Before You Fly
Battery A Helicopter Battery (CZ_HelicopterBattery) must be fitted in the helicopter’s HelicopterBattery slot with charge greater than zero. Without it, the engine start action will not appear. The battery charges automatically while the engine is running — lights drain it, so leave them off until you’re in the air if the battery is low.
Damage Zones
The HUD shows six zone health indicators (Body, Engine, Chassis, Fuel, Main Rotor, Tail Rotor). Check them before starting — a damaged main rotor will reduce lift, and a damaged tail rotor will make yaw control difficult.
Crew & the Co-Pilot Seat
On DayZ 1.29 only the pilot seat can fly — this is engine-wide for every CarScript helicopter mod. The co-pilot seat is a full passenger seat with instant actions (and full access to Move to Cabin). The rebuilt Transfer Controls handover is in development and returns in a future update once fully proven. The HUD control indicator shows green when your seat has flight control (the pilot seat). See Flying & the Co-Pilot Seat.
Controller / Gamepad
Flight is fully playable on a gamepad — cyclic on the left stick, collective on the triggers (right raises, left lowers), yaw on the shoulder buttons, and Autohover on Y. Every binding is rebindable. See the Controls Reference.
Starting Up
- Sit in the pilot seat — the co-pilot seat cannot start or stop the engine in this build
- Hold the Start Engine action (hold time is
gameplay.engineHoldTime, ~1 second by default) - The rotor begins to spool up — watch the animation and listen for the rotor sound to build
- Wait until the rotor has reached full speed before attempting to lift off
The engine cannot be stopped while the helicopter is airborne and travelling faster than about 5 m/s. This is intentional — it prevents accidental engine cuts mid-flight.
Takeoff
- Increase collective with Shift gradually — don’t yank it to full
- As the helicopter lightens, use Q / E to correct any yaw rotation
- When you feel lift, continue increasing collective to rise off the ground
- Ground effect gives extra lift within approximately 10 m AGL — takeoffs feel easier close to the ground than climbing through mid-altitude
- Once airborne, pitch forward slightly with W to begin building forward speed
Forward Flight
Once moving, push pitch forward and let speed build. From roughly 45 km/h you will start to notice the helicopter climbing more easily, and the effect is fully in by about 85–100 km/h depending on the airframe — this is Effective Translational Lift (ETL), a real helicopter aerodynamic effect where forward movement makes the rotor more efficient. Light scouts reach it earliest, the heavies latest. At cruise speed you’ll need less collective to maintain altitude than in a stationary hover. Speed limits: Each helicopter has a VNE (velocity never exceed). Above 80% of that speed, progressive drag kicks in — a pure retarding force that arrests further speed gain, with no pitch torque of its own. You cannot sustainably fly above it. Weathervane: At low forward speed, the helicopter naturally aligns its nose to the direction of travel. This automatic tendency is strongest on lighter helicopters and weakest on the heavy Merlin.Hovering
Hovering is the most demanding phase of helicopter flight:- Hold altitude with Shift (climb) and Z (descend)
- Small Q / E inputs to hold heading
- Ground effect gives a helpful stability cushion below ~10 m AGL — hovering close to the ground is slightly easier
- Press X to engage Autohover — the helicopter decelerates, stabilises, and holds altitude, heading, and position automatically. Steering does not switch it off: the hold’s grip fades while you hold the stick and re-arrests where you release.
Landing
- Reduce forward speed with S — bring airspeed back toward zero
- At low speed, reduce collective gradually to descend
- As you descend through 10 m AGL, ground effect returns — you may need slightly less collective than expected
- Flare the descent rate with a small collective increase just before touchdown
- Touch down gently and reduce collective to zero once skids or wheels contact the ground
Autohover
Press X at any time from the pilot seat.- The helicopter smoothly decelerates and transitions into a locked hover
- Holds altitude, heading, and XY position
- Control input does not disengage it. Steer while it is engaged and the hold’s arrest authority fades, then re-arrests where you release — reposition without toggling it off
- The collective still works while engaged — climb or descend normally and the hold latches onto the new altitude when you release it
- To switch it off, press X again. It also releases on its own when you land with the engine off, when the engine is cut in flight, when the main or tail rotor is destroyed, and when a new pilot takes the seat
Autorotation (Engine Failure)
If the engine fails — from fuel exhaustion, engine destruction, or manual shutdown — the rotor continues spinning through inertia. This is autorotation and it is your path to a survivable landing. During the glide:- The helicopter descends in a controlled glide rather than an immediate freefall
- You can now steer the descent — tilting the cyclic translates the helicopter, so you can glide forward and pick your landing spot instead of only rotating in place
- Descent rate is capped per helicopter (lighter aircraft glide better than heavy ones)
- The rotor coasts down gradually after the cut (tunable via
autorotation.coastMinutes) and stays useful as long as you maintain airspeed
- On your final approach, pull collective up — this converts rotor inertia into a brief vertical lift boost, slowing your descent rate for the last few metres
- Time this correctly and you can land safely with a dead engine
autorotation.descentCap) is tuned per helicopter and entered in knots — light scouts descend gently (8.0 kn on the MD500 and MH-6, about 4 m/s), heavies drop fast (13.5 kn on the Merlin, about 7 m/s). A heavier helicopter also reaches its cap sooner than a light scout at the same rotor spool. The cap is editable per variant in each helicopter’s JSON config — the full per-heli table is on the Flight Model page.
Emergency Procedures
Fuel low Warning beeps start at 20% fuel remaining (configurable). The beep interval shortens as fuel continues to drop — increasing urgency. Find a landing zone immediately. Both pilot and co-pilot hear the warning. Tail rotor destroyed The helicopter enters an uncontrolled yaw spin. Spin rate depends on helicopter type. Attempt an immediate autorotation landing — yaw authority is gone, but collective still works. You have limited time before the spin becomes unrecoverable. Main rotor destroyed The helicopter loses lift immediately and falls. There is no recovery from main rotor destruction. Inverted on the ground If ground flip recovery is enabled on your server, pressing X while grounded and inverted will flip the helicopter upright. It is disabled by default, and lives in the live flight-mode profile —featuresSimple.groundFlipRecovery / featuresAdvanced.groundFlipRecovery — so it can be set per mode.
Helicopter Differences
All seven helicopters use the same controls but feel significantly different:
Heavier helicopters are more stable in cruise but harder to hover precisely. Lighter helicopters are agile but can feel twitchy for new pilots.
Shutting Down
- Land fully — wheels or skids on the ground
- From the pilot seat, hold the Stop Engine action (
gameplay.engineHoldTime, ~1 second by default) - The rotor will spool down