If I make it online tomorrow night and you're on, we'll go heli hunting.
I usually insist on being the pilot, but if you want to learn to fly, you need a good gunner to survive long enough, and I know how to do that bit too.
Maybe not as good as Sureshot, but I can kill a few people, and I know how to deploy flares....
If you are getting shot down, take some small tips from someone who thinx he is Stringfellow Hawk, but is probably more like Ernest Borgnine from Airwolf.....
Flare when you hear the fast tone, not the slower one, as the missiles haven't been deployed yet.
When you flare, pitch one way and either raise or lose altitude, so the missiles go for the flare, and not you.
Try to fly low behind cover if you are getting constant lock on tones. Chances are, you killed someone who then respawned with his Stinger, and is intent on taking you out.
You can locate them with trial and error by putting scenery between you and the potential area where the lock is coming from, and then narrow it down and take that guy out.
Hammer the spot button whenever you get the chance, watch those Stinger guys light up orange.
The best pilot I ever had the luck to climb on board with, used this technique, albeit on Wake, which is the easiest map to survive on in BF3:
He flew low, fast and constant.
He was never caught turning on the spot, which I tend to do.
If the enemy tracking him was at the Airfield, for example, he would go below the hangar level, nearly in the sea, and fly all the way around to North base, or South base, then turn, following the coastline, come all the way back along the beach and pop up where the enemy was 10 seconds before, and look to attack. He'd go to all that effort, just to come back to find the guy, because turning around in the air above your enemy will get you dead. I know, because that's the method I often employ......
If there was no-one there, he'd move right along the game area, never slowing down at all.
A fast moving Viper like that is harder to track, whatever weapon you are using.
Have a headset, and bark orders at your gunner, and let them relay targets to you, as your vision is impaired once they get in the front seat.
Learn in the Viper wherever possible.
It is by far the greater chopper, as it's more nimble, though possibly has lighter armour to compensate, but I've never felt that the Havoc has heavier protection, it's just waaayyy more cumbersome.
Easiest way IMO, is to have a good gunner, that you can actively communicate with.
If you can discipline yourselves so that he deploys flares on the first lock on, and you deploy them on the second, you can stay in the air all day.
If no-one is using CITV of course.......
👍
Just kidding. It's not as bad as the people with 34 USAS service stars online. 
The frags do have crazy range though, I even managed to kill a sniper on the roof of that tall building (don't remember the flag) on Sharqi with it. Three well placed frags from the bottom of the hill leading to it got the job done. Not the typical range of a shotgun... 
Totally understand why it people want it nerfed!
Also, I know I sure cuss at the screen when I get killed by it. 
I suicide at least once a round because I have been either surprised in a confined space and opened the taps and eaten my own lead or gotten my sums wrong when firing around cover.
