# HQ airborne support and recovery

HQ uses delivered sightings and friendly check-ins to decide on reinforcement.
A drop needs at least two sightings, confidence of 70% or better, uncertainty no
larger than 160 m, and a credible on-foot speed no greater than 6 m/s. Reports
older than 90 seconds are unsuitable. Sufficient nearby or already committed
infantry prevents the drop. An unmet need must persist for 45 seconds, reduced
to 20 seconds after two confirmed local losses. Committed drops have an eight
minute cooldown. Radio delivery and a clear real landing corridor are required;
a missing radio, changed memory, occupied airspace, or unavailable troops cancels
the order. No hidden player position supplies an HQ target.

Eight physical passengers board the search helicopter at the airport in two
four-person teams. The same actors transfer into Parachute Framework canopies
and become ordinary HQ infantry after landing. Passengers are not recreated at
the destination. A drop pass must have a suitable heading, at least 15 m/s speed
and 90–180 m terrain clearance. Drops are staggered two seconds apart.

The helicopter covers the order's area for five minutes after finishing its drop
pass, then HQ can radio an order to return. It lands at its original airfield,
services for 60 seconds, rearms mounted magazines and rocket pods, refuels and loads another
squad. The original aircraft and aircrew remain. The round has four attempted
passenger loads, 24,000 service rounds, 512 rocket-loading attempts and 12,000 fuel units; failed spawns and
losses are not refunded. An incomplete passenger drop retains surviving aboard
soldiers. The airport has a tent, supply box and service vehicle. Losing the depot
vehicle prevents subsequent service.

A separate helicopter waits at the airport for ammunition missions. The depot and
cargo helicopter prepare independently of the search helicopter departure timer. A delivered
low-ammo check-in (at most 30 small-arms rounds per soldier) requests assistance.
HQ reserves the receiving infantry and sends separate physical radio orders to
the crew and recipient. A quiet search task is interrupted only after the replacement
radio order arrives. The aircraft loads up to twelve magazines matching the
unit's native weapons, flies to a clear nearby landing pad, and lands. Native
inventory transfer requires the original recipient to reach the stopped aircraft;
there is no remote ammunition refill. Remaining cargo stays with the original
helicopter. Unresolved native inventory operations block a subsequent trip, and an
already submitted magazine is never submitted again. There are at most twelve
delivery attempts per round. Permanent site
guards are not pulled away for these rendezvous.

Each mortar fire order requests eight HE shells spread over an 80 m radius
(160 m diameter). Individual shells still require a current valid order, physical
ammunition, a usable crew, a ballistic solution, and clear friendly/settlement
safety checks. Thus eight is the requested salvo, not a promise to keep firing
after the crew dies or a friendly enters the impact area. Pending drops, descending
paratroopers and active helicopter supply landing zones exclude mortar impacts.

Mission enemy bodies are retained until a search and its radio report complete.
Native cleanup of a parent wreck is also blocked while it contains retained evidence.
A delivered body sighting dispatches a separate recovery group from a friendly
site. Searchers must reach the actual body, stop fighting, spend ten seconds
nearby, and pass a line-of-sight check. They compare the remaining physical
folders against the body's issued-document record. Document contents are assigned
while their owner is alive; pickup uses those same site IDs. Missing documents
make those sites potentially compromised. The resulting radio report can order
available infantry to defend them. This is a defensive hypothesis, not a new
sighting and not authorization for mortar fire. If the team or its radio is lost,
HQ receives no stolen-intel knowledge and the body stays retained. Once HQ receives
the completed search report and records its compromised sites, the corpse is
unblacklisted and scheduled for native cleanup after 300 seconds. A search without
a delivered report cannot release it; repeated delivery cannot reset that timer.
This retention applies to registered mission enemy AI, not player corpses.

`/esc hq heli show` includes airborne decisions, airport stocks and recovery status.
The combined addon now depends on **Parachute Framework** (`65930CB4CD0237B2`;
installed/tested input version 1.2.0). Framework code and assets remain external.

Validation, 22 September 2026:

- `python tools/check.py` passed, as did the updated native-context access regression.
- Native airborne fixture: eight original passengers boarded, deployed their canopies,
  landed alive, and formed two original teams. The same helicopter returned, consumed
  gun ammunition/fuel stock and departed with another eight passengers. The fixture
  supplies a controlled drop order and advances the cover deadline after landing;
  actual HQ selection and cover timing/target are tested separately as production policies.
- Native recovery fixture: a real issued document was removed from a real guard's
  inventory, the guard died, and native garbage insertion was rejected. A normal
  delivered body sighting spawned a separate team; that team reached and inspected
  the body, then delivered the missing-document report to HQ.
- Native cargo fixture: real low-ammunition check-in, both HQ downlinks, twelve
  airport magazine-loading attempts, takeoff, flight, landing, infantry approach,
  and three confirmed exact-item transfers. Native Mi-8 storage access has 85
  contexts and 38 actions at the cargo door; both bounded scans now admit it.
  This run did not sight its separate randomly placed forensic body, so combined
  fixture completion is not claimed. Recovery is evidenced by the earlier run.

[Native excerpts and source hashes](evidence/hq-air-support-2026-09-22/) retain the
scope of each run. Dedicated multiplayer, adverse network conditions, all faction
loadouts, spent rocket-pod reload and a complete cargo return/service/second-trip
cycle still need live acceptance. Airport stocks are finite service budgets, not
individual fuel-can/round entities. The current compromised-site response dispatches
infantry defenders; it does not construct new physical roadblocks.