Sure took me long enough to spot it; but can I fly it?

(3:05) Level 2 ('Halo') on Legendary. Ever wondered about getting hold of one of the two early Banshees and using it to soar through the level? Can you do that? If you don't know the answer, here's a short adventure of mine from earlier this year.

Released October 30th 2016, gameplay recorded April 25th 2016.

00:02 After crossing the bridge, I decide to try and destroy the leading Banshee on its first attack run, with pistol fire then AR use. On Legendary that makes a nice challenge actually. But when using the AR, the Banshee isn't as close as I'd like and I don't quite manage it.

00:47 However, I destroy it soon after, and the other Banshee starts to fly off (which is strangely boring behaviour, and I wonder why Bungie arranged it thus). But then I hear a loud KLUNK, and turn. There's a further noise, and I surmise that the Banshee has had some trouble. When I go over to look, I can't see it. Surely it didn't fly off that fast?

01:24 Covie troops take my attention, and I think my plan was to maybe kill them, so I could get back to the Banshee mystery undistracted. For a while I shoot at them, but this is Legendary and there are two Elites there, so I'm pretty cautious. A rather tepid encounter alas.

02:00 I decide not to bother with them after all. Then as I head away, I spot the other Banshee at last. It had simply been obscured by the trees (you can see it in the earlier footage when I was looking around, but not well). However, after flipping it upright, it turns out to have no boarding prompt, just as I expected from past experience. Picking up a loose plasma, I go over to the presumed pilot's body. I'm surprised he got killed, but I guess he fell a long way. Anyway, the empty Banshee is useless, and I blast it with the plasma before heading off.

Closing remarks The Banshee hit the nearby tall tree. If you check the movie footage when I turn to look back around 0:59, the Banshee is visible in the first few frames, falling down out of sight. Obviously I never caught that at the time. In fact I only noticed it shortly before releasing the movie!

There was also a pilot next to the destroyed Banshee. He's peripherally visible in a few frames around 2:36. I'm pretty sure he was indeed from that Banshee, not the one which hit a tree.

I think this was only the second time I've had one of these pilots get ejected. The first time was years ago. I came across an empty Banshee in the area where covies block your path. Can't recall seeing a pilot, so I don't know what happened to him.

There's a relevant Haloruns forum thread here, in which I've now mentioned this movie. The gameplay was done the day after I'd contributed to that thread, so I'm pretty sure the thread is what made me fire up the level. Can't remember exactly what I was planning to do though.

UPDATE: I no longer think the pilot got ejected after colliding with a tree. He probably just fell victim to the 'departure death anomaly' which I discovered the day after releasing this movie. See BCM204 and the associated article.

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