Up, Up and Away

[Steve Crook]

I always thought it was possible to do mission Up, Up and Away without any damage. And I've just done it

 

That's the mission where you have to steal the Sky Crane helicopter with the magnet and then go and use it to steal the armoured car.

 

Start the mission as it's usually described. Wait outside the army depot in your favourite vehicle. Almost any vehicle will do. When the Patriot goes to drive out the gates conveniently open. Drive in at full speed making sure you hit the guard by the gate. Turn left and drive into the soldier down there. Get out of your vehicle and shoot the soldiers that run towards you from the direction of the gate. There is often another one that comes around the main building from your left 10 o'clock as you're facing towards the gate.

 

Standing back by the crane legs, look through the doorway of the main building and with your sniper rifle take out as many as you can see. Move left and right a bit while you're on full zoom so that you can see as many as possible. You should be able to take out about 8 of them. Make sure you get all the ones on the walkways.

 

Now here's the thing that I've never seen mentioned before, don't go into the main building!

Go down the left hand side of the main building and around the back of it. There's a wall there that's too high for you to climb onto. But you can get up onto that container and with a lightweight weapon to can run along the length of the container and jump onto the wall.

 

Stay on the wall. Switch back to the sniper rifle and you can shoot the guard on the path towards the helicopter pad. He won't shoot at you until you get down off the wall.

 

Circle round the back door to the main building. You can shot any remaining guards (3 or 4 of them) - because they're all looking towards the main entrance and never turn around.

 

Head towards the helicopter pad. Go carefully around the corner because there's a guard on the stairs. You can shoot him as soon as his legs become visible.

 

Go cautiously up the stairs. Snipe the two guards on the helicopter pad as soon as you can see them. You can get them and the one on the next level from the stairs before they shoot at you.

 

As you go up the next set of stairs you'll be told that there are two Hunters on their way. There's a fixed minigun but if you use that then you lose all the ammo when you've done with it so I use the minigun I am already carrying. There's also one last guard at that level, standing by the minigun. He'll start shooting as soon as you come around the corner but is still some distance away from you. The sniper rifle soon finishes him off.

 

Switch to the minigun and deal with the two Hunters. Then you can go up to the helipad and the Sky Crane is all yours

 

 

I know you can also do it with the jet pack or by parachuting onto the helipad. But that takes all the fun out of it

 

Steve

 

 

 

[dice]

I never actually thought of parachuting onto the helipad. Gonna try it now. And out of the commercial AT-400.

And this, i think, is one of the hardest missions in the game, until you replay it once or twice, because the enemy is not shown on the radar and their textures are well hidden with the environment

[GTA_Loco]

for more fun and challenge doing this mission, try taking out everyone, including the Hunters by using only the pistols