saitek joysticks.

[Messiah 2]

strange that... i've played the game 4 years, and i've still not found the dire need to buy a joystick

[max power 21]

I have a great joystick. IT's an x52. I use it for the incredibly competative il2 online community. I must say that I'm above average on dogfight servers... I'm no stranger to the successful use of joysticks.

The stick itself has a hands on throttle, 3 pox hats.. a mouse look lever.... trim tabs, sliders... 2 stage trigger... and I must say that I've never felt the urge to fly helecopters with it. I tried it once and it felt terrible. The roll and yaw of the helecopters is synchronized. It feels like driving around a car with a joystick. Trust me, there's no reason to use a joystick for helecopters. None at all.

[sanctuary 19]

Actually, i find mouse+keyboard making helicopters really easy to fly.

But when it comes to airplanes, a joystick is really better but mostly for dogfights

As it is easy to take off and land with mouse+keyboard because OFP is very forgiving on your landing angle and speed (i even succeeded to land on a mountain side with the Cessna without joystick, a la Mathias Rust ).

[Bordoy 0]

strange that... i've played the game 4 years, and i've still not found the dire need to buy a joystick  

Same here, it isn't too hard to fly with keyboard.

[-HUNTER- 1]

A joystick gives you more time to do stuff with the left arm, like manage weapons or use the action menu. I usually fly with the joystick when Im on combat missions. When im just flying arround I also use the keyboard because its much easier to look arround with the mouse.

That wasnt so in the early days when the free look was much better to use because it didnt have the autocenter thing which is really crap! I want to look right a bit not fully and then you have to quickly view the target when the screen is moveing back from full right to center. It used to stay where you pointed it....!!

With helo's I really like having a joystick with a horizontal axis. Meaning you've also got the rudder control under your right hand. The rudder is very handy for when your flying slowly. It helps allot if you use it during turns.

With fixed wing aircraft its difficult to make sharp turns without a joystick. Also things like barrel rolls and looping are much more difficult. With trying to make real landings from a circuit I can use the rudder control to allign nicely in front of the runway. ooh and for aerobatics is great!

Some smaller helo's have a sort of a bug, its not really a addon bug but more a game bug. When your going really fast and really low level with for instance a littlebird sometimes its like you have complete loss of the rotor's lift. And it sorta makes you jump towards the ground. Has anybody had that? Ive only had it with the BAS littlebird and the new mini helo from martin.

Flying with helicopters is really cool in ofp because of the terrain. You can use the terrain to get cover. Really important when RKSL releases those SAM systems cuz then ppl need to fly like that or get pwned.

[max power 21]

yeah NOE flying is fun.. but I do all of my weapon management with my mouse hand. I access the action menu and weapon control with the mousewheel and third button.

If you're going really fast and you suddenly pull up really hard, you'll lose control at the top of your climb in all helecopters. This happens to me a lot. Sometimes the ah-1 even turns upsidedown, (which is sometimes recoverable and sometimes not). I haven't lost lift in a straight line before, I don't think... but I have lost lift travelling over terrain that suddenly dumps out from under me. Heh, the helecopters in this game are more like cars than real aircraft.