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Be sure to use Hover Hold and Altitude Hold. The keycard incorrectly identifies the '-' and '=' keys as only working in the Gunner's cockpit. They work fine from any of the Pilot cockpits and are critically important if you intend to run the weapons system from the Pilot's cockpit. Setting the Altitude Hold will permit you to continue to be a moving target for enemy anti-aircraft fire while you target them on the move!

Fig. 4. ORT View

Second sim, and radically different from the first in my view, is flying in the Gunner's cockpit. The Pilot flies the waypoints that you have set in the Mission Planning screen. The placement of waypoints, helicopter speed and tactics, and action at the waypoint are adjustable on the fly from the Comms menu or by toggling out to the Map screen. This is the most enjoyable alternative for me to fly this sim. There is a reason that most modern helicopters are designed with a crew of two. The complexity of flying a helicopter combined with operating a modern weapons array is more than most individuals can master. Many sims have successfully modeled the dual cockpit arrangement of modern helicopters. Every sim before Gunship! takes the approach of allowing the player to toggle between the two cockpits while still requiring the player to control the helicopter's flight. The Gunner has two views. The first, named oddly enough, the Gunner's cockpit looks very similar to the Pilot's cockpit. I do not get the feeling I am sitting behind someone else except in the Tiger. Moving the joystick controls your Point of View (POV). I find this quite awkward and have remapped it to my POV hat using my HOTAS software. None of the keyboard mapping can be remapped in Gunship!. You are only responsible for weapons control and defensive countermeasures in the Gunner's cockpit. The AI Pilot flies the helicopter using the waypoints.

HINT: A hidden feature and useful training aid is to switch to the ORT view from either the Pilot view or External View. Immediately press 'W' to turn on the Autopilot. You may now watch the AI Gunner scan for and lock on to targets. You can view the effects of the Pilot's commands to the Gunner. The Autopilot AI will fly the helicopter.

The waypoint settings, found on Communications menu and the Mission Planning screen, offer a tremendous level of control over the Pilot's actions and flying style. Again, and unfortunately, the manual really only touches on each of these settings briefly. A brief guide to mission planning would have been welcome here. All the settings for each waypoint can be changed on the fly from the Communications menu (or by toggling back to the map screen). Using the Communications menu can be a bit challenging but provided you the opportunity to stay in the Gunner's cockpit and maintain situational awareness. The first time you get shot down while trying to adjust the waypoint setting via the map screen will probably by the last time you try it. I suggest calling the navigation display up on one of your MFDs for reference, tell the Pilot to Break for Cover, and use the Altitude Down key to really get the helicopter down behind some trees, and then adjust waypoints.

Fig. 5. Mission Planning Window

This brings me to the four commands that, to the best of my knowledge are broken. Turn Left and Turn Right are certainly two of the most important commands for the Gunner to control the AI Pilot. Pressing the appropriate keys to turn infrequently turns the helicopter and the Pilot often responds with the incorrect response (press '[' for Turn Left and the Pilot replies, "Turning right." more often than not.) The other two commands that either do not work or are too obtuse for me to figure out are 'Center View' and 'Fire at Will'. The Center View does not appear to do anything. The Fire at Will command only appears to allow the Gunner to fire the cannon as I have never seen him use any other weapons without my input.