I don't think the issue here is if you can actually render a tail failure as I think there are certain ways you can get around this. As you know when you are in a tank and you get heavily damaged you can still be alive while having limited movement ability. In that situation the controls have been limited with respect to damage sustained. Now I think what would work is doing something similar to that with the helicopter except with the flight controls instead of strictly the power setting. I think a crash could look something like this.You should have posted that in the previous post on helo, rather than doing your own.
And I don't think it's possible to render tail rotor fail in BF2 engine. And having all helo crahsing in a spin would be quite silly.
To begin with the helo has 3000 hp and when it has passed 1000hp it is in a critical state and loses health until it hits 3000 and is destroyed.
Yaw control: At 800 a moderate tendency for the helicopter to rotate opposite the direction of the main rotor is felt. This continues to grow until all yaw control is lost at about 1300 health.
Main rotor Thrust: Thrust begins to drop at 1000 (right at the critical point) and it continues to drop until it is completely gone at about 2200. (At which point it should be at the ground or about to hit)
Pitch and Roll control: Begin to become less responsive at 1300, until a complete loss of control is experienced at about 2000 (because this control is tied in with the main rotor).
So basically this is what someone watching would see:
The helo gets hit, it begins to rotate slightly in one direction. After a second or two it begins to rotate a bit more and start losing altitude. It then proceeds to rotate uncontrollable while dropping progressively faster. After about 6-7 seconds the chopper should be on the ground and the crew will have a few seconds to bail out before the helo explodes if it has not already done so upon impact with the ground.
Factors such as how far past the critical point the damage is pushed to with the initial shot, how high the helo is off the ground to begin with, and the pilots flight experience will influence the chance of the crew/passengers making it out alive.
PS. I know that not all helo crashes are the same and certainly that not all of them result in a tail rotor failure, but I don't think it is possible to make it selective unless of course controls can be limited in relation to where the vehicle is hit. I know there is a remote chance this is possible as a tank being hit in different spots may result in different amounts of damage being dolled out but I doubt this could be connected to control of the vehicle.
The big question here as to whether this could work or not is whether control of the aircraft can change in relation to the amount of damage the vehicle as sustained. It would be nice if a dev could answer both if that is possible and how it is done with tanks that are damaged and become dysfunctional.
, just much faster than what you say.