You are kidding right? V-sync causes a lot of input lag problems in many, many games. And you're right, the game shouldn't run that bad. It runs fine for me.
Things I, or people I play with have found at air fields: M240s, M249s, AT-4s, all kinds of assault rifles, M107s, DMRs, M24s, NVGs...etc etc etc. If you don't want any of those, then sure, stay away from the air fields.
We had the same problem. The only chopper on the server we play on that isn't bugged was actually the UH1, and that disappeared on a server restart. It IS a bug, despite what people in this thread are saying. Most of the choppers eat your repair materials and don't actually repair.