I bought an xbox 360 controller (USB) to use for battlefield on the PC. ONLY intended for flying (choppers & planes).
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/battlereport/show/28428805/1/297328446/I came in top chopper on the server. I know windswept was messing around a good bit (look at his score, that's not typical of him at all).
All I did for the whole map was fly the little bird. Got some good air-time in there. Almost EVERY kill I got was vs another chopper. I couldn't do anything to ground forces (most soldiers could just dodge me). The other helicopters didn't seem to be running too flares though so I was able to use rockets & guns to take em out pretty quick. I have to say the responsiveness of the helicopter is about 100x better than with keyboard & mouse. It seems like the throttle & rotation is WAY better.
I can fly thru much tighter areas than I could before and the heli turns on a dime. I'm going to try to find an empty server tonight & fly on karg island with the attack chopper.