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I thought I'd post this just to round things out a bit. 
I) As an attack helicopter, you are a flowing angel of death. Without a gunner, you are good, but With a gunner, you are even more powerful. The gunner has not only the most powerful missiles in the game, but an amazingly powerful machine gun turret to work with. Always pick up a gunner if you have a chance.
1) Your first job, as posted in other threads, is to stay alive for the sake of your gunner. There are several threats that you have to look out for:
a) Your primary threat is ground based AA. The easiest way to beat this is to simply release your flares and move out of there fast by nosing down. Getting behind a hill is good, but sometimes really good AA gunners can shoot their missiles over hills... no good. If the opportunity presents itself, you can always try to strafe the AA emplacement... though the next guy will jump into the turret just as soon as they've seen the last guy get killed. Remember, infantry troops HATE cobras and they will do anything to kill you. I also suggest encouraging your gunner to attack an active AA site before you get to it. Hover, point your sights and the AA, and if you have voip, suggest that he blow it up.
b) Planes. Planes like to think of Cobras as easy targets. They love to fly in a circle shooting at your over and over and over and over and over and over, thus making you ineffective. If you are over open water, the best thing to do is fly low. I mean 3-5m off the ground. I'm not sure why this works, but it does. Once you get to a target area, planes aren't so bad because you are moving around to much. You also will have more trees, buildings and hills to hide behind. The biggest risk here is getting rammed. A pilot assumes that he's going to get a free 2-1 kill ratio trade when he rams you. If you don't have a gunner, let him do it, but try to make him do it head on. That way you can try and get the lucky 2 rocket hits needed to take them down. If you do have a gunner, ignore the missiles he's shooting at you and assume HE is the missile. Dodge accordingly.
c) Tanks like to take pot shots at you from the ground. This is pretty easy to avoid if you follow good target allocation and strafing tactics. I will discuss this later.
d) LAVs/jeeps/aa. These have become a huge pain in the behind. Those machine guns will take you down fast and it's really hard to avoid them or figure out where they are shooting from. I like to do a dive, then follow that by running away low.
e) trees and hills. Your enemy places trees and hills in random places. Some of them are invisible. There is nothing you can do about this and if your gunner gives you a hard time about hitting one, TK him and get a new gunner. :laugh:
Maneuvers -
1) If you want to follow rule 1...
a) The U pattern. Imagine a snowboarder on a half-pipe. That's what we want to make the helicopter do. This is a great move for dodging missiles without losing escape speed. Press the left rudder button (A) while rolling the mouse to the right. You will start to go sideways without actually turning. When you get close to 90 degrees, roll the mouse the other way and hit the other rudder. Keep going back and forth and you'll get a nice weave going.
b) Barrel Roll - Everyone's favorite. There are 2 kinds of barrel rolls, the power roll and the finesse roll. To do a power roll, get up to about 64m, move the mouse to the left (thus rolling left). After you've gone about 45 degrees, press the right rudder button (D). This will keep you from losing altitude. Once you are all the way over, level off. Make sure to keep your nose down in the last half of the turn or you will start going backwards.
To do a finesse roll, it takes a little more time to get the feel. Start by rolling the plane in a U pattern at about 40m off the ground (I've done this at 22m or lower, but it is not easy) When you have momentum, flip it over the same way you would in a power roll. You need less altitude for this because flying the U patter increases the starting momentum of your roll.
This is great stuff for dodging missiles and weeding out crappy gunners (they will bail).
c) Turning around objects- The best way I've found to turn around large buildings is to do sort of a sideways decline. The best example of this is the big oil tank at the MEC base on Gulf of Oman. Start out hovering in front of it about 2/3 of the way up. Then slowly roll right, rudder left, and pull the nose down (not down towards the ground, down in relative to your direction). This will cause your plane to turn the corner while covering the best angle of attack. If you see and enemey to the outside, you can come out of it using the second half of the U maneuver we talked about earlier.
d) strafing- The trick to a good strafe is to plan on hitting the vehicle in the side, not the top... but if you are low for too long, you risk catching a tank shell. Sooooo...
Good pattern, or 'the skateboard ramp' -
\_tank_/ ....You want to hit them in the middle of the bottom of your skateboad ramp.
Bad pattern, the nose dive -
|
tank___/ ...You won't make it back up. This does work sometimes, but you are more likely to hit one of those invisible trees (haha).
Bad pattern, going in low -
\_________tank_/ ...Again, coming in low works if you are coming up behind someone. It also keeps the planes away... But there is less dodging you can do, and you are likely to get hit by a tank.
d) Where to hunt-
1) On a supply line - Did your team just take a hard fought base? There is no doubt that the other team will be counter attacking along the main road with tanks and APCs. If you have a gunner, you can sit aways away and let him missile everyone, otherwise strafe them. A helicopter can END a huge counter attack like this.
2) Spawn camping... nuff said.
3) An occupied base - If you have a gunner, orbit around the base by rolling left and ruddering right. It's the same as turning around a building, but not as extreme. If you don't have a gunner, do the skateboard ramp strafe over and over from different directions.
I have a ton of other tips and tricks that I will add at random below as I think of them. There are a lot. Thanks also for any feedback.
__________________________________________________ ___________
-Dogfighting (I can't believe I forgot this
) - If the enemy chopper comes up behind you, nose up hard. With practice, you can get it almost straight up without crashing and still pull it off. This will make him fly past you and put you about 5 - 15 meters above hime.
If you come in behind them, don't take stupid shots. Wait until you can accurately open up the entire 15 rockets on him all at once. No need to make it a hard fight.
If you come in head to head, try and stay about 5-20m above him so he cant use the TVM or machine gun. Use your communication rose to "spot" him (then if he gets behind you, you can see him on your radar). When shooting rockets at him in this situation, shoot one to get a fix on where you need to put your rockets (lag, speed, etc can ruin this), then unload 4 or 5 at a time when you know where to put them. Other than that it's just a case of turn and burn.
-On taking out good fighter pilot - There's nothing good to do here, but this is a little better than getting killed all the time. Hide out by his base and spawn camp until he dies, then keep spawn camping and blowing up the jets before he can get into them. It's not perfect, but at least you get some revenge.
-Not getting shot down by tanks - If a tank is shooting at you, gain altitude and take a sweep at him from another angle. They cant shoot straight up, and their turrets turn slow.
I) As an attack helicopter, you are a flowing angel of death. Without a gunner, you are good, but With a gunner, you are even more powerful. The gunner has not only the most powerful missiles in the game, but an amazingly powerful machine gun turret to work with. Always pick up a gunner if you have a chance.
1) Your first job, as posted in other threads, is to stay alive for the sake of your gunner. There are several threats that you have to look out for:
a) Your primary threat is ground based AA. The easiest way to beat this is to simply release your flares and move out of there fast by nosing down. Getting behind a hill is good, but sometimes really good AA gunners can shoot their missiles over hills... no good. If the opportunity presents itself, you can always try to strafe the AA emplacement... though the next guy will jump into the turret just as soon as they've seen the last guy get killed. Remember, infantry troops HATE cobras and they will do anything to kill you. I also suggest encouraging your gunner to attack an active AA site before you get to it. Hover, point your sights and the AA, and if you have voip, suggest that he blow it up.
b) Planes. Planes like to think of Cobras as easy targets. They love to fly in a circle shooting at your over and over and over and over and over and over, thus making you ineffective. If you are over open water, the best thing to do is fly low. I mean 3-5m off the ground. I'm not sure why this works, but it does. Once you get to a target area, planes aren't so bad because you are moving around to much. You also will have more trees, buildings and hills to hide behind. The biggest risk here is getting rammed. A pilot assumes that he's going to get a free 2-1 kill ratio trade when he rams you. If you don't have a gunner, let him do it, but try to make him do it head on. That way you can try and get the lucky 2 rocket hits needed to take them down. If you do have a gunner, ignore the missiles he's shooting at you and assume HE is the missile. Dodge accordingly.
c) Tanks like to take pot shots at you from the ground. This is pretty easy to avoid if you follow good target allocation and strafing tactics. I will discuss this later.
d) LAVs/jeeps/aa. These have become a huge pain in the behind. Those machine guns will take you down fast and it's really hard to avoid them or figure out where they are shooting from. I like to do a dive, then follow that by running away low.
e) trees and hills. Your enemy places trees and hills in random places. Some of them are invisible. There is nothing you can do about this and if your gunner gives you a hard time about hitting one, TK him and get a new gunner. :laugh:
Maneuvers -
1) If you want to follow rule 1...
a) The U pattern. Imagine a snowboarder on a half-pipe. That's what we want to make the helicopter do. This is a great move for dodging missiles without losing escape speed. Press the left rudder button (A) while rolling the mouse to the right. You will start to go sideways without actually turning. When you get close to 90 degrees, roll the mouse the other way and hit the other rudder. Keep going back and forth and you'll get a nice weave going.
b) Barrel Roll - Everyone's favorite. There are 2 kinds of barrel rolls, the power roll and the finesse roll. To do a power roll, get up to about 64m, move the mouse to the left (thus rolling left). After you've gone about 45 degrees, press the right rudder button (D). This will keep you from losing altitude. Once you are all the way over, level off. Make sure to keep your nose down in the last half of the turn or you will start going backwards.
To do a finesse roll, it takes a little more time to get the feel. Start by rolling the plane in a U pattern at about 40m off the ground (I've done this at 22m or lower, but it is not easy) When you have momentum, flip it over the same way you would in a power roll. You need less altitude for this because flying the U patter increases the starting momentum of your roll.
This is great stuff for dodging missiles and weeding out crappy gunners (they will bail).
c) Turning around objects- The best way I've found to turn around large buildings is to do sort of a sideways decline. The best example of this is the big oil tank at the MEC base on Gulf of Oman. Start out hovering in front of it about 2/3 of the way up. Then slowly roll right, rudder left, and pull the nose down (not down towards the ground, down in relative to your direction). This will cause your plane to turn the corner while covering the best angle of attack. If you see and enemey to the outside, you can come out of it using the second half of the U maneuver we talked about earlier.
d) strafing- The trick to a good strafe is to plan on hitting the vehicle in the side, not the top... but if you are low for too long, you risk catching a tank shell. Sooooo...
Good pattern, or 'the skateboard ramp' -
\_tank_/ ....You want to hit them in the middle of the bottom of your skateboad ramp.
Bad pattern, the nose dive -
|
tank___/ ...You won't make it back up. This does work sometimes, but you are more likely to hit one of those invisible trees (haha).
Bad pattern, going in low -
\_________tank_/ ...Again, coming in low works if you are coming up behind someone. It also keeps the planes away... But there is less dodging you can do, and you are likely to get hit by a tank.
d) Where to hunt-
1) On a supply line - Did your team just take a hard fought base? There is no doubt that the other team will be counter attacking along the main road with tanks and APCs. If you have a gunner, you can sit aways away and let him missile everyone, otherwise strafe them. A helicopter can END a huge counter attack like this.
2) Spawn camping... nuff said.
3) An occupied base - If you have a gunner, orbit around the base by rolling left and ruddering right. It's the same as turning around a building, but not as extreme. If you don't have a gunner, do the skateboard ramp strafe over and over from different directions.
I have a ton of other tips and tricks that I will add at random below as I think of them. There are a lot. Thanks also for any feedback.
__________________________________________________ ___________
-Dogfighting (I can't believe I forgot this
) - If the enemy chopper comes up behind you, nose up hard. With practice, you can get it almost straight up without crashing and still pull it off. This will make him fly past you and put you about 5 - 15 meters above hime. If you come in behind them, don't take stupid shots. Wait until you can accurately open up the entire 15 rockets on him all at once. No need to make it a hard fight.
If you come in head to head, try and stay about 5-20m above him so he cant use the TVM or machine gun. Use your communication rose to "spot" him (then if he gets behind you, you can see him on your radar). When shooting rockets at him in this situation, shoot one to get a fix on where you need to put your rockets (lag, speed, etc can ruin this), then unload 4 or 5 at a time when you know where to put them. Other than that it's just a case of turn and burn.
-On taking out good fighter pilot - There's nothing good to do here, but this is a little better than getting killed all the time. Hide out by his base and spawn camp until he dies, then keep spawn camping and blowing up the jets before he can get into them. It's not perfect, but at least you get some revenge.
-Not getting shot down by tanks - If a tank is shooting at you, gain altitude and take a sweep at him from another angle. They cant shoot straight up, and their turrets turn slow.
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