Attention flying comrades!

Epic fail avoidance
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fer
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Attention flying comrades!

Post by fer »

What's this about?
Comrades, and flying comrades especially, the Ministry of Information is seeking to tap into the collective wisdom of loyal Party members for a possible future cinematography project that is completely unrelated to comrade SuperU's planned blockbuster romcom set in a tractor maintenance facility.

Sounds interesting. How I can help?
Have you ever flown a transport helo full of brave socialist agrarian fighters into a hot LZ?

Yes.
Without it exploding and killing all onboard?

Y-Yes.
Excellent. Now, imagine that you're sitting next to a brave young volunteer comrade pilot, who will be flying an FA transport helo into battle sometime soon. What words of wisdom would you share with him/her? What tips could you offer on flying the air-cow, hot LZs ... or just learning not to fly into mountainsides?

Hmm Well, I--
No, don't tell me, comrade. Post here, please.

Wait a second, aren't you observing the idle rich?
Why else would I be typing this on a gold-plated laptop? Now hurry, before they jam my--

Black Mamba
Posts: 335
Joined: Sun May 27, 2012 12:11 pm

Re: Attention flying comrades!

Post by Black Mamba »

Words of wisom... I don't know. Still, I redacted this bit ragarding Air Assault quite a while ago, never posted it, but this thread might be a good place for it.
I'll have a few other things to add later.
What does Air Assault means?

In our Arma 2 context, Air Assault is basically the movement of ground-based troops via helicopter, in order to seize and hold key strategic points that are not fully secured yet. It uses the great versatility and firepower of helicopters to give the commander the ability to quickly deploy troops over the battlefield to his own advantage.
Air assault should therefore not be confused with Air Mobility, which is merely the transport of assets via aircraft from a secure zone to another one. Given the scale of maps and engagements in Arma 2, Air Mobility will usually make no sense in the game (unless a mission was specifically designed for it, which I've never seen yet).
Air assault should not be confused with Airborne Assault either, which makes use of paratroopers.
Let's not get into the specifics of it, will ya.

What are the basics of Air assault?

As I said, air assault's purpose is to deploy troops quickly into potentially "hot" zones. This means the helicopter, its crew, and its cargo are likely to be engaged upon approaching their LZ and disembarking.
This leads to two things: The LZ should be as heavily suppressed as possible before and during the insertion, and the helicopter (which did cost a lot to the party) should stay on site for as short a time as possible.
Assaulting troops should provide security on the LZ immediately upon disembarking and expect to be shot at.

Wait. Wait. Do you mean it's fine to land under fire?

Ho, stop there, soldier. I've never said "land".
As far as the game goes, it's totally possible to perform an insertion under small arms fire without casualties. Anything above that (SPG, AA guns, HMGs, and so on) will put the chopper and its cargo at risk, it becomes highly likely that the chopper will get shot down, and you can be sure dismounts will be butchered.
If no recon on the LZ is available, and the chopper comes under heavy fire upon approaching, it's the responsibility of the pilot to decide to abort the insertion and inform the CO.

So we don't land. Okay...

Exactly. Air mobility is just there to get you from A to B, in safe zones, the chopper can thus perform a perfect landing and wait until everybody has made sure he didn't forget his toothpaste under the seat. When it comes to Air Assault, time and speed are of the essence. The chopper needs to keep his potential mobility to the maximum at all times. The pilot should then choose a hover insertion, or a moving insertion. This will allow him to get in position and take off faster. It also gives the crew chief / door gunners some elevation so they can keep suppressing the area over the head of the dimounts. The assaulting troops thus need to jump out of the chopper.

Jump? But... Won't I get hurt?

You'll suffer in silence, comrade.
The game will allow a perfectly safe dismount as soon as the chopper has an altitude under 3 meters, and a speed under 20 km/h. You'll note that you won't have access to the Get Out action until the chopper actually lands. This means you'll have to use the Eject action.

To prevent any suicidal jumping, here is how things should go (I'll reference the transported troops in each helo as a chalk from now on):
- The chalk leader (SL, higher FTL) will prepare his troops for the landing (giving them directions to watch when dismounting)
- The pilot, when approaching the LZ, will inform his cargo ("Coming onto the LZ in 45 seconds, standby". That makes it more realistic. Then the whole crew yells "Sir, YES, Sir!"). This is the signal they should get their Eject action ready.
- He should also give them the amount of time he expects to spend over the LZ (usually not more than five seconds)
- Upon getting close to the LZ, the crew chief and door gunners if available should start suppressing the hell out of everything around the LZ (this can be discussed in the case of a stealthy insertion). Watch out especially for tree lines and buildings.
- When the pilot is on the LZ, to a hover or moving insertion, he will give his cargo the eject signal ("Go, go, go" should be okay without falling into any kind of milsimmish horseshit). At this point every man in the cargo will eject, take five steps either in the direction he's facing or the direction his FTL gave him earlier, and drop to the ground. (the five steps bit is a rule of thumb. What's important is to end up on an approximative line with the other soldiers so you don't shoot them in the leg / get shot in the arm, and to drop down so you don't take fire from the crew chief and his machinegun). The cargo leader should wait around one second, to be sure he's the last one to get out and so should the door gunner if he is part of the assaulting troop.
- If the LZ is taking fire, dismounts should start returning fire immediately.
- As soon as the cargo is empty, the crew chief (if there's one and he can see the cargo seats, if not, the chalk leader will take that role) will give the pilot the "All out" signal. The helo then gain speed and get out.
- The crew chief can now stop suppressing the LZ.

If anybody missed his eject button/was sleeping and did not get out before the five seconds, he is trapped inside the helicopter. He will then be shipped back at base and executed by party officials for treason.

Alright... I guess this makes sense. Can this be applied to all insertions?


That's a good question. As you can guess, there are some variables that can bring us to modify the procedure in some cases.

Huh. Like?

First, let's talk about the helo used.

MH-6J Littlebird

This is the smallest helo you'll encounter in arma. It can almost never sustain any kind of accurate fire. Plus, BIS having messed up the flight model a bit (forgot to convert mph into kmh), it is (in vanilla Arma, ACE fixed that) really slow (around 140 kmh max). It is very agile though, and can be landed about anywhere (especially on rooftops, in the middle of streets and in compounds).
It can carry a fireteam, plus one dude in the copilot seat.
It will be best used for hover and moving insertions, although the skids allow for a touchdown at horizontal speed up to 40 kmh without damage (on flat ground, that is. You can even go up to 70kmh on a road without too important damage, but you need to be real gentle). This can be usefull in case you overshot a bit and are coming in too fast on your LZ.
As it has no firepower, it must be used for real quick insertions (less than two seconds on site), but that's not really a problem with such a small cargo. No crewchief.
Tip: If you come under fire, orient the bottom of the chopper towards incoming rounds. That's about the only part that will actually stop them without destroying the whole thing.

UH-1H Huey and UH-1Y Venom

A bit bigger, a lot faster, but same chalk: one fireteam. The skids on this one allow for moving touchdowns too, but it is also really easy to perform a hover/moving insertion. M240 machineguns on each side allows for good suppression of the LZ surroundings. The Venom also has FFAR pods and can be used as a support/attack helo.
The crewchief cannot see the cargo space.

MI-8 and other MI-17s

Big. Fast. Heavy as a cow. I personally don't like them, cause they feel like trying to fly a rock, but they're fast and can sustain a lot of fire before dying. Plus they pack a lot of firepower (some versions have multiple rocket pods).
They can transport 16 people, which is one full squad plus an attachment.
One good other thing, the fact that the tail is fixed on the upper side of the fuselage makes it a bit easier not to smash everywhere.

MH-60S KnightHawk and UH-60M BlackHawk

They can transport up to three fireteams. (13 people)
They are quite fast, well armed (the UH-60 comes with two miniguns on the sides) and easy to fly. Beware of the huge-ass tail, which, unlike its real-life counterpart, doesn't like to be smashed down much. A moving insertion will usually be preferred. They can take quite a load of rounds, and even an RPG will not always bring it down. The gunners are pretty exposed though.

Merlin HC3

I don't know that one much. It seems pretty solid, reasonably fast and easy to fly, but is unarmed. It can take a cargo of 17 men but shouldn't really be used for air assault operations.


CH-47F Chinook (or its british counterpart)

Have you ever flown a bus? 24 people in the cargo, this one can bring a full squad and attachments, and it's the faster helo in the game (if you don't count the Osprey, of course), which makes it a really good choice for air assault ops.
It, however, is really difficult to get into a good hover. This is why, in that case, the pilot will usually choose a touchdown landing. He can often choose to only have the aft gear on the ground. This gives the crew chief and door gunner some elevation while suppressing the Area, and is mandatory in case of a pinnacle landing. The only problem with this is the guy in the copilot seat (who is actually the first guy to get in the cargo seats) may hurt himself while falling from the side door. (this can be solved by mission makers by putting an AI in that seat, or having a dedicated copilot. He can also switch to the rear gunner seat if available, and then get out).
The Chinook is highly resistant, well armed and will take a lot before going down, as long as the pilot is not killed. It is also very big and usually won't fare well in tight LZs, unless the pilot is very skilled.

Ok, so, no hovering with a Chinook. Anything else?

As a infantry-man, that's all you need.
Eject (and not get out) immediately on the pilot signal, 5 steps, drop down, return fire.

As a pilot, though, there are other considerations, to make it work.
First, you don't need to be a really good pilot. We don't strive for excellence here.
Though there are some points you should master:
- NOE (Nap Of the Earth) flight. In most cases on arma maps, flying low and fast is the only way to get from one point to another without getting shot down. Flying low doesn't mean flying two meters off the ground at all times though, and being under 25 meters is usually sufficient. You don't want to make a stupid picturesque move and kill your cargo, but you want to take advantage of the terrain to get cover and concealment.
- Ability to bleed speed under 10 km/h without popping skyhigh (means no autohover to stop) and without getting to the LZ too slow. Might as well paint a huge bullseye on the side of your ride.
For the same reason, you don't want to stop above your LZ and then descend slowly over it. You need to get there at the right altitude, the descending and speed bleeding being simultaneous.
- Mind your Tail! In very tight zones, if available, have your crew chief give you information about the terrain under and behind you.
- When command issues you an LZ, take time to plan an exact touchdown point, ingress and egress routes. Use the terrain as best as you can, to cover you and your chalk.
- Don't hesitate when coming under fire, to move out to your alternate LZ. Your main concern is to keep your chopper safe.
- Do not forget to communicate with your chalk (or chalk lead): They need to know when to eject, and where they'll do. Using group VON to communicate with your crew chief, and TS/Mumble to communicate with your chalk is probably the best option, as it doesn't need switching channels.

Any tactic considerations?

Tactics regarding air assault will vary for each operation. The commander should mainly focus on giving the LZs as soon as possible in his plan, so that the pilots can study the terrain properly and decide on touchdown points. He should also provide for alternate locations in case the LZ is compromised.
Whenever planning "on the fly", he should expect his pilots to take some time to prepare their flight, and still provide alternate LZs if possible.

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Bodge
Posts: 242
Joined: Wed May 04, 2011 6:36 pm

Re: Attention flying comrades!

Post by Bodge »

My thought process when flying choppers.

1. Check terrain! - Look at your LZ if it is predefined, look for the best LZ if it isn't
  • Is the LZ feasible - Don't let ego get the better of you
  • Which is the best approach - Keep sheltered from fire when possible, which approach allows for the smoothest and safest landing
  • Which route are you going to fly - which valleys are safe to fly down, keep ridges between you and hostiles
  • Which way are you going to fly out - You might be required to stay in one piece for later.
2. Get her airborne - The easy bit. Follow the route you have planned and don't bother showing off. Keeping below ridges will separate you from enemy radar and visual contacts, if playing adv it will make it hard to locate by audio. Be careful of protruding objects like trees, pylons and poles.

3. Get her down, begin thinking about your approach early, if you know the LZ to be safe and are not too comfortable with tight, fast landings then start to lose speed early without gaining height.
  • Approach slightly off to the side, a sharpish turn close to your objective helps lose a lot of speed without gaining height, it also means you can see the LZ.
  • If in doubt go down tail first, it is less disastrous than nose first and will reduce slide on landing.
  • Don't hang around. Get away from the LZ to keep the bird safe and allow infantry to hear coms.
  • Maintain a smooth descent, if in doubt increase throttle on the way down a little, tapping Q to slow your descent. Getting too eager with your Z key can easily crock your chopper
Things to consider;
  • Place a few map markers to help with your approach. You likely have a gps (right ctrl + M) so you can see markers as you approach, use different markers for distances so if you get to that exclamation mark, you know you are close.
  • Low and slow is fine if you are unsure, as long as the area is safe. If taking fire, try to get into a low hover so people can dismount (auto-hover can help a lot with this) then take off as soon as everyone is clear. Or Bug out and try somewhere else.
  • Hostile MGs can really hurt choppers, if you are getting pinged, drop height if you can to gain speed and do the occasional banked turn, (try to avoid losing speed as their fire will catch up with you).
  • Talk to passengers about your surroundings. If there is chatter in vehicle chat don't be afraid to ask for quiet so people can talk you down or let you know about threats etc.

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Kefirz
Posts: 440
Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2012 11:44 am

Re: Attention flying comrades!

Post by Kefirz »

Hello fellow flyrades,

All I can say is.. don't try to be tacticool and repeat this. :laugh:

''I am not going against tanks'' - Tryteyker, MAT gunner.
''Downboated so much, it's an u-boat now.'' - Boberro.
''Sorry, I meant hon hon hon baguette baguette Eiffel Tower'' - Mabbott

Black Mamba
Posts: 335
Joined: Sun May 27, 2012 12:11 pm

Re: Attention flying comrades!

Post by Black Mamba »

I strongly endorse all of Bodge's statements.

A few more various tips as they come to mind.

Landing procedures:
Make sure to transition from your cruise flight to your landing approach well in advance. Only experiments will show the right speeds and distances for you (and for each chopper), but as a rule of thumb, you can try being at a speed of around 130 kph when you get to about 600 meters from your LZ.
This to make sure that you have enough speed to get out of Dodge should things get hairy, you're fast enough to not be a sitting duck (think rockets. MG's will get you), and still that you're slow enough to have a clear look at the LZ and have no trouble bleeding the rest of your speed to land.
Practicing will allow to reduce that distance/get in a bit faster.

To bleed speed, you have basically three options:
- You can gain altitude by pulling on the stick/mouse. This will, however, rarely be a valid fashion of doing it, unless you plan to land on an LZ actually higher than you are (can happen in Takistan).
- You can use high angle banking turns.This will slow you down quite fast, making a hook approach around your LZ a very valid option in a large panel of cases.
- When flying straight, use the collective down to reduce the lift, then pull slightly the nose up to start bleeding speed. By adjusting the collective and the angle of attack you can manage your speed and your altitude: bleed speed, bleed altitude, bleed both.
Note that the collective effect is not immediate: when flying fast, hold the collective down for about a second before making any adjustment on your pitch, or you'll flare up. You should feel the moment your helo is actually losing lift, that's the moment you pull the nose up.

In addition to the above, at low speeds, you can also use the rudder to bleed a bit more speed.

In the final phase of your landing, in you're going for a straight approach, you can throw in a bit of rudder to gain visibility. This is especially useful in the blackhawk, as the forward visibility kinda sucks. Keep in mind that by doing so, you're making your tail stick out like mad on the side, though. Also, if you're planning to actually touch down, remember to put the chopper back in the direction of its momentum before hitting the ground.

Whenver you're taking evasive maneuvers, try to put your chopper's belly between you and the enemy. If anything, it reduces the risk for you to take a single bullet to the head, and you know a pilotless chopper in arma, is a hopeless chopper.

Dannysaysnoo
Posts: 72
Joined: Fri Jun 15, 2012 7:56 pm

Re: Attention flying comrades!

Post by Dannysaysnoo »

Just a few thoughts of mine re: Helicopters. I realize I'm not King Helicopter of Flightdonia, but I do try.

PLEASE DO NOT TALK DURING TAKE OFF OR LANDING

This is entirely subjective, but it's just a thing that bothers me. I get that, during a flight, there's not much going on for a cargo. But during landing and takeoff, the pilot needs to focus on quite a lot of variables. It is extremely helpful if his cargo keeps non-essential chatter quiet, or in text channels. This is entirely subjective.

Now, a bit on how I know and handle choppers. Stop laughing! : <

The most important tool you can use, mission permitting, is the GPS. But you need to understand it, and use it right. Using it as navigation is the primary, obviously. But it's very useful for preparing a landing course.

Image

Plopping down a plethora of dots on the map, and viewing them on the GPS, has made navigating the map much easier for me. But I do it in a sensible way. For example, on this easy cargo run from Drozhino to Sosnovka, I've placed a bunch of markers for my Chinook to follow, in a specific way.

The general flight plan is to move into Sosnovka from the south, and flare on landing. It'll be an incline landing, which is not terribly hazardous for Chinooks as it is for conventional tail rotor craft.

RED - The first red section marked in red is marked with sparse dotting. At this point, we're moving decently fast, fast enough for the GPS to zoom out enough to show the next dot. This continues until the turn.

GREEN - I increase dot density here, just to mark it abundantly.

RED AGAIN - Once again, a fast approach gets sparse dotting, until the blue section.

BLUE - My dots look very close together, but when on a landing, and your speed is slowing down, your GPS will zoom back in. Keeping the dots close together is useful here, you don't want to lose track of the dots, even if you know where you're going.


Another small tip of mine. How to land under fire? Avoid, if at all possible.

tryteyker
Posts: 104
Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2013 9:17 pm
Location: Sweden / Germany (depends really)

Re: Attention flying comrades!

Post by tryteyker »

Pay attention to your speed when doing rotations. Anything below 100 is unacceptable, because AA or even RPGs can get you that way. I speak of experience, trust me. :<

Phoenix49
Posts: 23
Joined: Mon May 14, 2012 7:01 pm

Re: Attention flying comrades!

Post by Phoenix49 »

My 2 cents

1) Avoid getting into a pilot slot without having any prior experience in flying. As much as it is okay to be relatively new to the game and join a fireteam as infantry and die gloriously with FOLK, it is quite frustrating for everyone (especially those being transported by you) if you have no idea of what you are doing. And no, the helicopter training mission in ArmA 2 is not enough, in my opinion. Get into the editor and fly around Chernarus/Takistan, or better yet select a chopper in the Armory and do the challenges as they go along. Races and Transport missions are the ones that you're interested in!

2) PRACTICE. PRACTICE. PRACTICE. Go watch Dslyecxi's videos, especially his Art of Flight series (on Youtube). No need to get to his level (that won't happen anyways), but he provides a lot of good tips. But as I caps locked before, listening to him will do nothing. You HAVE to practice.

3) Challenge yourself constantly (during practice, not during missions). Take a Blackhawk, find a small building in Takistan, and land on its roof. Crashed? Try again. And again. Now do it without auto-hover. Crashed? You know the drill. Okay so now you can land a Blackhawk on a roof, it took you 5 minutes. Do it again, and aim for under 3 minutes. You are only done with this drill if you can do this in under a minute, land safely, and get out again. Mastered it? Okay, find a new drill, and start crashing again.

4) Does it mean that all of the above is necessary to pilot choppers with FOLK? I wouldn't say so, because from my experience, helos are not expected to do anything extremely risk during a mission. But that's why the practice is important (in my opinion): if you can do the hard stuff by challenging yourself, then the easier stuff will come much more naturally to you.

5) It is highly recommended to joke around that everyone in your helo will die when you take on a Pilot slot. If you crash, you had warned everyone. If you don't crash, you get praised. But on a more serious note, don't crash.

6) COMMUNICATE with other pilots/air elements. Communicate your altitude to other choppers, communicate that you are taking off + direction in which you are going. If another chopper is taking off and you are in the air, it is your responsibility to not be in its way. If you are on standby waiting to extract a crucial element, fly high and stay away from fire. If you are on standby but not of crucial importance, try to act as a recon helo and spot potential threats from a relatively safe altitude (~150). Communicate with your commander at all times.

Phoenix

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