Hey guys.

Lately I've been trying to follow a few rules when it comes to being a transport pilot and so far I have found that I can survive a whole round in the same chopper. It's great. So I thought I'd share some advice I've found to be useful for both the transporter and transported.

 

 

• “Where should we ask for the pickup? That open flat field 100 metres away or the side of this hill we are on between these trees?”

Take the time to run over to an open flat area when asking for transport. The flatter the better. I know you may think we are gods of the sky but the ground is a harsh mistress and it can easily catch us off guard when it isn’t flat enough to stay on.

 

• “If only we had some sort of way to signal to the transport helicopter where we won’t them to land? Like a big coloured marker or some sort of large obviously coloured mass that plooms into the air…”

If you are requesting crates or transport please drop a coloured smoke grenade on that location. The helicopters rotor wash will blow the smoke away from the heli, making it easy to land and even easier to find the location required for the crates. It makers life so much simpler for the pilot instead of flying back and forth looking for a group of people hiding in the bushes.

 

• “I want to get out here but there is no flat ground anywhere.”

If you can’t find a bit of flat ground try using a river or lake to drop the troops off in. This way they won’t get injured when jumping out. If that isn’t an option either than hover over the area and let them out with a crate. If they are a competent squad then there should be a medic amongst them and a slight bump from a 5 metre drop is easily fixed.

 

• “Can you fly me into the hills overlooking the city? I want to be a leet sniper.”

This is just ridicules. Do not land lone troops off in isolated locations. Any trip is a risk and you are risking 10 tickets, a logi truck with 2 crates and any fast transport lines out of main. They can hop out with the rest of the group and find their way up the mountain.

 

• “I died while I was on the flag with my squad and I want a flight back into the fray to join up with my squad.”

NO! I hate this one the most. As the same as the above mentioned lone sniper drop this one also has the issue of high risk taking the chopper into the middle of everyone’s scopes. If they request this (obviously they won’t be going anywhere unless they are with at least another 2 people) then you should drop them as close as you can without risking the transport.

 

Thing to remember when asking for Transport

Find some flat ground if possible when getting picked up.

Call in the location with the key rose command, grid reference and then pop some coloured signal smoke.

Ask for drops on areas that you know are flat or in water and are away from risk

Don’t request transport for lone troops (though there may be the odd exception.)

Use Mumble if you can to talk to the pilot.

 

What to remember when flying transport

Don’t risk the chopper when landing. They can take the bruises.

Request some coloured smoke when doing a pickup or crate drop.

Don’t drop on the front line unless people down there can tell you it’s safe.

Avoid doing lone troop drops.

Fly high, then fly low. Mix it up.

Press 'M' while flying to get an overlay of the map and still have full control of flying.

Slow and steady wins the round.

Use Mumble if you can to talk to the passengers.

 

Last thing to remember for everyone is... COMMUNICATE. Oh and hop out and back in to power down the chopper if you are waiting. Better then sliding slowly.

Edited June 27, 201113 yr by snakeyyyy

Good tip would be not bitching at pilots to go places faster.....

A pilot CANT place a marker in flight, so he dosen't know where to land......

Incompetent Commanders who wont place a marker where you are to go in flight.....

Idiots who say "hey go to location xyz" only to find out its loaded with enemy techies and AA. Then for the dickheads to make smart cracks when the chopper goes down....

 

Some how chopper pilots are suppose to have hack perception of where enamy's are and read the minds of everyone around the whole squad.

So over it.

Like a lot well done Dan

Interesting thing to note is, im not sure if pilots always see smoke (might be because they werent in the area that the smoke was deplyoed in when it was deployed) as ive often gone to an LZ that apparently has smoke marking the locale, but ive never seen it.

Interesting thing to note is, im not sure if pilots always see smoke (might be because they werent in the area that the smoke was deplyoed in when it was deployed) as ive often gone to an LZ that apparently has smoke marking the locale, but ive never seen it.

 

Smoke should not be deployed until they are sure your near and coming to get them unless they want to give their position away and let the enemy know its a LZ, deploy smoke as chopper approaches so he knows where to land it only has to be a small visual.

Interesting thing to note is, im not sure if pilots always see smoke (might be because they werent in the area that the smoke was deplyoed in when it was deployed) as ive often gone to an LZ that apparently has smoke marking the locale, but ive never seen it.

 

This. Smoke often doesnt render properly at range and IIRC when piloting certain helicopters you sometimes cannot see smoke at all :\

Never check the map when flying low as it's very easy to be distracted and wreck the heli.

A good compilation. Some of those should go in the loading tips.

Yes, map checking and text communication is a thing a pilot cannot do while on the field. Maybe while they are at main on safe ground but in the field it is way too hard to say anything other than the key rose commands.

 

However Mumble and Commanders do make things way easier. I didn't put mumble down as some people don't use it or can't. It makes things 10 times easier to figure things out but not everyone uses it. And commanders are relevant to the person in command so it could be a good thing or a bad thing. Not to give him a big head but Spider communicates well and makes things easy when flying. Giving me way points so I don’t have to myself.

Xavo's top tip (that most of you probably know anyway!)

 

Hit the 'M' key which brings up the map, but not the kit/squad map. You can set the transparency in the BF2 menu so that you can see through the map whilst being able to see the map, and you can also still fully control the chopper (or any vehicle for that matter).

 

Good list their Dan

Should add a few extra suggestions to your OP Dan like Xavo's

 

Learn to fly fast and low, crate drops to squads without giving their position away is much appreciated, remember 10 meters and lower or the crate breaks from the fall.

 

Practice practice practice...

 

 

 

• “Can you fly me into the hills overlooking the city? I want to be a leet sniper.”

This is just ridicules. Do not land lone troops off in isolated locations. Any trip is a risk and you are risking 10 tickets, a logi truck with 2 crates and any fast transport lines out of main. They can hop out with the rest of the group and find their way up the mountain.

 

sorry but why ?? snipers/spotters are essential to a working team. probably the most important thing on kashan

http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/8841/unledigu.jpg

sorry but why ?? snipers/spotters are essential to a working team. probably the most important thing on kashan

 

Agree with you Fall, If the player with the sniper kit knows how to use the kit to its full potential it is worth a little risk getting them to a good location,

A good thing is to also be on TS or Mumble SL channel and then the pilot can communicate with the squad leader of the pickup/trans squad easily. From my times flying trans, it makes it alot easier and some pilots actually have the skills to land on slopes so it depends on the pilot as well though flat ground is preferred always.

 

Also, is it a bannable offence on BigD to fly hueys upside down? Its almost as if they were painted red if oyu do that...

 

Agree with you Fall, If the player with the sniper kit knows how to use the kit to its full potential it is worth a little risk getting them to a good location,

 

Defiantly, though there are alwasy those n00bs (looking at their name, ping and fact that never seen them before) that ask for a drop in A13 on muttrah...end up getting shot very quickly though the chopper drop isnt hard there.

Thanks for this Dan....some good pointers there.

 

I can only plead with SL to find flat ground for the chopper. The ground claims more Helis than AT and AA combined. Also snipers should mumble it up with a squad, so they can walk with them until they reach their camping spot . Oh, for all those noobs, like what Graunch said, Learning to fly low and fast is the most important skill in a chopper. If you can master that, then you will find that everything else will be easier.

I've been flying trans for a while, these tips are awesome Dan. Just used a few on the TAR server on archer. Didn't lose a single chooper to terrain, just a million rpgs at once.

 

Well done Dan +1

Also, is it a bannable offence on BigD to fly hueys upside down? Its almost as if they were painted red if oyu do that...

 

Bannable for wasting assets and glitching last time I heard.

Bannable for wasting assets and glitching last time I heard.

 

what about barrel rolls in the heli? bannable offence??

^^

 

Can you link us to where this is an accepted as standard practice in any recognised armed force?

 

I would say that under some circumstances that a barrel roll would be fine (such as an attack helo evasive maneuver)... But showboating in a transport chopper with a load of troops definitely fails the 'maturity' motto.

 

If you think that your actions will be seen by anybody using a reasonable standard to fail 'teamwork and maturity' then you should either a) think twice about your playing style, or b) accept the consequences.

 

It's up to the community (that's everybody reading this post) to set the standard of what is acceptable in-game. The admins will step in when people are not living up to this standard.

I dont mean barrel rolls (peppy aproves those), Im talking about a glitch were you can fly the hueys normally but upside down. Like this: http://peter.stillhq.com/blosxom/United%20Kingdom/United%20Kingdom%20images/WouldYouFlyYourHelicopterLikeThis-Farnborough23July2006.jpg

People usually do it to wave their epeen and show off their "skillz". Its unrealistic and usually ends up with them either crashing or getting shot down.

Far as I am aware the only heli that can fly upside down is the eurochopper.

IRL.

sorry but why ?? snipers/spotters are essential to a working team. probably the most important thing on kashan

 

Sniper teams are fit for a reason. You can be expected IRL to have to hoof it to

your OP and all a chopper does is highlight your general location, even if in

PR you stick out like dog's balls on a hilltop/ridgeline anyway.

Added some things including Xavos suggestion (which I had completely forgotten about) to the OP. If people have got things to suggest I am all ears.

 

And no, I stand by the fact that any squad leader can laze targets which makes a sniper not even close to worth the risk.

Sniper teams are fit for a reason. You can be expected IRL to have to hoof it to

your OP and all a chopper does is highlight your general location, even if in

PR you stick out like dog's balls on a hilltop/ridgeline anyway.

 

using the mountains in Kashan as cover for the heli and Being dropped 1000 meters away is alot better than spending 20+ minutes walking 5000-6000meter, their are place's in the kashan mountains that arnt on the ridge line, i have some great little ditch's that have a higher mountain behind to stop sillouetting, if tank's come by you just pullback a few meters and wait in your hole, Why are their so many people that hate sniper's?? is it because we get more head?

 

Added some things including Xavos suggestion (which I had completely forgotten about) to the OP. If people have got things to suggest I am all ears.

 

And no, I stand by the fact that any squad leader can laze targets which makes a sniper not even close to worth the risk.

 

Well it would be fine if squad leaders would laz targets but it rarely happens, i fly alot of jets and it's mainly the sniper's that are calling the targets, their may be 3-4 squad leaders with gtld's but their to busy or CBF calling in the target, Snipers are usually in the hill's picking their nose while they search for target's and have the time to type up in team chat the grid ref of a target and laz it,

 

In 1 round of kashan i helped destroy about 250 tickets worth of assets by lazing from the mountain's and about 20 kills from my rifle, it did help that the pilot's were regular's and knew what they were doing,

 

Anyway this is getting off topic of Transport heli useful tip's,

 

Sniper Kit's are a great asset to the team if used correctly, not on the front line engaging troops at 100 meters

Edited June 27, 201113 yr by Gunner_downer