) I couldn't find my good digital camera and the battery died before I could film it taking off. here she is.
as you can see, there is a house in the background. this is a residential neighborhood.
It landed on the baseball outfield.
here are the seats in the back,
the cockpit,
and right in the middle of this picture is the small window where the minigunner would sit, (if there was a minigun attached.)
As for the in game play, the sound is close but is to wafty. but it is like listening to music through a microphone compared to the real deal. The PR guys should get the real takeoff sound. believe me, it would blow your mind.
from what I saw, there is no sound coming from the rotors even when they are turning about 140-160 rpm. they warmed it up, just like in game, they let the rotors spin up to where they were going 140-160, let them sit for a minute and then... take off. PR over corrected BF2 vanilla. when it takes off the 1st second it rises 10 feet in elevation and then 2nd second 15 ft and then about 25 feet per second of direct elevation gain for the next 4 seconds and then about 35-40 feet per second after that. in short. it doesn't just hang like 6 inches off the ground for like 10 seconds, where people tend to crash in game. It really does TAKE OFF!
edit: also, there are a total of 12 seats in this configuration, 8 passengers, 2 gunners, a pilot and a copilot.
weirdest hour of my life