Repeated attempts to get choppers to behave in the least bit potent against my sub all failed. While the bear always finds me, the choppers never do.
From my observation they're patrolling too close to the surface ships. My sub is usually 20nm+ out, they're somewhere around 10nm. They just won't take that extra 10nm leap.
Ofc as a result the surface ships are just turkey shoots every time.
So after some rest it occurred to me perhaps it was the distance scale - was at 1:1. Lo and behold at 2:1 they found me pretty soon-ish, and pretty much every time in a surface force encounter!
Why the devs didn't scale distance in the air... I dunno. As it is, I think the game is a little bit broken if not at 2:1 (the negative) / best played at 2:1 (the positive)
That is plus the most discussed spawn distance thing - didn't have any problem with that, but guess this one does it for me...