Project Reality Forums

Ok, i dedicate almost 90% of my time to flying Helicopters, little birds more so than others (Are lynx's even in game yet?). Now what really annoys me is people who will stand around on the carrier with just wearing a pilot kit (I do, but thats no the problem) and than get into a helicopter and instantly crash.
Also those who will drop a squad into a completely hot LZ, about 25-30% of the time i do play as a Infantry man and get dropped off I'm killed before i can get prone.

Want to fly?
Practice offline first, please for the love god. Try landing in every crook and nanny on the maps you most play. Anyone can be a mediocre pilot, and yes that is fine on rare occasions, but when prominent LZ's get camped you will need to use less desirable ones.

Main points:
-Talk to your team mates, find out what AA guns are occupied, when heavy enemy resistance is at, also talk to your commander.
-Tell people in your chopper where you plan to land.
-Practice landing on roof tops, although you should never land in combat, but just hover, it will improve your flying accuracy.
-The priority is to get the troops out safely and into somewhere they can secure, not for you to be able to whore the chopper some more.

I have another tip. Don't tell people how to get a pilot kit. If someone doesn't know how to get the pilot kit, it means they don't know how to fly either... so why tell them?

While it's hilarious to watch, it also tends to ruin maps when the same noob crashes over, and over, and over.

Many people have said this on vairious threads.
What you have to take into account is that most people who are rubbish and a hazard to everyone when they fly these choppers are not likely to be active on the forums/ Are nilla players/ Dont give a ****.

Its something we're gonna hve to live with until .5 sheds some of its ****, that being the nilla players.

...mongol...

That sounds perfectly reasonable. Nothing worse than pilots straight from vanilla who either crash right away or hover several hundred feet above the LZ spamming "Get out!". Or making high speed passes, doing the same.

Please remember: Land the god damned helo!

I'm recently new to PR helo flying.....
And practice has been somewhat frustrating for me on a couple accounts.
I've avoided flying in live servers, spicifically for what is mentioned in this thread. So I was wondering if someone could give me a couple tips and suggestions on how to resolve some of my issues.

First: The choppers seem to have a "wind up" phase where the rotors need to get to speed. Should I throttle up during this phase? Just let it idle for a period of time? How long till I should actually try to lift off?

Second: And probably most importantly...
I'm using a Saitek X52 joystick and set of Momo racing pedals. The controls seem a little 'wonky' in that they're slow to respond. That's ok, i'm getting used to it. But the throttle (in planes too) seems to work wierd. It seems that I can go in REVERSE in planes if my throttle is set to 0. Not sure how this affects chopper throttle.

The real pain comes in using ordinance and looking around. How in the hell can I map my hat switch to look left or right? Currently it shoots or deploys flares. Same with some of my other firing buttons. They look in a spicific direction or some crazy thing. I've checked my in game buttons, and it all seems correct.

Any tips are GREATLY appreciated, as I love flying, and would like to get "live" with it sometime in the near future.

Thanks!

Chapel wrote:I'm recently new to PR helo flying.....
And practice has been somewhat frustrating for me on a couple accounts.
I've avoided flying in live servers, spicifically for what is mentioned in this thread. So I was wondering if someone could give me a couple tips and suggestions on how to resolve some of my issues.

First: The choppers seem to have a "wind up" phase where the rotors need to get to speed. Should I throttle up during this phase? Just let it idle for a period of time? How long till I should actually try to lift off?

Second: And probably most importantly...
I'm using a Saitek X52 joystick and set of Momo racing pedals. The controls seem a little 'wonky' in that they're slow to respond. That's ok, i'm getting used to it. But the throttle (in planes too) seems to work wierd. It seems that I can go in REVERSE in planes if my throttle is set to 0. Not sure how this affects chopper throttle.

The real pain comes in using ordinance and looking around. How in the hell can I map my hat switch to look left or right? Currently it shoots or deploys flares. Same with some of my other firing buttons. They look in a spicific direction or some crazy thing. I've checked my in game buttons, and it all seems correct.

Any tips are GREATLY appreciated, as I love flying, and would like to get "live" with it sometime in the near future.

Thanks!

Ditch all that hardware unless you play with jets. Learn to fly the chopper with keyboard and mouse. Its the only way to go with choppers.

Determined wrote:Ditch all that hardware unless you play with jets. Learn to fly the chopper with keyboard and mouse. Its the only way to go with choppers.

True.

True, I've been teamkilled plenty of times to see some twat jump in a heli and fly it into the sea.
Also, if you've got an xbox 360 controller, that makes it really easy to fly helis if you are in a littlebird and are dropping people off.

Chapel wrote:First: The choppers seem to have a "wind up" phase where the rotors need to get to speed. Should I throttle up during this phase? Just let it idle for a period of time? How long till I should actually try to lift off?

No, do not throttle up during the 30 second-ish startup time, at all. You must wait till the blades start making different sounds, faster... Kinda hard to describe it but it's... Deeper... And it happens near the end of the startup. Starts of slow then gets quickly quite fast, and once a chopper is in the air that's what you can hear.

If you throttle up during that time you're putting yourself in danger of doing a backflip or something. I've seen it happen several times. (Especially on Muttrah, lol....)

Land the god damned helo!

I'd just like to say that that's not the only way to do it. Sometimes it is a better idea to let the people jump off at a reasonable height. I think you can see this to some extent in the 0.5 promo vid, definitely over water and I think land. (Water is fine from most height though I think)
If the LZ is hot and you think you might get RPG'd, I think it's a good idea to hover maybe... 5-10 meters (?) above the LZ and let the people jump off, as it is quite annoying landing the choppers successfully in this game. (If you land on a slope without getting out of the chopper you stand a chance of flipping over onto your side.) The soldiers will undoubtably take some damage but it will not be lethal and as long as you have a medic amongst them it should take only a few seconds to fix. Don't go crazy over some slight damage if dropping.

By the way... If you ever see anyone in a server asking how to fly the choppers or planes, tell them to go read the guide and practice offline.

If they really want to know how to fly a chopper I suggest telling them to hit ALT+F4. Instant flying ability. Really.....

Mess with your sensitivity settings as well (If you use keyboard and mouse). I found that in vBF2 cranking up all settings to their highest works best so you can do those crazy (unrealistic) airborne rolls and flips. In PR I've had to drop the sensitiviy on all settings to 5 to regain my ability.

Not much as far as the immersion factor to fly by keyboard. =(

Chapel wrote:Not much as far as the immersion factor to fly by keyboard. =(

No, but it gives you superior control. There is nothing like flying at near full speed, with a loaded little bird, through the flag zone of the dam and having your passengers shit themselves. Then afterwards thanking you for one hell of a trip.

It's down to preference, much harder to use keyboard and mouse.

DirtyHarry88 wrote:It's down to preference, much harder to use keyboard and mouse.

If two players of equal skill go head to head, joystick user will always be defeated by Keyboard and mouse user. All comptetitive players stick with K and M. You would think it would be the other way around, but it's not.

You know what else grinds my gears?

People who take the insurgent spawn cars and drive it right up to the firefight just to get it blown up.

I fly chopper with just my keyboard and joystick throttle because it helps with hovering. I usually set the throttle using my joystick at about 10%-14% and if I want to land I need to hold down the 'down' button.

I employ the good old rabbit tap for hovering lol

OiSkout wrote:You know what else grinds my gears?

People who take the insurgent spawn cars and drive it right up to the firefight just to get it blown up.

OH MY GOD.

I keep saying this but the morons can't take it in.