Early screenshots location?

[Draconisaurus]

The joystick is under the monolith location? Neat, didn't realize we had that piece of evidence.

[glitchhunter09]

Yes, build 22 has the helicopter stick buried below the monolith location. And yes, there is a music trigger for it there as well, so it may have been a planned location, or just a location they would use to show it off.

oddly enough, some pre-release screenshots show it in the dead/burned forest area. or at least one does anyway... also iirc it's more than just the stick, it's most of the chopper. albeit scattered

The early screenshots is close to after build 32 (or build 55, as IJ is almost identical here):

Build32IJHelicotperPreRelease.png

Judging by build 96 it may be even AFTER 55 but before 96. As I am sure you are aware, they started updating IJ sometime after build 55. as we see in build 96, most of the original ground textures are still present, and trees are floating in the air where the old terrain was indicating the changes to IJ were more than likely made in a recent build prior to 96. as you know, the burnt forest/swamp/whatever it's supposed to be, was eventually elevated higher along with the rest of the first half of the level and scrapped in favor of the raptor nest.

This means the time frame may actually be sometime between build 55 and build 96

The joystick is under the monolith location? Neat, didn't realize we had that piece of evidence.

The whole helicopter is actually down there iirc but deeper underground than that part iirc.