I finally found the path of least resistance to getting the kind of helo missions I want to fly (given that I have yet to find any readily available for download):

1. UnPBO the original Chinook mission that came with upgrade 1.3

2. Substitute appropriate SEBNamPak2 units including UH-1D for all original "1985" units

3. Transfer whole thing over to the Vietnam-like IaTrang island map

4. Arrange units in a logical fashion:
a. Start helo with full squad of 8 on board at firebase
b. Carefully place enemy units at first hot LZ to punish slow or high altitude flying yet reward well flown profiles to get through with minimal damage
c. Place casualties needing pickup at another LZ, but reduced to a number that the UH-1D can handle with modified scripts so that victory conditions can be met

5. Edit voice files, briefings, intro, and outro to match new mission arrangements.

I still need to finish quite a bit of #5, but the mission already runs great. Once I have polished it up, I will work on adding ground fighting, a gunship escort, and ultimately support multiplayer.

Starting with someone elses mission sure does steepen the learning curve. I would never have started otherwise.

OFP/Resistance is simply the best

Nice. Drop around to keep us updated. I'd love to see that mission.

I can't get enough of those Hueys

Intro working pretty good with "Paint it Black" playing as troops board Huey and Huey flies through camera.

I still need to clean up the outro and sprinkle the terrian with NVA/VC at key locations.

Getting to fly the Huey like this is a dream come true.

Nice! Thanks for the update

This baby is almost ready for release...

With 4 patrols that each have 2 machine guns, you have to get on the ground fast or they rip up your helo and your passengers. Getting in and out without losing anyone is very difficult. Being able to come in fast and then stomp on the brakes while maintaining control to instantly land within the required area is the key to winning this mission.

As an added bonus, I added a patrol boat fighting another squad along the river so that you have something to look at on the long flight over to the first LZ. You can hang out and get some points by letting your door gunner spray them some, or you can zip right by without drawing too much attention.

I haven't added any VC at the 2nd LZ yet. Still trying to determine if the VC at the 1st LZ are too lethal (may 1/2 the number of machine guns).

I am having difficulty finishing the design of this mission because I am having too much fun playing it in its half finished state

In the process of developing a mission with a single Huey making multiple trips to ferry in more than one squad to an LZ, I got pretty good at using the ingame mission editor vice cutting and pasting other people's missions and editing the scripts by hand in wordpad. I have now demonstrated having multiple Hueys coming in formation and taking turns dropping their squads off... this looks great and is a lot of fun watching them go. Of course the helos get ripped up by machine gun fire during the whole process, but that is the price of getting to see what landing in a hot LZ is like.

One of the missions in the campaign has a similar mission... its the first helo mission.
Your in a blackhawk you fly to a port, pick up grunts fly them to hot LZ then fly back to base...... then the grunts call you in to get picked up so you gotta go back and pick em up.

Today I played my usual lunchtime OFP LAN game and we did something on those lines. Two Slicks flying with 2 full squads and a Gunship giving air support. Landing with bullets and rockets going off all over the place was quite a sight!

It was easy to setup as it was a multiplayer game and the AI only had to follow our orders. But I'm sure making the same with AI units driving the Hueys must be far more tricky

The AI sometimes makes mistakes. I have had my Huey rammed a few times. The worst part is the landing. Sometimes, the AI comes in, jams the brakes, and lands better than I do, but most of the time the AI comes to a hover and descends very slowly. It is a terrible feeling to be stuck sitting there watching your "buddies" take hits while you wait to land. The AI UH-1C gunship is hit or miss too. Sometimes it actually sees the NVA and rockets them then comes back with the miniguns. Other times it just circles around taking hits and even getting shot down. When I play the gunship, if I don't get hit I kill over half of them myself with rockets.

Overall, it never quite plays the same twice and the effect of hearing all that gunfire and all those helicopters zooming around overhead is amazing. It almost plays out like the infamous Robert Duvall Air Cav beach assault in Apocalypse Now.

The computer still seems to run it pretty fast, so I may try adding another slick and 20 more NVA. I still need to learn how to create ogg sound files. I also need to have an appropriate scoring system and endings. Right now it plays on until either all NVA within a 500 meter radius are dead or you die.

If the Strike Fighters Project 1 patch doesn't distract me too much, I may have a releasable mission by next Sunday night. I don't have any high bandwidth space where I can post it, so I guess I can email it to interested parties unless someone volunteers to host it.