If you’ve ever played a Battlefield game in the past then you know that jumping into a helicopter for the first time can be rather daunting. Mastering the controls takes plenty of  practice, something which is hard to do in the middle of a heated battle. Worse yet is finding yourself charged with flying a transport helicopter packed with troops.

Fans have long by crying out for a way to practice the flying mechanics without any sense of responsibility, and DICE have finally listened. During a  Q&A session with IGN, Lars Gustavsoon of DICE had this to say in response to being asked about a potential helicopter tutorial:
“We’ve definitely heard that people are afraid of getting in there [and using vehicles like helicopters] and that’s not our intent, so what we’ve done is, we’ve added a test range, which allows you to try out all the hardware ahead of time so that if you want to learn to fly a helicopter you can get in there and you can find the settings that work best for you. And then start doing some stunt flights just to feel safe before you go out and get the responsibility of a bunch of other people sitting in your helicopter, so I truly hope that this will help people feel more safe about trying out the whole battlefield.”

Now, I don’t like to brag but in the Bad Company 2 days I was bloody good with a chopper! Sadly in Battlefield 3 I just couldn’t replicate my heroic flying feats, so like so many other people I’m exceptionally glad DICE are giving us a space to practice in. Hopefully we’ll see more pilots than ever.