Helicopters for scouting - what's the point?

[Burnside's Sideburns]

If you compare floatplane scouts vs helicopters at the time helicopters come out, floatplane scouts are faster, have longer range and have radar to boot. Is there a reason outside of ASW I should bother with helicopters?

[Mango]

Helicopters have a different role.
Rather than launching on long range search patterns, they loiter at the edge of the radar horizon to their host ship, effectively extending it's search range. Eventually, this will allow you to target SSMs over the radar horizon at enemy ships, since the radar is directly uplinked to the host ship. Additionally, they have a very good ASW value, while floatplanes have none, and eventually can carry missiles.

[ulzgoroth]

Also probably you don't have to stop to recover them, which is small but annoying.