Description: Chopper, Midway, 10/74, #583. Midway's Chopper was much more advanced than Whirly Bird, Amusement Engineering's Helicopter Trainer and Sega's Helicopter. Mechanical aliens would move up and down on four buildings around the helicopter's travel circle. The aliens are equipped with light sensors so that the helicopter could "shoot" them with its light beam (essentially the helicopter has a flashlight which pulses on and off all of the time). One alien is visible at a time, as indicated by a light at the foot of its building. As the game progresses, the alien target moved up and down continually (instead of moving to a single position and stopping). After an alien was "shot" (or after about 10 seconds if not shot), the alien goes down under the playfield, and the next alien emerges. Electronic sound was generated by an 8-track player with voice and erie music. There is even one channel on the 8-track that has a helicopter "chopper" sound. When the player has power to the helicopter's blade causing it to spinn, this blacde sound track channel turns on (a nice touch!)

At the time Chopper was released (1974), I'm sure it was "state of the art" for arcade equipment. Chopper is a blend of an EM game and a Solidstate game. It has several relays and a stepper unit like an EM. But it also has several circuit boards for the sound and amplifier. Transistors are used to drive certain functions and to control the monsters. Often this game is missing its 8-track player and/or tape, and often the back flexible plexiglass background is missing too. The Chopper helicopter itself is a more modern version of the Whirlybird helicopter and is not interchangable. Another problem with this game is the monster light sensors often fail, making the game difficult (if not impossible) to play. This is easy to fix though by purchasing hardware store light activated night lights. These can be disassembled and their electronic sensor transplanted to the Chopper's monster. The brand that I have found to work best are GE Night Light #GE3910-CR1D5. These are 120 volt, 4 watt incandecent bulb type night lights. There are other bulb styles and wattages, but I found this one to work the best. As for the light inside the chopper (though I haven't personally had problems with this on Chopper), check out the Midway Twin Pirate Gun page for suggestions on replacing that.

Movie: Chick HERE for a 15 second (1.4meg) movie of a working Chopper game in action, complete with sound! MP3 sound file, courtesy of M.Clayton.