> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.czautoz.co.uk/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # What's Included > Six unique helicopters, physics-based flight, interior cabin walk, particle effects, rotor kill zones, autorotation, damage zones, and 45+ configurable parameters per aircraft — everything in a single pack. CZ Autoz Helicopter is a complete helicopter simulation built from the ground up for DayZ. Six aircraft, each engineered around its own real-world weight, drag, and rotor characteristics. A physics engine that rewards skill. A damage model with real consequences. A configuration system deep enough for any server's vision. Nothing is shared across helicopters to cut corners — the Merlin feels nothing like the MD500, because it wasn't built to. Every feature on this page is included in the mod. No additional purchases, no DLC splits, no feature tiers. *** ## By the Numbers | | | | ------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | **6** | Unique helicopter airframes | | **20** | Livery and variant combinations | | **6** | Independent damage zones per helicopter | | **45+** | Tunable flight parameters per helicopter via JSON | | **18** | Maximum passenger capacity (AW101 Merlin) | | **10** | Extra cargo module slots per helicopter (1,000 slots each) | | **4** | Real-time particle effect systems | | **8+** | Distinct audio event layers per helicopter | *** ## The Fleet **4 seats** — 2 cockpit, 2 cargo. Open-air airframe with removable doors and a nimble, responsive flight character. Four liveries: White, Classic Red/Silver, Blue Charter, Green Tour. **6 seats** — 2 cockpit, 4 bench. Automatic **grab-hold system** attaches bench riders to the airframe — passengers travel with the aircraft even when seated outside the hull. Two variants. **4 seats** — 2 cockpit, 2 cabin. Reversed cockpit entry, latched rear doors. Three liveries: Standard Olive, Woodland Camo, Tiger Meet. **5 seats** — 2 cockpit, 3 cabin. Full **Cabin Mode** — pilot or co-pilot can leave their seat, move freely inside the cabin with WASD, weapon use, and ADS, and return to cockpit at any time. Four liveries. **8 seats** — 2 cockpit, 6 cabin. Full **Cabin Mode** plus **independently operable sliding windows** on both sides. Two liveries: Olive Drab and Desert. **18 seats** — 2 cockpit, 16 interior. **Rear loading ramp**. **Retractable landing gear**. **Seat Exit Free Walk** — all seats exit into the enclosed fuselage, players link natively mid-flight. Four liveries. *** ## Feature Categories Per-helicopter mass, drag, inertia, and rotor characteristics. Each aircraft handles differently by design. One key locks a stable hover — holds altitude, heading, and position simultaneously. Deactivates cleanly on cyclic input. Engine-off rotor inertia allows a controlled glide and landing. Collective flare, descent cap, gravity factor — all configurable. Six independent zones: Body, Engine, Chassis, Fuel, Main Rotor, Tail Rotor. Each zone individually toggleable per server. HelicopterRepairKit repairs all six zones. HelicopterBattery drains on start, charges while running, drains slowly with lights. Walk, aim, and fire from inside a moving helicopter. Cabin Mode on UH-1H and Blackhawk. Seat Exit Free Walk on the AW101 Merlin. Walk-on linking on UH-1H, Blackhawk, and MH-6. Built-in storage on every helicopter, plus up to 10 optional extra cargo modules per aircraft (1,000 slots each). Airspeed in knots, altitude AGL in feet, health bar, fuel gauge, Autohover status, and a pilot control indicator — cockpit-only display. Rotor downwash dust cloud on approach to ground. Water spray when hovering over rivers and lakes. Engine damage smoke. Eight distinct audio layers: engine, rotor, startup, shutdown, warning beep, crash, rotor shear, and impact tap. All volume-configurable per helicopter. Red/green navigation lights, anti-collision beacon, and forward spotlight. All independently controlled, battery-drain configurable. Configurable burn rate per helicopter. Escalating audio warnings as the tank empties. Fuel tank leak when damaged. Spinning rotor blades are lethal. Players entering the disc radius take fatal damage. Seated crew, Cabin Mode players, Seat Exit Free Walk players, and grab-hold passengers are automatically exempted. High-speed water entry deals impulse-scaled damage. Submerged helicopters take continuous engine and body damage. Crew take crash damage on hard impacts. Lag-free camera anchor with configurable pull-back distance per helicopter. Free-look toggle keeps the aircraft responsive during manual orbit. Full key reference for flight, engine, lights, Autohover, repair, cabin mode, cargo, and all crew actions. Keyboard and full controller / gamepad support. Rebuilt on DayZ 1.29's **CarScript** base — a velocity-kinematic flight drive that restores the responsive 1.28 feel, with native client-side prediction for low-latency input. Only one cockpit seat flies at a time. Press **T** to hand control to the other seat. Control passes automatically when the holder leaves or dies. In-game fleet management for server owners and admins — teleport, repair, refuel, reset, delete, reload configs, and a live map, all with role-based permissions. Destroyed helicopters catch fire and burn for a configurable time, with a fire-damage area that hurts players standing too close. Fully standalone — **no Community Framework required**. Optional auto-detected integrations — DayZ Expansion, MuchCarKey, TraderPlus CarLock, VPP Admin Tools, RaG Core, Community Online Tools, and Push. 45+ parameters per helicopter via auto-generated JSON files, organised into clear nested sections. *** ## Standout Features ### Particle Effects Three environmental particle systems respond in real time to the helicopter's state: * **Rotor downwash dust** — as the helicopter descends toward dry ground, a dust cloud billows outward from beneath the rotor disc. Scales with rotor speed and proximity to the surface. * **Water spray** — hovering low over rivers, lakes, or coastal water kicks up a spray effect directly beneath the aircraft. * **Engine damage smoke** — when the engine zone is damaged, smoke rises from the engine bay. Intensity scales with damage state. All three are purely visual and have no gameplay effect — but they make landings and low-level flight look and feel dramatically more alive. *** ### Cabin Mode Players aboard supported helicopters can do something no vanilla DayZ vehicle supports — get up and move around inside a **moving helicopter**. **Cabin Mode** (UH-1H, Blackhawk) — the pilot or co-pilot uses the **Move to Cabin** action to leave their cockpit seat and walk freely inside the cabin with full WASD, weapon use, and ADS. The **Return to Cockpit** action puts them straight back in their seat at any time. **Seat Exit Free Walk** (AW101 Merlin) — because the Merlin has a fully enclosed fuselage, the standard "Get Out" action exits any seat into the interior rather than outside. Players link automatically and walk freely mid-flight. The rear ramp must be open to actually leave the aircraft. **Walk-On Linking** (UH-1H, Blackhawk, MH-6) — stepping onto the rear cabin opening or bench platform automatically links a player to the aircraft's coordinate space. They travel with it until they step off. See [Cabin Mode](/features/cabin-mode) for full details on all three systems. *** ### Grab-Hold System (MH-6 Little Bird) The MH-6's bench seats work differently from every other helicopter in the pack. When a player sits on a bench, they are physically **linked to the helicopter's local space**. The aircraft can bank, pitch, and accelerate — bench riders move with it automatically. No manual grab inputs. No risk of falling through geometry. The link is maintained from takeoff to landing and detaches cleanly when the player dismounts. *** ### Autorotation When the engine dies in flight, the rotor keeps spinning — rotor inertia carries the aircraft into a glide. A controlled descent, a collective flare at the right moment, and a heavy helicopter can be put down survivably. The autorotation model has configurable parameters: gravity reduction factor, flare strength, maximum descent speed cap, and the speed at which ETL stops providing meaningful lift. Servers can tune it from forgiving to demanding. *** ### Sound System Every helicopter has **eight distinct audio event layers**, each independently volume-configurable per aircraft in the JSON config: | Layer | Trigger | | ---------------- | ------------------------------------------------- | | **Engine** | Looping, volume driven by engine spool fraction | | **Rotor** | Looping, volume driven by rotor spool fraction | | **Startup** | One-shot transient on engine start | | **Shutdown** | One-shot transient on engine stop | | **Fuel Warning** | Looping beep tone when fuel below threshold | | **Crash** | One-shot on hard impact or high angular velocity | | **Rotor Shear** | One-shot when main or tail rotor blade shears off | | **Impact Tap** | Light contact sound on minor ground touches | The interior sound environment is also attenuated — cabin passengers hear a reduced mix compared to the external soundscape. *** ### Rotor Kill Zone The main rotor disc and tail rotor are **active kill zones** when spinning. Any player entering the disc radius takes fatal damage — making ground crew and bystanders genuinely at risk around a running helicopter. The system automatically exempts: * Seated crew members * Players in interior cabin walk mode * Players on grab-hold benches * Players in the seat-exit walk window (just dismounted) The rotor disc geometry is also **hidden from the physics scene** while spinning at altitude, preventing the visual mesh from clipping into terrain on low approaches. This can be toggled server-side. *** ### Damage System All six zones can be enabled or disabled **per helicopter, per server** in the JSON config. A helicopter with all zones set to `0` takes no damage — useful for PvE or event servers that want indestructible aircraft. | Zone | Consequence when destroyed | | -------------- | --------------------------------------------- | | **Body** | Progressive HP drain | | **Engine** | Cannot restart; rotor spins down | | **Chassis** | Structural damage; impact threshold lowered | | **Fuel** | Tank leak; fuel drains continuously | | **Main Rotor** | Aircraft falls; no lift recovery | | **Tail Rotor** | Uncontrolled yaw spin; heading cannot be held | **Rotor blade shear** is a separate system — when the main or tail rotor health reaches zero, the blade physically detaches with an audio crack, the spool animation freezes, and the rotor geometry hides. The sheared state persists through server restarts. Hard-impact crash damage to crew is also configurable — the impulse threshold, maximum HP damage per impact, and whether crew damage is enabled at all are all server-controlled. *** ### Water & Crash Detection **Water impact:** High-speed entry into water deals impulse-scaled damage to the Body zone and crew members. A slam cooldown prevents rapid repeated damage on bounced impacts. **Drowning:** A helicopter that remains fully submerged takes continuous damage to the Engine (350/s) and Body (200/s) zones after a short grace period, ultimately destroying the aircraft. **Hard landing:** Impulse above the configured threshold triggers the crash sound, applies zone damage, and zeroes angular velocity to prevent spinning. A position correction is applied on the next tick to prevent floor clipping. *** ### Server Configuration Every aircraft in the pack has its own JSON config file generated automatically on first server start. Changes made in the in-game **Admin Panel** apply **live** — they update every spawned helicopter and connected player instantly, no restart or reconnect (since v0.2.3). Only **direct edits to the JSON config files** need a server restart, since those are read on startup. ``` $profile:\CZAutoz_Heli\ ├── MD500_Civilian_config.json ├── UH1H_Nasa_config.json ├── MH60LBlackhawk_config.json ├── AW101Merlin_RoyalAirForce_config.json ├── ... (20 files total across all variants) └── mod_config.json ← global settings ``` Each per-helicopter file is organised into clear nested sections — `flight`, `altitude`, `aerodynamics`, `control`, `autorotation`, `tailRotorFailure`, `damage`, `fuel`, `battery`, `audio` and `camera`. Together they cover: * Rotor spool rate, lift multiplier, max airspeed (knots) and vertical speed * Altitude lift fall-off start and hard ceiling (feet) * Cyclic authority (pitch / bank / yaw strength) and per-axis Tau response smoothing * Bank-to-turn strength, input smoothing, drag * Ground effect bonus and altitude, ETL bonus and speed, flight-envelope drag * Autorotation gravity factor, flare strength, descent cap, and coast duration * Tail-rotor failure spin and descent behaviour * All six damage zone toggles, contact damage coefficient, and post-destruction burn (duration + radius) * Crash threshold, player crash damage enable * Battery drain/charge rates, fuel burn rate, max fuel capacity * Audio volume multipliers for all sound layers * Camera pull-back distance Since **v0.2.3**, a mod update **migrates your config files in place** on the first server start after updating — new keys are added, removed keys cleaned up, and all your custom values are kept (originals are still backed up first to `$profile:\CZAutoz_Heli\Backups\v_\`). Only when first moving from v0.2.2-or-earlier onto a v0.2.3+ build might a one-time re-apply be needed. See [Per-Helicopter Settings](/server-config/per-helicopter-settings) for the full parameter reference. *** ## Logging & Administration When enabled in `mod_config.json`, the mod writes timestamped activity logs to the server profile directory: ``` $profile:\CZAutoz_Heli\CZAutoz_Heli_Activity_YYYY-MM-DD.log ``` Every log entry includes the **player display name**, **Steam GUID**, helicopter type, and world position. Logged events include engine start, engine stop, boarding, disembarking, landing gear toggle, refuel, rotor kill, crew crash damage, and pilot death in seat. A separate debug log (`CZAutoz_Heli_debug.log`) can be enabled independently for detailed physics and config diagnostics without flooding the activity log. Both logs are opt-in and disabled by default.