Sparrow

"What's more exciting than a helicopter? A miniature helicopter! What's more exciting than an miniature helicopter? A weaponized miniature helicopter! What's more exciting than a weaponized miniature helicopter? Nothing. Stored and launched from your moon pool."

- Warstock Cache & Carry, Kosatka Moon Pool Vehicle description.

The Sparrow is a helicopter featured in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and Grand Theft Auto Online as part of The Cayo Perico Heist update.

3D Universe
The Sparrow is based on the  (more specifically on the "G-series"), evidenced by the "soap bubble" canopy and the exposed welded-tube tail rotor.

The Sparrow generally assumes a lightweight appearance, feauring a glass cockpit and curved doors, as well as a small engine, long skids and an exposed tail boom with small fins and a tubular end for the tail rotor. The rendition in GTA San Andreas appears to have linear doors and square-shaped windows spanning the upper area of the cabin. The Sparrow is only available in a grey color in the Vice City renditions and white in the San Andreas rendition. Although not visible, a red secondary color is also listed in the files.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
The Sparrow appears slightly more compact than its original appearance, with the tail being reduced in size and no longer sporting the original exposed frame. Despite this, it still appears as a compact helicopter featuring machine guns. It only appears during certain missions, alongside the Defender, a similar attack helicopter.

Grand Theft Auto Online
The Sparrow returns in Grand Theft Auto Online with the same design as the Sea Sparrow, being based on a with the engine from the.

The vehicle shares the same design and features from the pre-existing Sea Sparrow, but the pontoons were replaced by regular skids. Some tweaks were also made to the model, such as the skid struts being slightly more vertical, the blades are fully black and the circular detail on the engine bay is fully finished in silver. Like the Sea Sparrow, it uses a small instrument panel with the "Flyer" dial set on it, with the same layout as the Buzzard and its Attack variant.

The vehicle is set to spawn in a light grey primary color for the body and a black secondary color for the small fins of the horizontal stabilizers. However, the respray option from the Moon Pool workshop seems to apply to both primary and secondary at once.

Like the Sea Sparrow, the vehicle does not have any weapon, but can be equipped with one via customization, either a Minigun based on a gatling gun or a small missile launcher with four tubes inside.

3D Universe
The helicopter handles quite well in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City compared to the Maverick due to its low weight, but has taken a slight downturn in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It can fit two people inside and is great for transporting a body guard in GTA Vice City or a homie in GTA San Andreas. While it is not as fast as the VCN Maverick or the News Chopper, the Sparrow is easier to use, being a perfect choice for practicing flying. The helicopter's weak point is its uncovered engine, and a few shots are enough to bring it out of the air, proving that it has no armor. If the player hits any door on the helicopter, it will be removed like in cars, making it the first helicopter to have removable doors.

The aircraft is powered by a single piston engine, and shares the engine sound with the Maverick and its variants.

Vehicle
The performance of the Sparrow is a bit different to the amphibious variant, as the reduced weight give it similar traits to the Buzzard and its attack variant. The helicopter's handling is very nimble, but remains relative stable (albeit slightly inferior to the Buzzard in that aspect), allowing the player to perform quick maneuvers. In addition, when flying at full speed, the aircraft will slightly climb, while the Buzzard will descend.

Being a standard helicopter, however, the Sparrow is unable to land on water, although it can still hover above water like most helicopters, which, due to the skids being part of the aircraft's body, it can keep the tail rotor away from the sea waves. The lack of performance upgrades also renders it inferior to a fully-upgraded Sea Sparrow.

Like its amphibious variant, the vehicle is powered by a single turboshaft engine, which produces the same rotor sound as the former, as well as most regular helicopters.

Defense
In terms of durability, the helicopter remains as vulnerable as the Sea Sparrow and other civilian helicopters in the game (including the Maverick and Frogger), as it has no protection for the occupants against gunfire and cannot withstand a single explosion before being destroyed. The lack of armor upgrades makes it even fragile to collisions and most form of attacks, and the rigidness of the skids means it can be easily damaged by hard landings, unlike most helicopters with similar setup. Just like other helicopters, after taking enough damage, the engine will begin to smoke, until it will shut down after smoking for two minutes and twenty seconds.

The aircraft is unable to equip countermeasures but its maneuverability should allow the pilot to avoid most standard homing missiles.

Weaponry
Like the Sea Sparrow, the Sparrow can equip a pilot-operated weapon mounted below the cabin, which only one can be installed at once:


 * Minigun: The first option is a three-barreled .50 caliber Minigun, which offers moderate firepower and high fire rate, ideal for aerial offensive and self-defensive situations. Its performance is the same as the on-board Minigun from the Sea Sparrow and the Havok, and is about as strong as half of one of the Buzzard's miniguns.
 * Missiles: The second option is a missile launcher, which provides heavy firepower against NPCs, rival players and vehicles, as well as having no "reload" cooldown time. The pilot can select to use "homing" or "homing off" missiles. When fired in homing mode, they are about as accurate as the Buzzard's missiles, losing tracking on a target quite easily and easily avoided. However, when in "homing off" mode, the missiles will fire at the middle of the crosshair, allowing a skilled pilot to more easily hit targets, when compared to the Buzzard.

Grand Theft Auto Online
The Sparrow can only be modified inside the Moon Pool workshop of the Kosatka. Unlike most vehicles, the vehicle has limited access to 30 Classic colors with the same cost.

Special Variants

 * A static model variant, exists similar to the Avenger for when the Sparrow is stored in the Moon Pool bay in the Kosatka. This variant has its rotor blades folded back. Unlike the Avenger, no entry animation is shown when storing the Sparrow, however it can be entered and an animation is shown lifting the helicopter up on a platform when leaving the submarine. This variant has the same "Flyer" dial set, but lacks needles, likely because it is not intended to be a pilotable helicopter.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

 * Phnom Penh '86 - Spawns flying toward the opposite direction during the mission alongside a Sea Sparrow.
 * Supply & Demand - Some Cubans will attack the player from a Sparrow
 * Martha's Mug Shot - One spawns inside InterGlobal Studios for the player to use to quickly follow Candy Suxxx.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

 * Civil Asset Forfeiture Impound - The Sparrow is one of the 32 vehicles wanted by the Civil Asset Forfeiture Impound in the side-mission of the same name. Placed on the third list.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
The Sparrow only spawns in these areas (except the one in Downtown Vice City) after completing the mission Rub Out and entering them starts the Chopper Checkpoints side mission.
 * On a grassy area in Vice Point, across the Links View Apartment near an alleyway.
 * On a roof in Little Haiti.
 * By a set of stairs leading to the interior of the building in Downtown used in G-Spotlight after completing that mission.
 * On a roof across Apartment 3c in Ocean Beach.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

 * On the roof of Madd Dogg's mansion after completing A Home in the Hills.
 * On the roof of the Zombotech Corporation building in San Fierro after completion of the Pilot School.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

 * On a helipad at the Escobar International Airport after completing From Zero to Hero.

Grand Theft Auto Online

 * The Sparrow is only available as a Moon Pool upgrade for the Kosatka submarine, on Warstock Cache & Carry. It costs $1,815,000.
 * Can be requested through the Interaction Menu under the "Kosatka Services", and spawns near the player, similar to VIP/CEO helicopters. Upon being sent back to storage or destroyed, it will have a cooldown of two minutes before requesting it again.

Grand Theft Auto Online

 * Passive Mode is disabled even if the vehicle has no weapons. The same applies to its amphibious variant.
 * When entering the Sparrow in the Kosatka hangar whilst in third-person view, the player's view automatically switches to first-person; upon exiting the submarine the view changes back to third-person.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

 * The tail rotor of the Sparrow is dislocated, being placed on a considerable distance further back from the tail fin.

Grand Theft Auto Online

 * In certain lighting conditions when leaving the Kosatka, the shadow of the helicopter's blurred rotors can be seen on the hatch, despite the rotors being folded back. This is because the second variant of the Sparrow, which has the folded rotors, still has the "fast" rotor parts present, and are not disabled until the helicopter is empty.
 * When a player steps out of the Sparrow inside the Kosatka, the door will simply warp straight into the closed position.
 * Elsewhere, the Sparrow's doors often will not close when the pilot or passenger leave the vehicle. Despite this, when re-entering the helicopter, the animation will show them going through the motions of opening the door, or the character will close the door and then reopen it.
 * Certain spawn locations for the Sparrow may render take-off extremely difficult or impossible; it may spawn under low bridges or have its rotors or tail clipping through geometry, potentially destroying the rotor on take-off or even destroying the Sparrow instantly after spawning or upon the player entering it.
 * The Sparrow is incorrectly scripted to always play Kult FM which causes unintended behavior in certain situations:
 * If requested the helicopter when driving a car, the radio station in the driven car will instantly change to Kult FM as the Sparrow spawns.
 * When exiting the Kosatka using the Sparrow, Kult FM will play during the cutscene overlapping the in-game score (if any playing). However, the radio will be off when outside of the sub.
 * These were fixed in the Los Santos Tuners update.
 * Using the automatic landing feature at Executive Office helipads with the Kosatka Sparrow and then starting a Special Cargo source mission can cause the game to forget that the Sparrow is a Kosatka vehicle, disabling the "Return Moon Pool Vehicle to Kosatka" option. Instead, it is possible to summon a second Sparrow from the Kosatka, while the first remains active, allowing one player to have two moon pool Sparrows active at the same time.
 * A similar bug occurs with the automatic landing feature at The Diamond Casino & Resort and Agencies helipads.
 * The vehicle lacks an engine startup sound, and the blades simply start spinning as soon as the pilot sits in the cabin. This action also takes priority over the closing door animation when the player is not using the acceleration button, unlike most aircraft and other vehicles.
 * Second players may be unable to open the door to enter the passenger seat of the Sparrow, often instead punching the door and breaking the glass. This can happen on land as well as in the Kosatka hangar and appears to not be impacted by whether the second player is a crew member or not. (Confirmed on PS4.)
 * Landing a Sparrow on the deck of another player's Kosatka causes the Sparrow to instantly start smoking and within a few seconds become disabled. (Confirmed on PS4.)
 * Crew members cannot pilot the Sparrow when leaving the Kosatka hangar, nor can they use the sub's automatic landing feature. (Confirmed on PS4.)
 * If parked outside a property, even in a safe location where undisturbed by other players or NPCs, the Sparrow may spawn upside-down when the player exits their property, rendering it impossible to fly.

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