Enemies/Helicopter Gunship

**Helicopter Gunships** are attack helicopter enemies that often appear in fleets, dealing damage to the player's Plane via either periodically launched homing missiles or direct contact.

## Helicopter Gunship

* Normal
* Red

## Description

### Stage Appearance

**Normal*** Stage 1
* Stage 2
* Stage 4
* Stage 6
* Stage 7
* Stage 8
* Stage 9
* Stage 11
* Tournament

**Red**

* Stage 10

## Statistics

### Damage

Varies by difficulties and types.Only missile damage is listed below.
*(With max Health upgrades)*
**Normal**

* Normal: 10 - 11%
* Hard: 21 - 22%
* Insane: 32 - 33%
* Nightmare: 43 - 44%

**Red**

* Normal: 18%
* Hard: 36 - 37%
* Insane: 55%
* Nightmare: 73%

## Reward

### Score Reward

* Normal: 250
* Red: 500

### Star Reward

* Normal: 3
* Red: 4

## Appearance

Helicopter Gunships are attack helicopters with side wings attached with twin missile launchers below, as well as a pair of red stripes at the end of their rotor. They resemble the real-life Boeing AH-64 Apache.

The normal Gunship type has a brown paint job while the red variant (codenamed Elite Gunships) is red instead. Another blue variant appears only on a Tournament Stage, bearing the same design as its *Sky Force Anniversary* counterpart.

NormalRedBlue
## Behavior

### General

Gunships are often found in fleets. They either travel in a specific trajectory or hover in place shortly after appearing.

If traveling in a trajectory:

* Gunships often appear from the side of the screen and fly at moderate speed, leaving off-screen after some time. They always face themselves in the current flying direction.
* Most commonly, a fleet flying in this pattern is always consisted of three Gunships. On Nightmare difficulty, the number is four instead. This is the only pattern for Red Gunships.
* On Stage 7, many Gunships appear separately from the top and travel straight downward.

Gunships flying vertically.Fleet of Red Gunships flying vertically.Fleet of Gunships flying horizontally.Double fleets of Gunships flying diagonally.Double fleets of Gunships flying in a boomerang pattern.

If hovering in place:

* Gunships descend from the top of the screen and slowly stop in place. They can either be isolated or in fleet of three and above.
* Once stationary, Gunships rotate themselves to aim at the player's Plane, greatly improving their missiles' accuracy.
* Stationary Gunships retreat off-screen if left intact for too long.

Fleet of three stationary Gunships.Fleet of five stationary Gunships, forming a chevron shape (Stage 4).Two Gunships accompanying two Heavy Gunships on the far sides of the screen.Gunships can be collided with, similar to Prop Plane enemy types. Intersecting them with the Plane causes damage to both aircraft until either one is destroyed or both pass through each other. Due to their high health, Gunships are able to deal significantly more ramming damage than Prop Planes, but the potential amount can be decreased by draining their health with other weapons. Gunships are destroyed instantly when in contact with active Energy Shields.

As the difficulty level increases, Gunships gain more health, deal more damage and may appear more on Nightmare. In addition, the faster screen scrolling speed causes them to retreat faster.

Gunship can occasionally bear a yellow glow, meaning they would drop Weapon Upgrade items on destruction, which improve the fire rate of the Plane's main cannon.

### Armament

Gunships launch homing missiles at a constant rate that increases with higher difficulties, being the first enemy to fire such a projectile. Upon launch, the missiles produce a signature "beep beep" warning sound. These missiles track the player's Plane with a limited angle and attempt to collide with it, dealing damage on impact. The missiles and their Gunships can be distracted by active Holo Granny decoys.

Normal Gunships launch red and white missiles with a blue glowing trail, which travel slowly and have decent accuracy. Red Gunships launch a pair of black and red missiles at once, bearing about the same speed and accuracy but dealing higher damage.

As a projectile, missiles only damage the Plane (and phase through other enemies) and cannot be destroyed by its projectiles and Laser power-up. However, it can be absorbed by Energy Shields, destroyed by Mega Bombs and Iron Clad's Main Weapon Supercharge shockwaves, and slowed by Slo Mo Chan's ability.

## Strategy

* Never attempt to ram Gunships without Energy Shield, as their high health will greatly damage the Plane along with the risk of being hit by newly launched missiles. With an active one, however, sweep through entire fleets of Gunships to swiftly clear them all out.
* Prioritize Gunships first and destroy them as soon as they appear, using the Main Weapon Supercharge ability. On higher difficulty levels, Gunship fleets can quickly form a wall of high-damaging missiles and greatly reduce your evasive space. Stationary Gunships can do this better due to their 360-degree rotation, which therefore increase the missiles' accuracy by initially launching them directly at the player.
* Attempting to destroy Gunships that are almost off-screen may carry the risk of being trapped between their incoming missiles and the edges of the screen.
* Rescuing survivors or charging power-ups from dispensers can be difficult with nearby missiles, as their homing ability will force you to make long movement and leave the rescuing/charging radius.

## Trivia

* Red Elite Gunships also appear on the Prologue Stage, although they have less hitpoints and are unarmed.
* Another type of silvery gray Gunships exists, which can be seen airlifting the Spinning Laser Array of Canned Dread, the Boss of Stage 3. They are unarmed, invulnerable until the Array is in place, not counted toward the Chain Bonus, though they reward 5000 points upon destruction but no Stars. Their design is the same as seen on *Sky Force Anniversary* in Stage 9, but without missile launchers.

## Images

Red Gunships on Prologue Stage.Two silver Gunships helping replacing the Spinning Laser Array during the Canned Dread fight.