Hello there! Firstly, thanks for getting the game onto speedrun.com and approving my first run for it! I have not actually completed the Flight Training 100% yet, but when I've spent half my lifetime practicing I intend to run it. xD

I have a questions regarding the rules;

1. Do you have to start from the Helipad, or can you get a "running start" by taking off, then flying away from the first ring and turning around to get to full speed before starting the course?

2. Can I spawn in other choppers, or am I limited to the two that are already in the map?

I plan to add categories for each heli, however, in terms of the start, I would say start from the helipad, to prevent any advantages many players may have from the many speed bugs with helis!

Thanks for the response! If that's the case, we might have to figure out a good spot to spawn the other choppers so that it's fair for the default chopper on the helipad. When you destroy the default one, it instantly respawns.

It's possible to spawn choppers right next to the helipad though. Maybe you could make the spawned heli rule that it needs to be spawned right next to the helipad? That way the difference in time from lift-off is negligible. https://imgur.com/a/L83ONUd <-Somewhere within that area

EDIT: It actually makes more sense to have it on the helipad after destroying the one that spawns. Apparently it doesn't instantly respawn all the time.

It's not mentioned in the rules anywhere but helicopter physics in squad is heavily tickrate dependent, so when you're on the pilot tutorial that directly translates to framerate. I primarily fly in multiplayer so I am used to flying at a lower tickrate is capping framerate allowed?

Here's a run at 60 FPS framelock you may be able to see some physics differences.

Correct me if I am wrong, but is it not easier to fly with a higher framerate? My current time was done on a crappy gaming laptop that didn't run the game very well. Honestly I am not 100% sure on the specifics of it.

The main difference is lower framerate carries momentum I'm not entirely sure how the game calculates it but your turns are way more responsive on higher framerates. I primarily fly on servers where it's tick rate based and typically pretty low (About 20-60) and that's what I'm used to so it's easier for me to fly on lower tick-rates. This is something that is somewhat well known on the pilot community side of squad but not well understood. The main reason this is known is you can't do jhooks like in the video below:

Basically, your turns are more responsive on higher framerates but you carry more momentum on lower framerates.

Thanks for the explanation. In the spirit of speedrunning, I will leave it without a ruling. Gotta go fast, how you do that is up to you!

Sorry wasn't super coherent when I wrote that. I just read it back, your helicopter rotation is locked to a certain rate by the game no matter how high your sensitivity. The momentum of the Helicopter changes differently based on frame/tick rate. A high tick-rate means more updates to the momentum value and direction per second. A low tick-rate means that updates to momentum are less frequent and you can therefore rotate the heli more before the momentum change is applied. In my personal opinion, it's fine so long as the framerate cap isn't changed mid-run.