HoraceBroon

Lol... "why are you reading the tags"

That's a great one, I must say. I mean the characters in GTA must have all brought a car when they clearly have no driving license but for some reason like to keep cars on display, wierdos... Some attempts were made to explain their insistence on you driving. I'm thinking of 8-Ball having those swabs for hands & the jumpy Ken Rosenberg too frozen with fear to drive his Admiral, Woozie was blind... but let's go on a road trip to Angel Pine with Cesar in his prized lowrider -- absolutely, you should drive! C.J., I know it's my Glendale, but could you drive me home (Smoke)... the list is endless. I'm surprised we have so much traffic to contend with in these games... cuz nobody reaaallly wants to drive.

I learned that friends, colleagues, family, etc... even if it's their car, prefer if you drive

I'm not quite clear on your question: if it's whether the VCPD maverick in VC shoots, I don't believe it does. When police pursue/control the vehicle it does; however, this is an assumption that the passenger/riding-shotgun units are responsible for the weapons. When you fly... have fun flying. Vehicles which do fire are the Sea Sparrow and the Hunter. These are more available after many missions have been progressed. Changing games, the VCS police Maverick (available easily on the roof of HQ once Ocean Beach unlocked) provides civilian radio broadcast instead of emergency chatter... I also don't believe it allow weapon use. My memory isn't what it used to be -- at least it might've been better... I forget. If you're looking for choppers that fire then, assuming you've got far enough to access the VCPD Maverick, just go to your safehouse [Clymenus Suite] and buy a Little Willie on the roof for $5,000... better yet, go back over to the mainland and find the Scrapyard. Look in the S.W. corner beside a dump-bin for a free Little Willie with no mission attached. The reason I say this is that many of these uncommon spawns (like aircraft) tend to have missions attached. An example of this is a Hunter that later spawns in Escobar that also shoots but has a mission attached. Someone over at GrandTheftWiki did an interesting piece on the helicopters used in the games, and these Police Mavericks had multiple versions within the games -- go look if you're interested (sorry, can't provide link at moment). Concerning differences between police helicopters from different games, it's notable that the San Andreas P.D. choppers do allow some interactivity -- in that they're equipped with fully functional spotlights to use... still no weapons (again, that's for the fellow units onboard). Furthermore, if you get to the point where you can access Las Payasadas in Bone County (Las Venturas area), there's a two-player rampage that uses the police helicopter (one player controls the flight while the other does the firing). Didn't mean for this to go on so long, but I tried to make up for uncertainty about the exact question. Hope it's helpful. Vice City rules!

Assuming you mean S.F. by second island, probably you're indicating the one found near the dry-dock. It's the NRG-500 used for the NRG Challenge (chk.pt.), and there's also another between hangars at the Easter Bay Airport. The most common find is when you begin the game in Los Santos: go over to the multi-storey carpark in East L.S. (north of the L.S. Forum), look for spawns on 2nd level & top. There's also some interesting trivia associated with the number 46 that the NRG displays... look up in GTWiki.

Okay, I've arrived late... but I still brought tuna salad! I know these SA topics are all but dead, but I think I've got one that nobody seems to find worth mentioning. Perhaps its the "hot coffee" scandal that forced fans to reconsider posting 'found' sexual content in the games. We don't want zealots, their lack of understanding, and distribution blackmail to dictate to companies like Rockstar (who're just havin' a go -- some fun). Anyway, the low resolution in most textures provide an almost Rorschach-quality to many surfaces, but let me finally get to my point. The thing I'm calling an Easter Egg (or maybe just a whimsical bit of fluff) is in the Snack Machines. Go and check one out with the Camera zoom... stare closely at the snacks offered... until you start to feel dizzy and veins begin to throb. Do you see them? Tiny photos... very blurred, like thumbnails of thumbnails... don't tell me Rockstar put bags of chips in there... I know porn when I see it. Judge for yourself!