BF2S Forums How long did it take to really learn to fly Jet or Chopper?

tbh, its not hard.

Just go on an empty server and practice... shooting stationary targets etc

How long did it take me? Well i could fly in BFV and DC so... a few seconds lo learn to fly in bf2

don't go into a ranked server and hop in a chopper with someone and not know how to fly, nothing makes me angry than having someone who has never flown before push everyone out of the way to fly or gun. practice first on single player. also being on teamspeak/ventrillo with the person your flying with helps alot.

ell the jet didn't take very long, after a few hour i knew how to know how to fly it perfectly, and where my bombs would land(Not perfect but not to bad either), and im still learning for not taking to many risks

and as far as the HELI   I was born in one :p it took me a minute to figure everything out, and at that time noone was able to shoot a good TV missle :p
When somebody figured out how to gun I also got very gunner friendly,

Just practive in an ampty server with someone who's more experienced then you are so he can watch you and give you some advice,,,  When I wanted to know where my bombs would drop a mate of me got inside a tank and told me if my bombs where dropped to early or to late.

.... And for flying I use a joystick,,, for the chopper the keyboard mouse combo works just great

Last edited by kn0ckahh (2006-09-28 08:26:41)

THanks for the comments.  What controls do you use?  Keyboard, mouse, joystick?

Vexikuri wrote:

THanks for the comments.  What controls do you use?  Keyboard, mouse, joystick?

Keyboard/mouse

A good solid week with at least an hour a day on one or the other.

Clearly you don't know how to fly now so hearing it's easy if you flew in DC is not going to help.  I did not know how to fly in DC...at best I could use the jets/choppers to get from a to b and bail out...but even that was iffy.  Some people like the keyboard/mouse some prefer joystick.  I honestly couldn't fly to save my life with anything other than a joystick.  About five months ago I finally got one.

I spent about an hour a day on empty servers just practicing flying choppers.  Getting from point a to b, going full throttle to a dead stop and hover, different manouvers, flying with a friend to set up gunner shots etc.  I did this everyday for about 5 days.  I'm still not great but if no one else wants to fly, I can do it in a pinch.

But once you learn it, it's pretty easy.  Jets I think are cake to fly and fairly easy to hit targets...you will need to practice bombing with the f18/f35/mig29/j10 (basically all of the non "bomber" jets).  These jets have only two bombs at a time and you have to be pretty accurate to hit your targets.  The "bomber" jets (f15/su34/su??) have five "dummy" bombs...so called because a dummy could drop them and still hit the target.  Air2Air battles are something that I still need help with so I will offer no advice there.

Good luck to you and just practice in empty servers or in single player.

Keyboard and mouse is more stable i find than joystick... just pump up ur sensitivity (mines 8 in game) and u can manuever like a joystick..

Sorted.

I had to commit to heli for a solid week.  First half was spent on single player servers just to learn maneuvering.  The last half was playing on small live servers and my KD and SPM took a bit of a hit.  But when it clicks for you, its awesome. 

Here are some tips I learned and forgive me as they've probably  been posted elsewhere here:

1. CALIBRATE - this one is so freaking obvious, but make sure you calibrate your joystick in Windows before starting BF2.  If you get in a heli and start spinning immediately and crash, that's the problem. 

2a. SLOW CONTROL RESPONSE - the next hardest thing to learn is that a heli doesn't turn like any other vehicle in the game.  A movement you make on the joystick takes a couple seconds to cause an effect on the heli.  So what happens is you overcompensate - either with the direction you want to move or against it. 

You want to bank left - you don't see an immediate effect so you bank even more.  Suddenly you're flying nearly upside down and you crash.  Just by putting time in you learn to make moves in the heli in ANTICIPATION of where you need to go before you get there. 

2b. DON'T PANIC - because control response is slow you tend to panic when threats come.  AA is locked on you and you just want to get away immediately.  You CAN'T.  Stay calm.  Fire the flares and dive out of that situation and find cover.  Don't panic and fly straight UP.  You will die.  Don't try to take out the AA.  Odds are good you will die.  You need to go low, find ground cover, and get below radar.

3. STABILIZE the Heli with NO LAND REFERENCES - the last hard thing to pick up is you are so used to using ground references for knowing if you are level or not.  If you get too high and the fog shrouds everything, you may think you're hovering when in fact you are flying backwards or upside down and crash.  There is a hover indicator in the middle of your HUD.  When the two circles stay inside each other, you are hovering.  Practice turning, diving, everything and then stopping on a dime to hover.  The HUD will help.  And learn not to use the land to figure out your position. 

Once you get the maneuvering down, firing the rockets on targets is very easy.  I finally acheived the coveted Cone of Death maneuver where you circle a target pointing down and firing in a concentrated area.  Once you get to that point, you don't want to use any other vehicle.  It's too freaking fun now.

I think there are 2 main points to flying either well.

1. Prior gaming experience.  Most good pilot's of either will admit to flying in other games.

2. Practice.  New pilots so very underestimate this one.  I cannot express how important loading up single player or creating local is.  I have like 153 hours or something like that in a jet, and probably no less than 20-40 hours logged in single player.  Practicing on a live server leads to frustration because more times than not you're killed by someone with more experience before you can get any real good practice in.


Edit: I just realized i didnt answer the OP question.  Time wise i'm not sure, but i went through stages.  Hours 1-5 i spent crashing, Hours 5-15 i spent in the air avoiding deaths and kills(just flying around not knowing how to kill anything, but learning to avoid being killed), then 15-40 i would say i mastered flying jets.  But then i had to go back to stage 2 when 1.3 came out and i took a haitus from the game.

Last edited by RasorX (2006-09-28 09:02:47)

URE_DED: That was a very nice description on what you need to learn. I agree on everything. I´ve been flying for 54 hours now,and I'm not even close to being really good,but i manage. I´ve learned to do all the basic tricks like loops,dives,quick turns and have developed my own sets of tactics that i use for various aspects of the combat.
I use keyboard for my Helli flying,its the only thing that works for me,and sometimes it works gooood;)

Well when I first bought the game, the blackhawks used to fucking OWN. Back then I used a keyboard. When they nerfed them, I bought a joystick (nothing to do with nerfed blackhawks btw), Got really good with that, My joystick broke in January, so I've been flying helos with the mouse since then. The mouse is easily the best way to go for a heli. Anyone who thinks the joystick is better, maybe you should try using a mouse, I've used all 3 methods, and mouse is most definitely the best.


As for jets, I'ved tried all three methods, I ended up using a joystick in combination with my keyboard (for throttle/rudder/other keyboard buttons) Been using a joystick for jets since August, got my K up from 3.2 to almost 5.0 since then. (thats late august btw)