Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas/Missions/Vertical Bird

Prerequisites

 * Mission: A Home In The Hills
 * Location: Madd Dog's Crib, Los Santos

Walkthrough
This mission features the Hydra, a dual mode VTOL aircraft. First get onto the boat and drive it to the ship which is indicated on the radar. Make sure you do not directly drive inside the ship. This mission is about stealth. So, stop just before the opening of the ship. Now swim over to the ship and remember having a silenced gun helps. Shoot the guy in the forklift from the door. If you don't he will trigger the alarm and it will be a bit more of a melee on the upper levels. Shoot everyone around you (if you get low on health there are drinks/food machines nearby). Follow the point on the radar to get to the SAM controls. This is in a dark side room near the bow of the ship on the flight deck level. Step into the corona and CJ will deactivate them so it is safe to launch the Hydra.

Now run back and find the point where the Hydras are located. Before you steal one, you should use a rocket launcher or grenade to destroy the other two. Otherwise you will need to dogfight these in the next sequence.

Get into the remaining Hydra and fly up. When you initially get into the Hydra, the controls will be identical to a helicopter. It is very easy to complete this mission in the helicopter mode, but if you want to use the jet mode, you might want to rehearse before you start this mission using the Hydra mission (which you can start from the Las Venturas airport).

As you fly over the bay, a new Hydra will fly in and try to engage you. One tactic is to hover between the two bridges; the AI flying the opposing Hydra will just fly into one or the other bridge and crash. Apparently the AI doesn't have a good grasp of the concept of 'pull up.'

If they don't crash, turn around and hold the button to aim and press the button to fire a missile. If you just want to get away as fast as possible then (from using the PlayStation 2 controller) hold R3 up and the Hydra should go at a faster speed. To slow down simply hold R3 down.

Now follow the radar point; this will lead you to the lake behind the dam. There are four boats to take out. This is extremely simple, just nose down at the boat and fire your weapon. Take your time as you don't want to crash. Now you should head back to the airstrip to complete the mission successfully.

Tips

 * If you destroy two of the three hydras you see in the carrier, then you will only be chased by one Hydra (instead of three) when you are in the air.
 * On PC, hold NUM8 for 3 seconds to toggle to Jet mode. Hold NUM2 to toggle to Hover mode. Hold SPACEBAR while you see the target, wait for the lock on them to turn from green to red. Then press RCTRL to fire missles at them.
 * Dogfighting the other Hydras in Jet mode is fun, but the easier way is to stay in Hover mode and rotate (with Q and E buttons) and look for the other Hydras. They should be circling you. Lock on them once they are in sight.
 * Click LMB to deploy counter-measures if you see incoming missiles, shown as little red triangles on your radar.

Rewards

 * Cash: $50,000
 * A Hydra now spawns at Verdant Meadows.
 * A complete set of heavy weapons (Rocket Launcher, Heat-Seeking Rocket Launcher, Flamethrower, MiniGun) now spawns in Toreno's ranch.

New Missions Available

 * Home Coming