Hey there! So I'm waiting for the Cobra to return because its round start and the gun is bugged. This bug might be fixed by the time you've read this but if you remember this bug then you know what I mean. I've decided to write this guide while I wait.

You've come here to dominate in a cobra right? Well good job, you've come to the right place! The goal of this guide is to get YOU to fly better and fly effectively so when I gun for YOU, you don't crash the first chance you get. You don't need a joystick to fly well, in fact i find its harder than mouse and keyboard. Skip the next part to get started.

I've played in the closed beta since wave 7. I really enjoy flying in this game infact it feels so satisfying that I feel I'm HOOKED on it. I always go combat pilot whenever available and I dominate. You probably don't believe me so there are some screenshots in my profile which show my score at the end of rounds on helicopter maps. Of course there is always a swapped sides and I do well in those too but I get most of my score in the cobra.

To begin, lets start with the basics. You've probably crashed a couple helicopters already so I'm going to quickly cover the controls and then some tips. Please don't leave after the tips :(

I use default RO2 controls with mouse and keyboard so it goes like this:
(which also means inverted flight stick or whatever)
The mouse does these controls as well, you can use the mouse with your keyboard for extra control. I personally use the mouse to aim and keyboard to assist in maneuvers.

W - Tilt down or go forwards
S - Tilt up or go backwards
A - Tilt left
D - Tilt right

Q - Yaw left
E - Yaw right

Alt - Look around. Its similar to ArmA where you can double tap to hold it and look around or hold it and then release to look back.

G - Autohover

Space - Increase collective (go up / ascend)
LCtrl OR C - Lower collective (go down / descend)

Left mouse - Fire primary armament
MMB - Fire secondary armament

The instruments:
mAGL is your height from the ground.
VSI (the arrow on the left of the centre) is the height you're gaining or losing. When landing you want this to be LOW but not too low. The needle at the centre is not gaining or losing. There's also number on the bottom.
Collective is basically whether or not you want your bird to go up or down. You can control this and it defaults to 3 when flying and 0 on the ground.

This video is also handy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIN47jnyTgw

This is going to be a long list and I'm probably going to reiterate myself throughout the guide so here's the section where most people come for.

Cobra

• To use the gun as the co-pilot, mouse wheel up.
  
• The co-pilot can fly the chopper if the main pilot is KIA. Just scroll back. You don't get your meters on the bottom though but that shouldn't be an issue since all you want to do is land.
  
• Your MMB is EXTRA deadly. It fires 20mm rounds, its NOT a machinegun.
  
• Hit T to aim better. More on this later.

Loach / Littlebird

• Your co-pilot acts as a second life for you. They can't fire the weapon though.
  
• The Littlebird automatically spots enemies in a small range. That means if you press T, you can see all the enemies and bring your machine gun on them.
  
• Work with the Cobra!!

Huey

• If you left-click, you can tell all passengers to get out. It shows up as big text in the top middle of their screen.
  
• Try not to crash this thing when you're full of passengers. The best way to do that is to look at my landing guide.
  
• Somewhat related, you can press apostrophe ( ' ) to redeploy out of a Huey. Great for when you realize that the Pilot is a tomato.

As for some general tips.

• Don't raise collective until both needles are in the green zone. You gain RPM faster that way.
  
• Engine speed is reduced when you're out of bounds.
  
• Learn to fly in the Huey. Learn to fight in the Littlebird and become a God in the Cobra.

Some common etiquette tips mainly for playing as a combat pilot.

• DON'T leave without a co-pilot in the Cobra if your squad is full. Wait for the guy.
  
• Take turns piloting the Cobra. If both of you want to fly, make sure you tell your co-pilot. Don't hog the Cobra! Remember: The other pilot might be better than you and you might learn a thing or two.
  
• Never be a ♥♥♥♥ to your fellow pilots. Everyone crash lands and everyone dies to AAA missiles. Sometimes they're impossible to avoid. It sucks.
  
• Pick up your co-pilot or main pilot if one of you is KIA. That means you return to base (RTB) immediately. It sucks waiting.
  
• Always FORGIVE if you guys crash or get out of bounds killed. The system is still needs fixing in this aspect since its usually not the pilot's fault that you guys somehow crash landed out of bounds and got killed.
  
• DON'T learn to fly in the Cobra. Seriously, thats what the Loach and the Huey is for. You're doing a great disservice to your team but crashing every Cobra.
  
• (DEBATABLE) Crash the first Cobra. The gun is always bugged on the first Cobra. Once again: It sucks waiting.

Alright starting from the centre you have the most important gauge. VSI tells and its needle tells you how much altitude you're gaining or losing. You don't want to lose too much. The dot in the center tells you where your bird wants to go. So you can go in the opposite direction for a moment to stabalize and AGL is your distance above ground. Need to be below 75 to dodge SAMs. It also tells you your speed in knots which is very helpful.

The metre on the left is your RPM. You don't want to increase collective until both needles are in the green zone. Or else you'll drift on the ground and possibly hit something. Especially on Song Be.

The metre on the right is basically where your nose is pointing. Useful for when you're doing landings so you dont go too fast and maintain level.


In regards to damage, there are 3 parts that can be damaged. Rotor, engine, tail rotor. If at any point one of the modules is destroyed then you are very screwed. Although I've seen landings at base with a destroyed tailrotor. It is VERY hard. For minor damage, see the list below.

Rotor
Symptoms: Harder to gain altitude, more frequent loss of VSI (altitude) when doing high speed maneuvers.
Severity: Low
Recommendation: Use the rest of your rocket ammo and RTB.

Engine:
Symptoms: Very easy to 'sink' or descend. Very hard to gain altitude. You'll usually be losing it very fast so don't go high speed and lose altitude because it'll be hard to recover.
Severity: High
Recommendation: RTB immediately.

Tail rotor
Symptoms: Reduced yaw control, you'll notice that you start to spin unless you try and control it.
Severity: High

Hueys are basically the United States Forces (USF) mobile spawn point and helicopter training vehicle. You can tactically insert (heh) troops behind enemy lines. Its a very effective tactic when done correctly. Its also a great way to lose a bunch of tickets when you crash land a chopper full of troops. I'm guilty of having done this a couple times.

As a Huey pilot, your main goal is to transport and tactically insert squad leaders so your spawn point becomes another spawn point. Get it? Teamwork.

What I mean by helicopter training vehicle is that if you have no experience flying then the Huey is a great place to start. The Loach is a great place to start too but Huey's teach you how to land which is a very important skill.

How do you land effectively?

Well there are two ways. The easiest way is to hit G and then lower collective using LCtrl / C. You could go in fast and then hit G and start lowering collective until you hit the ground. Use alt to look around while landing. This is the easiest way and also the most dangerous since its slow but hey, its easy.

The second way is what I call a hook turn. There's probably a better name for it but what you do is basically you decide on a direction to turn and you do a 180. It kills your speed and it lowers you a little bit. Then all you need to do is stabilize, minor adjustments by tapping W/S and Q/E then land by lowering collective.

The hook turn is a little hard to describe so I'll add images and/or videos soon. Try doing a practice run, go fast and then do a 180 using A and S or D and S depending on your preferred direction. You'll notice that it kills your speed so you can easily land.

I use a mix of the two when I'm rearming back at base. Although the first method is definitely easier and safer.

Alright so the Loach is up next. The Loach is also a great way to learn how to fly since you're usually flying solo. The Loach's special ability is that it auto-spots enemies and tunnels within its range, I'd say its about 150-200 meters. Which means you should hit T always to bring up the HUD so you can see enemies and bring your machine gun on them. The other special is that the Commander can spawn in it and use it as a mobile viewing/command platform, mark artillery targets and use the radio on the Loach while he's on it. Although I rarely see Commanders do this.

In addition to the above, the Loach is very fast although lightly armed. I believe it has the same engine as the cobra but with much less weight. Its much more maneuverable and forgiving than the Cobra so learn to fly in it.

As a Loach pilot, you should work with your Cobra. When your Cobra is in the air, you should be in the air spotting targets for your Cobra. Use your machine gun on enemies but watch out for the counter-fire if you stay still too long. Learn how to aim in the Loach because it'll ultimately help you in the Cobra. Use Q and E to make minor adjustments when you're going slow so you can mow down enemies. Use your mouse or if you prefer, use the keyboard to aim. I prefer to use the mouse to aim and the keyboard to fly but thats my personal preferences. Figure out yours!

Oh and if your Commander is in your helicopter, do your best to stop shooting stuff and focus on staying alive for as long as possible to build some trust between you and your Commander. Communicate with him!


Now the main part that you came for. Dodging triple A or anti-aircraft artillery. To first learn how to dodge it, one must know how it works. The enemy commander can call in AAA every 3 minutes + a couple seconds it takes to call it in. It lasts for about 30-45 seconds, exact numbers I'm not sure and any aircraft above 75 meters gets an auto lock. If there are more aircraft in the air then the lock takes longer to complete. If you're the only one then you're pretty screwed. At best you have about 8-10 seconds, at worst you have about 5 seconds.

The best way to dodge triple AAA is to obviously break for the ground. That means tilting down or up and losing a ton of altitude FAST. Be careful thought as you might not be able to regain control of the helicopter after a bit. You want to tilt back up at around 85-80m depending on the speed you're going but it takes some experience to figure out what the best time is.

Another tip I always suggest is to find high ground. When you're dodging AAA always try and find some high ground. If you can go over it then you're automatically unlocked so long as you stay near the high ground. Hills are a great place to break for, on AnLao Valley, there are high plateaus which help. Especially the one near Charlie.

Once you make it to high ground, just play safe and plan your next move and stay low. I usually RTB when triple AAA is called.

The Cobra is a two-seat attack helicopter. The main pilot gets 21 rockets and a lot of ammunition for his 20mm main gun. The co-pilot gets 50 rounds of HE grenades which have a huge drop and a machine gun.

As I've mentioned before in the tips section, the co-pilot can take control of flying if the main pilot is KIA. Just scroll out of the main gun. Also make sure to hit T to see the tactical HUD and SEE the locations of the enemies along with their tunnels. VERY IMPORTANT to be an effective Cobra pilot.

As a Cobra pilot, your main job is to destroy enemy tunnels and anyone on AA emplacements so other aircraft can fly freely. Work with your Loach and wait for the recon plane to reveal enemy tunnels so you can launch a couple rockets at 'em. Its also the best way to pick up kills since enemies will still spawn while the rockets are in mid-flight to their destination (lol). Tunnels are also worth 2 kills in points so there's that too. A good Cobra pilot destroys every tunnel they see and contributes to the team IMMENSELY by doing so.

Conserve rocket ammunition and use your MMB as your main weapon instead since you have ample ammo there. You can destroy tunnels with MMB but its harder and you won't get those sweet spawn kills.

As the co-pilot. You should know that the markings on the left that are grouped up are for the grenade launcher and the bigger markings are for the machine gun. Feels like it should be the other way around but thats how I've used them. Disclaimer: I might be wrong about this. Please post in the comments if I am.


Now on the topic on how to fly well. The best way is to learn the instruments a bit. Its really simplified and I'm not quite sure the gist of it. The main thing to keep an eye out for is your distance to the ground, which determines if you can do a hook turn and dodge AAA. Keep an eye out on that dot in the center screen. That dot is telling you where the bird wants to go if you suddenly decide to let go of the controls. You want to that dot to be in the center so you can yaw (Q/E) effectively. The best way to stabilize is to let go of the controls although you can tilt in the opposite direction a little bit and fix it that way.

When you're flying, think of having a plate on your head and that plate always wants to bring you up. That means you never want that plate going sideways because that does not get you to go up, rather it brings to crashing into the ground into a glorious fiery death. That being said, never tilt left/right so much that the rotor blades are 90 degrees to the ground. Thats a great way to crash and burn.

When tilting down and up. Minor adjustments makes huge changes. So keep that in mind, especially when landing although you should've learned that already. Tilting a lot will also kill your altitude. You'll notice this when you try to do very complex maneuvers and don't give your bird a chance to stabilize. Also DON'T adjust collective when doing maneuvers, it destabilizes you and it screws up your maneuvers.

When about to strafe an area. You want to strafe the AA guns first if there are any. Always keep an eye out for them and learn their locations. The AA guns are usually on the location of the objective marker. For example, on Hill337 they're on C,D and E. Strafe those locations first before strafing any others. On AnLao valley, its on the tip of the little peninsula to the right of C and in-front of A. On Song Be, they're on B and D. I probably missed some but you get the point. LEARN the locations of the AA guns and strafe them with no mercy.

On the topic of AA guns. If you're getting shot by one, its best to start evasive maneveurs even if you feel it isn't doing anything. The impact of the bullet affects your bird slightly, more so in the Loach. In addition, the parts on your helicopter could be damaged and pilots could be killed. Yellow engine means it'll be hard to gain lift while descending goes extra fast. Yellow rotor blades does something but I don't know what. I think it has something to do with RPM.

I think I've covered everything here so far.

I think I wanted to teach. There are still some other secrets that I'm going to keep to myself but they're mostly dirty secrets. You'll probably figure these out by yourself soon enough.

If there's anything I missed or that you want me to add, please comment below and request for them. I'll be adding videos and images shortly to assist in the guide to help you become the God of the battlefield.

Please thumbs up and rate 5 stars for visibility. So when you gun for a pilot, they won't crash after the first strafing run!