CHOPPERGIRL

People ask me if I am really a girl? I don't know, what do you think?

My official answer: "No, I'm really a chopper"

In real life, I'm probably just another nobody in the middle of nowhere...
but in my dreams, I'm a most deadly ferocious chopper pilot.

Once he limped back home on one engine in a P-38, once parachuted out of his P-39 Aircobra which augered in in the Australia outback north of Charters Towers (Queensland) and had to follow a stream out of the outback to a cattle ranch and get a ride back to base, and once he had to jump out of a burning plane on the runway. I'm sure he shot up a lot of Zeros and lots of ground targets because that's what P38s totally rock at, but he doesn't talk about that. He loved the Lightning, it was one hella fast plane, and you know CHOPPERGIRL is down with that. Walking is for grunts, and CHOPPERGIRL's got the need for speed.

My grandfather actually has an appearance as a guest narrator in the movie Injury Slight, Please Advise. This movie is a recreation of the story about his flight commander Sully, who crashed in the jungle in New Guinea. My grandfather was his wingman and searched for him from the air after he crashed.

As far as I'm concerned my grandfather has just as many interesting stories, however, I guess they made the movie about Sully because his plane is still sitting in the jungle and they actually made a trek to find it, which you can see on the website and in the movie, sitting in jungles of New Guinea!

The plane is actually sitting on dry ground in a low spot, but it had been raining a lot before they made the trek to see it and the area were it sat was a bit flooded. Kind of makes it look like a alligator lurking in the water in this photo. A P-38, just kind of sitting there on the ground for 50 years. Only in jungles of New Guinea is this possible... in America such a thing would be snapped up like a prize by collectors.

How cool is that... because Sully crashed a plane in the jungle where it remained untouched for all these years, I get to see an identical P-38 of what my grandfather flew, and flew side by side with! Check out the trailer and the links on the movie's website. The P-38 was a kickass gunship, fast, and devastating against ground targets with its forward firing cannon and 50 calibers, just like the gunship in the game.

My grandfather's pilot card, and membership in the "Caterpillar Club" for bailing out of a P-39 in WW2 and being saved by silk parachute.

I however, got my love of flying and combat from neither of them and none of that.

My love of flying came from three plastic dollar store Sopwith biplanes someone bought me when I was just a few years old. Two were pink and lime green, and the third was coolest, it was orange and yellow. I'd swoop them around me like I was flying, they were so beautiful like dragonflies, and I'd imagine myself in them. I have a picture, but nothing more left of this memory, and I search for these planes everywhere to own them again, but can never find them. Its sad.

P-38 Lighting - my grandfather's favorite because it was wicked fast
This model above is painted with D-day stripes for the European theater D-Day landing

How I got my name

I picked my nickname out why flying Hueys in the BF2 demo. I was getting bored with the shooting up, and what I really loved to do was fly, so I'd rush to get the Huey and would like shuttle grunts back and forth from the aircraft carrier to shore, or fly low through the jungle. I'd call this "Choppergirl Air" and like post funny messages like "Thank you for flying Choppergirl Air!" and "The Stewardess will be with you shortly!". The Huey rocked, it was like quintessential Vietnam. The Bird is the Word. It flew like a tub but who cared. I'd come in low and hot into the LZ through the jungle, and park it on a dime.

When I moved over to BF2142, I wanted my name in Orange so I had to put some code in the clan tag, that left a residual "C" behind. I had to think up and add some letters to hide the "C" that was less than a 5 letter word to squeeze it into the clan tag. I thought up a lot of words that began with "C" (crazy, cool, etc), and finally chose COBRA. Not sure why I did, but later on when I learned my grandfather flew for some outfit called "Cobra Squadron", I was like holy cow, how super cool is that. Serendipitous. Yes, I'm defiantly a Cobra then. And what's ultimately cool is that's the best way to attack ground targets with the gunship, to strike out of nowhere with everything you got, and then high-tail it out of there... preferably behind some natural cover as fast as possible... strike like a cobra and then be "gone".

Not to mention the first attack helicopter was called the AH-1 Cobra and built around the Huey turbine engine. All attack helicopters are pretty much descended from it, and I flew them in BF2 as well. There's an old one actually parked about 20 miles away from me on a military base.

"Cobra" also helps differential me because there are a lot of motorcycle chicas and motorcycle shops on the net that use the word "choppergirl", but there is only one "cobra choppergirl". Later I stumbled across the movie Tank girl, which Choppergirl is down with. Makes sense. Tank girl. Chopper girl. Someday they'll do a movie about me, I'm sure of it. My life is just too super cool.

I now run a BF2142 demo game server called CHOPPERGIRL's AIRWAR. You can play on it for free. Download it HERE.

My Gunship

This is the aircraft I fly in the game. Its called a gunship, but I call it a chopper. Its kind of a futuristic hovercraft version of an attack helicopter, using VTOL thrust instead of helicopter blades to keep it airborne and move it about. I prefer the PAC gunship as pictures above, because it has a prettier color scheme than the EU gunship, which is sort of a dark gun metal black.

People complain about one gunship being superior to another, with different characteristics, but I ignore all differences and fly them both the same with no thought. As far as I'm concerned they are identical weapons to me in combat: they both fly, they both shoot missles, and they both shoot TV guided missles. That's all I care about in combat. Everything else is irrelevant. If it can shoot anything I will use it.

Most combat aircraft have their strength and weaknesses compared to what the enemy is fielding in the sky, so you have to learn your aircraft's strengths and your enemy's aircraft's weaknesses, and steer combat into a situation where your strengths play to your advantage and avoid being at a serious and fatal disadvantage because of your aircraft's weaknesses. But in the game, both aircraft are so closely matched its irrelevant and anyone that whines otherwise is just full of it. You fly what you can get your hands on and make the best of it no matter what, even if its a cardboard box or a bathtub.

This is Rapunzel, my gunship in real life (particularly when I'm carrying my shotgun slung around my back, should I have to tangle with a rattlesnake out in the desert). She is a 25 horsepower 1981 Honda Rebel, but before you talk any smack, she gets 80 miles to the gallon and has more than enough torque for me. And she has a carbeurator from the gods, she cranks up every time and purrs like a kitten. Beat that. As you can see, I've modded her, mostly to keep her running, and most visibly, with stickers.