Choplifter

There’s a sort of plague, afflicting the shopping centres and hobby stores of our great nation. A plague of low-cost radio controlled helicopters.

When my father was growing up, in the 1950s, he saved for months so he could afford to buy a balsa-wood aeroplane with a slot in the front to take a little two-stroke, alcohol-fuelled glow-plug engine.

He’d spend weeks building this thing, then stretching tissue paper over the balsa struts, then doping the whole airframe in a poorly ventilated room until his vision swam. Then he’d fit the engine and cycle an hour and a half to the nearest playing field where one of two things would happen: he’d either be unable to start the engine, or he’d start the engine and immediately spear the plane heavily into the ground.

Then he’d cycle home again.

Total cost: four months of pocket money and two weeks of meticulous labour. Oh, and I should point out the planes were only ever control-line models: there was no way he could afford 50s-era radio control.

Fast-forward to 2009. Walk through any shopping centre, and earnest booth-creatures will press RC gear into your waiting hands for as little as $19.95. And these aren’t the plasticky cars of my own personal childhood, no, these days you can get a fully-functional three-channel helicopter with a lithium-ion battery for less than the price of a tank of petrol.

Naturally, this is extremely bad news for CEO and parking valet of games publisher Blind Drunk, my old friend William Liability.

“It’s an economic disaster!” he exclaims to me in a Homebush pub that has early opening. We’re waiting for the developer of Blind Drunk’s latest project: Helo Wars.

“The whole point of our game,” Liability continues, “is that it’s cheaper than owning an actual RC helicopter. In the good old days, ie 2007, an RC chopper cost upwards of $2000. You used to be able to go into hobby shops and the manager would try to convince you NOT to buy one because you’d only crash it.”

Liability slumps on his barstool with a sigh. “But now you can get a perfectly awesome chopper that flies outside and everything for like, a hundred bucks. I’ll be ruined!”

“Again?” I hazard.

“Again!” Liability confirms. “Where the hell is Crosswind anyway? Liam Crosswind, he’s the guy I’ve got on Helo Wars. The title’s a bit misleading actually: there are no wars in the game, but we’re going to make the logo look like Halo Wars and hope a bunch of people get confused.”

“Isn’t that passing off?” I ask, sipping at my Frangelico and lime.

“It’s passing brilliant, is what it is,” beams Liability.

There’s a sort of buzzing noise over near the door. A really seedy-looking guy with an enormously stained gut and a likewise stained face throws his hands up in horror.

“A wasp!” he screams. “A giant plastic wasp!”

And indeed, a giant plastic wasp buzzes across the room toward where Liability and I sit, backs to the bar. It hovers uncertainly before us, inches delicately to the smooth surface, drops, hesitates, drops again, and then mere millimetres from the counter, spins wildly out of control and launches itself into the rack of bottles behind the bar.

There’s… there’s quite a bit of noise. Cascades. Domino effects and such. I notice Liability trying to catch splash-damage on his tongue. An extremely thin guy with an extremely thin moustache and a cheap-looking radio controller sidles up to us apologetically.

“Sorry,” he says, “landings are really tricky.”

He introduces himself as the tardy Liam Crosswind, though it’s hard to be sure over the sound of the barman cursing and making a big deal of throwing broken bottles into the garbage.

“I’ve always dreamed of building the ultimate RC helicopter simulator,” he says. “Because it’s never been done before. RC handles completely differently to a real plane. There are plenty of sims of real planes, but nothing for RC.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “Well, except for ClearView. And RC Helicopter Simulator, though that’s only for Mac.” I pause for thought, sucking on Frangelico as the barman stomps around in the mush. “And AeroFly Pro Deluxe, EasyFly 3 or PhoenixRC. You know, all those games that use the USB ESky sim control unit.”

“There’s a USB control unit?” Liam asks weakly.

“Screw that,” snarls Liability. “Helo Wars isn’t about expensive USB controllers and more junk you don’t need. It’s about affordability. It’s about putting RC choppers in the hands of people who, you know, can’t afford them or whatever.” He knocks back a shot of something and motions the barman for another. The barman just leans on his broom and sneers.

“Yeah, affordability,” says Crosswind, thoughtfully flipping the main rotors of his little plastic RC helicopter. “That was what inspired me to start the project, you know? But then that weekend I went to the shops and they had all these little models for less than forty bucks. You can get a Blackhawk or a Chinook or anything. So…” He picks up his helicopter and hands it to Liability. “So I guess you can have your model back Bill. I’m off to buy my own.”

Further comment is drowned-out by a piercing scream, because the barman, having finally realised who is, after all, ultimately responsible for the destruction of most of his stock of hard liquor, has just presented Liability with the bill.