Chopper flight school

[smilodon]

Last night our squad took a special mission far to the north. We flew up in a Huey, sneak attacked the northern Air Base and destroyed a prototype helicopter. Then we ran into trouble.
I had left out Huey parked on the road and at some point an enemy patrol had chanced upon it and disabled it completely. We therefore had a massive overland hike back to our airfield to look forward to. That was until Davel came to our rescue in a chopper. However he mentioned he had no idea how to land them and several players have declined flying as they don'f feel confident in them and certainly don't like to land them. So I thought I'd write a quick and dirty guide to helicopters in Arma2.

First off I'm using default keyboard settings and flying with a mouse and keyboard, so no joystick info here. Taking off and flying is pretty straight forward. If you can do that but need help landing scroll to the bottom of the post.

Q starts the rotors. Holding Q increases power an after a few seconds you'll have enough lift to take off.
Z reduces power and you'll loose height
X spins the chopper to the left using the tail rotor (only works at a hover or when moving slowly)
C likewise spins the chopper to the right
Mouse banks left and right and pitches up and down.

And that's about it. One important point though is that helicopters have no accelerator as such. When hovering the blades are flat ' - ' and all their power produces lift. You go up and down but not forward or backwards. Push the mouse forward and you tip the nose down. This has the effect of moving the rotors so they are no longer horizontal but tilted forward' \ ' Some of their power is now pulling the helicopter forward and so you move forward. The more you tip the choppers nose down the more the rotors dip and the more forward power you get. Theoretically (but not in reality) when the blades are tipped so far forward they are vertical to the ground ' | ' all the power is forward motion and you move as fast as the chopper can go. However!

However as you transfer some of the vertical lift to forward motion you will have less available to maintain height and the chopper will fall. The more you tilt the chopper forward to move faster the less lift you have and the faster you fall. Pretty soon you will fly the chopper straight into the ground. To combat this you will need to add more power (the Q key again) to replace the lift you have transferred to forward motion. So speeding up is a combination of moving the mouse forward balanced with holding down the Q key.

To slow you simply do the opposite and move the mouse back. This tilts the rotors back ' / ' and the power pulls the chopper backwards which has the effect of braking the chopper. This method will reduce your speed to zero and then begin moving you backwards. Again you loose lift and need to add more power with the U key to maintain height.

To increase height you can add more Q key as you fly along. To a small degree you can also point the nose up and add power (Q). This works to a limited degree as you're now tipping the rotors back and adding a braking effect (as mentioned above). However to briefly swoop up over the crests of hills etc it's quite effective but you will slow somewhat as you rise.

Landing is actually easy as you can use the computer AI to do it. As you approach your landing area try to slow (pull the mouse back a little) and loose height (press and hold the Z key). Make sure you have a suitable area to land as dropping on buildings, trees or steep slopes will end in a wrecked chopper.

Scroll the mouse wheel and select Auto Hover On. The chopper will swoop up, kill it's speed and drop back into a stable hover. You then tap the Z key and the chopper will fall. Check the altimeter as you go and make sure you are tap tapping the Z key as you touch down. Choppers cannot take hard landings so the closer you get to the ground the slower you should go. Use the 3rd person view to check your landing area. Combined with the alt key you can look about and see what is directly below you. While in auto hover mode you cannot move about but you can spin 360's and you are able to jink forward a little to fine tune your position for a landing.

Once you have touched down kill the rotors unless you're planning on taking off quickly as their power can move you about on the ground. Also if you have to land on a slope do so broadside to it, otherwise you will slide the chopper down the hill. Choppers usually have ski's and they slide down grassy hills quite easily. Position the ski's sideways on to the slope and the chopper won't move. Finally remember to turn off auto hover as it can be confusing if you lift off and wonder why you cannot move forward.

And there you go. You're flying and landing like a pro.

[Benny]

I use 'q' to power up the rotors, then I don't have to stretch my fingers to 'u'. I didn't even know 'u' did it and I'm on default. Other than that, nice write up

[smilodon]

My mistake, of course it's the Q key for lift and not the U key at all. Original post edited. Thanks.

[sulky_uk]

im a bit of a cheat, i use my ms force feedback 2, and even then its a bit dodgy

[Sn00ks]

Hmm never thought about using the autohover to land. I tend to fly by the seat of my pants, but as I don't wear any it tends to get messy when I touch down (intentionally or not)!

[smilodon]

The only real issue with auto hover landing is that if you're travelling at speed in order to loose that speed your helicopter will have to swoop up quite high before it levels out. If you're in a dangerous location it can mean you'll be targeted and attacked. Slowing down, staying low and manually landing is safer from enemy attacks but more likely to end in a crash.

[BrotherTobious]

If a mapper could please add more spaces to chopper training I would be most grateful.

[sulky_uk]

If a mapper could please add more spaces to chopper training I would be most grateful.

yes please!!!!

[smilodon]

If a mapper could please add more spaces to chopper training I would be most grateful.

bumpage

[sulky_uk]

I'm up for giving lessons as well

[DrunkenZombiee]

I can give training on how to crash =).

The 360 controller has made a big different to my flying and I would recommend anyone who used to fly with a mouse and keyboard to give it a try. I use the analogue triggers for the power so to reduce power to the rotors i just lift off making button bashing to increase a reduce power a thing of the past.

Took me a good 15mins to map the buttons though.

[Benny]

Will get to it... Keyboard flyer with no issues here btw

[Sparko]

im up for it, i use my keyboard though and find it ok, i just cant hit anything.  Think im ok with chinhook, although cant really grasp low level flying...