[c_of_red]

As part of a combined arms plan. If you are not sure what to do with them, don't buy them. They are absolutly wonderful for ompletely destroying your opponents Boyd cycle. They also soak off (tie down) his reserve.
I don't buy airmoblie. Too Expensive. I do buy helios to lift regular infantry. Then I do a shuttle service.
If you are losing helios then you are not using them right.
Transport helios need to be used in concert with AH's SEAD air and arty. DO NOT land them in a hot LZ. That is hollywood stuff and should be left for hollywood and stupid Colonels that stay at high level and don't get shot at.
Like I said, they are best used to create confusion in your opponent. Get them to the DZ by flying in trail. That means you have a AH flying point with your slicks flying in line behind him. Move the AH a couple of hexes, then move the slick thru the same hexes. If there is something nasty lurking, the AH will be shot at first. They have better EW and Armor ratings so they have a much better chance of living thru the experience. The other half of the AH section should be the tail end charlie Drag). I like to put the AH with the highest experience rating back there. When the point gets shot at, the tail end charlie does a pop-up. That will draw more fire, hopefully away from the point. Rally the point and see if you have the shooter spotted. If you do and you point is not damaged, the tail end charlie fires at the shooter, unless there are a whole bunch of shooters. Be patient. If you have stumbled over a lot of AD, remember there is a soft spot somewhere else. Use your mobility to back out and try again at another place. Your AH's are not there to kill things, they are there to protect the slicks. So if the going gets tough, go someplace else.
If you have scout helios use the reassign key to set up sections of a scout and a AH. Let the scout run point and the AH drag and most of the time you will get your troops to the LZ safely. Depending on how alert your opponent is, you can use the same flight path several times.
Like ALL tactics, there is a counter for this, but I'm not going to tell you what it is. We might play one day.
BTW, this is straight out of the US Army manual for heilo operations. Or it was, I think they are doing a serious rewrite after that Iraqi famer shot down a 25 million $ AH-64 D with his 1850's smoothbore musket.