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Start here before anything else. CZ Autoz Helicopter generates its own dedicated log files — these will tell you exactly what is wrong far faster than anything else. See Logging & Diagnostics below for the full list and what each file contains.

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Installation & Whitelisting

The most common cause is an IP not being whitelisted. Players on such a server see a Helicopter flight locked watermark with the CZ Autoz logo whenever they are aboard a helicopter. The first thing to do is check the whitelist log — it tells you exactly what the mod found:
Since v0.3.0 the helicopter reports into the same date-stamped whitelist log as the CZ Autoz vehicle mods — one shared file for the whole fleet, one RESULT line per product per check. The line shows your server’s detected IP and port and the result:
  • NOT REGISTERED — this IP isn’t on the whitelist; submit it via the bot in #ip-whitelisting or at czautoz.co.uk/whitelist
  • COULD NOT VERIFY (NETWORK) — the mod couldn’t reach the whitelist service; check your server’s outbound internet access and verify the service is online at status.czautoz.co.uk — the mod keeps retrying automatically
  • If your server IP has changed (new host, new instance), re-whitelist the new IP via the bot or website
  • After whitelisting, restart the server for it to take effect (the mod also re-checks automatically on its retry timer)
Config files are written to $profile:\CZAutoz_Heli\ on the first server start after the mod is loaded.
  • Confirm the mod is correctly added to your server’s -mod= startup parameter
  • Confirm the mod is loading successfully — check your RPT log for any mod load errors
  • Make sure the server profile directory is writable
  • Try a full server restart (not a crash recovery restart)
Helicopters are not added to loot automatically — you need to add them to your server’s economy:
  • Add helicopter classnames to your types.xml, trader config, or event spawner
  • All spawnable classnames are listed on the Helicopter Overview page
  • After editing types.xml, restart the server for changes to take effect
Since v0.2.1 the helicopters are built on DayZ’s own vehicle base, so the game saves them the same way it saves cars. There is nothing to set up — they stay put across restarts.
  • The manual <rootclass> line in cfgeconomycore.xml is no longer needed from v0.2.1
  • Coming from v0.2? The old build needed <rootclass name="CZAutoz_Helicopter_Script" act="car" reportMemoryLOD="no" /> in cfgeconomycore.xml. Delete that line — it does nothing now.
  • Wipe your saved helicopters once when you update, because the way they are saved changed.
See the Persistence — No Setup Required step in the setup guide for full context.
Some “no vehicle damage” mods (for example COCAs_NoVehicleDamageMOD and the 2019 NoVehicleDamage) switch damage off in a way that also blocks other mods from doing their own work when a vehicle is hit or moves. If one of those loads after the helicopters, our own code never gets a turn — other players stop seeing the rotor turn or the aircraft tilt, the spinning rotor stops hurting anyone who walks into it, and a parked helicopter no longer wakes up when something bumps it.The fix: put the no-damage mod before the helicopters in your server’s -mod= list. Whichever mod is listed first goes first, so with the helicopters last both mods get what they want: crash damage stays off, and the helicopters keep their rotors, their movement and their wake-up behaviour.
(Use whatever you named the two helicopter mod folders — the point is that they come after the no-damage mod.)Flying is unaffected either way. The only symptoms are what other players see, and the rotor not hurting anyone.

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Engine & Battery

The engine start action requires a charged CZ_HelicopterBattery in the helicopter’s battery slot.
  • Check the helicopter’s inventory for a CZ_HelicopterBattery item in the dedicated battery slot
  • If the battery is present but has zero charge, it needs to be recharged or replaced
  • If no battery is present at all, add CZ_HelicopterBattery to your types.xml so it can spawn
  • You cannot turn the battery requirement off. Setting battery.startDrain = 0 only stops the battery being used up when you start the engine — a fitted battery with some charge left in it is still needed
Battery drain is controlled by three settings in the battery section of the helicopter’s JSON config:A full battery holds 500. While the engine runs it gains 1 a second whatever lights are on — anyone who is actually flying will not go flat. Batteries run down when the lights are left on with the engine off, which empties a full one in about 33 minutes, or when the battery is damaged: a badly worn one holds only about half. Lower battery.lightDrain to make parked batteries last longer.Before v0.4.7 battery.chargeRate was 5.0 and battery.lightDrain was 2.0, and a parked helicopter with its lights on was flat in about 4 minutes. Helicopter files still on those values are moved to the new ones when the server updates. v0.4.7 also fixes batteries that showed full in the inventory while they were really flat, and lights left on at a restart — every helicopter now comes back from a restart with its lights off.
  • Confirm the battery is in the correct HelicopterBattery slot (not general cargo)
  • Make sure the battery charge is greater than 0 — a battery at exactly 0 charge will not work
  • It will not start with an empty tank, a destroyed or burning airframe, a dead engine, or either rotor destroyed or snapped. Repair or refuel it first
  • From v0.4.8 it also needs an Igniter Plug in its Engine attachments and some turbine oil, unless your server has switched those parts off. A worn plug sometimes fails to light the engine. The key prompt on the left names the missing part, and Check fluids and parts at the refuel point shows the state of everything. The Barrel Helicopter needs neither. See Helicopter Parts
  • If the battery is correct and charged but the engine still won’t start, check whether the server is whitelisted — an unwhitelisted server disables all mod features including engine start. Open $profile:\CZAutoz_Whitelist_YYYY-MM-DD.log to confirm the whitelist result

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Flight & Physics

Raise flight.liftMultiplier in that helicopter’s JSON config. Each one starts from a different figure:Go up in steps of 0.2 to 0.5 and restart the server between tries — or change it in the Admin Panel, which takes effect immediately.
Lower the control.response.*Tau figures to make the controls sharper. The *AccelTau ones set how quickly a control builds up when you press it; the *DecayTau ones set how quickly it fades when you let go. Smaller numbers feel sharper, bigger numbers feel heavier and smoother.You can also raise control.pitchStrength, control.bankStrength and control.yawStrength, each on its own, to give the aircraft more authority.
That is deliberate — it is what happens to a real helicopter that loses its tail rotor. The real-life way out works here too (since v0.3.0): shut the engine off and the spin stops. The spin comes from the engine, so with the power off you can glide down on the rotor and put it on the ground straight.To make it less punishing:
  • Lower tailRotorFailure.spinRate — how fast the nose swings round, in degrees per second (the default depends on the aircraft: 90 on the Merlin, 100 on the Blackhawk and Mi-24, 120 on the UH-1H and Gazelle, 150 on the MD500 and MH-6, and 170 on the Barrel Helicopter)
  • Lower tailRotorFailure.descentRate — how hard it is pushed down, in m/s² (default 3.0 on the MD500, MH-6 and Barrel Helicopter, 2.5 on the rest)
  • Or take tail rotor damage out of the game altogether: set damage.zones.rotor2 = 0
The two Chinooks have no tail rotor, so this does not apply to them — their second rotor area is the rear lifting rotor, and losing that costs you lift, not control of the nose. The two Ospreys have no tail rotor either: their two rotor areas are their two proprotors, and losing one rolls the aircraft toward the dead side instead of spinning it.
Fixed in v0.4.6 — update the mod. The brakes stayed locked on the ground, so Q/E could not turn a helicopter on the spot, and after a rolling landing nothing would stop it. Every helicopter on wheels can now taxi: with the rotor at flying speed and the wheels down, W rolls it forward, S rolls it back, Q/E turns it on the spot, and S while rolling forward (or W while rolling back) brakes. With no input the parking brake holds it. The brakes only bite once the wheels have been down for about a second. See Taxiing.Helicopters on skids — the MD500, MH-6, Gazelle and UH-1H — do not taxi.
Autohover is switched on or off separately for each flight mode. Open mod_config.json and look at autoHoverEnabled in whichever block matches your flight.flightMode — simple or advanced. If it is 0 there, Autohover is off for that mode. Set it to 1 and restart, or change it in the Admin Panel and it takes effect straight away. Both default to 1.Autohover is on X by default and can be rebound in DayZ’s controls settings.
With nobody flying it, the helicopter is treated as abandoned and brings itself down. After autoPilot.abandonedLandingDelay seconds (default 20) it settles to the ground on its own rather than hovering there for ever or dropping like a stone.This is why an abandoned helicopter is not lost. Before this existed, an unattended hover burned no fuel and simply stayed up, so aircraft could be stranded permanently.You can lengthen or shorten the wait with autoPilot.abandonedLandingDelay in mod_config.json.
That player has Mouse Flight turned on. Each player chooses this for themselves — press K in the pilot seat to switch it on or off, and the HUD shows a green mouse or red keyboard badge so you always know which you are in. With it on, the mouse steers the helicopter instead of looking around, which is why free look seems to have stopped working.
  • The choice is remembered between sessions, so an accidental press of K sticks until they press it again
  • Since v0.4.0 an on-screen message confirms every switch, so it is no longer silent, and only the person actually flying loses free look — passengers and other crew are unaffected
  • Each player sets their own mouse sensitivity in the in-game settings window: press O in a helicopter to open the Pilot Panel’s settings (default 0.5, anything from 0.05 to 2.0; a value you saved before v0.4.6 is kept)
  • K is an ordinary key binding — anyone who uses it for something else can change it in DayZ’s controls settings
From v0.4.7 the cockpits have working gauges. If a needle sits still, check that the engine is running or the dashboard lights (I) are on — the instruments need power. See Cockpit, Radar & Warnings.

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Sling Loading

There are two hook-up actions — one for the pilot, one for someone on the ground — and they have slightly different requirements.Both of them need all of this to be true:
  • The feature is switched on — sling.enabled is 1 in mod_config.json (that is the default; 0 turns sling loading off completely)
  • The rotor is at 90% or more of full speed — you cannot hook a load onto a cold or still-winding-up aircraft
  • The helicopter is over the load and close enough — between 3 m and 16 m above it and within 7 m to the side, with nothing in the way between the load and the hook
  • The load is a vehicle, and not locked
  • The load is inside the helicopter’s weight limit — too heavy and no action appears at all
  • The rotors working (neither destroyed), and on the Ospreys the nacelles at least 80% up
  • The helicopter nearly still — the ground-crew action allows up to about 3 m/s
The pilot’s own action also needs:
  • Someone sitting in the pilot or co-pilot seat (the ground-crew action does not check this)
  • The helicopter almost still — under 2.5 m/s, so hold a steady hover over the load
Once a load is hooked you can wind the rope in and out between 4 m and 22 m. Only the pilot or co-pilot can drop it from the air.
Sling loading is still being polished — it is safe to run and perfectly playable, but the ropes and the way a load handles are still being worked on. If you would rather not run it yet, set sling.enabled = 0.

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Refuelling

All of the following have to be true before the action appears:
  • A petrol container in your hands — a jerrycan, for example. It has to be held, and it has to be petrol; other liquids will not do
  • You are looking at the fuel cap on the helicopter. The action is tied to that spot on the aircraft, not to standing anywhere near it
  • You are close enough — within fuel.refuelDistance metres of the fuel cap (default 5 m)
  • The tank is not already full
  • The container is not ruined
No jerrycan? Since v0.3.0 you can fill up straight from a fuel station: put the helicopter on or right next to a working pump (within about 12 m — a little further for the big aircraft — so the station forecourt counts), walk to its fuel cap with empty hands, and hold F on “Refuel at Fuel Station”. Every helicopter fills from empty in about 100 seconds, whatever its tank size. This works with the standard Chernarus and Livonia stations, and with pump mods built on the standard station.

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Repair & Damage

Every one of these has to be true:
  1. A Helicopter Repair Kit (CZ_HelicopterRepairKit) in your hands — actually held, not sitting in your inventory or backpack
  2. The engine off — unless the main rotor has been destroyed, in which case you can repair even while the engine is still winding down
  3. The rotor down to half speed or less — wait for the blades to slow before you start
  4. The helicopter low enough — this is about how high the helicopter is above the ground, not how far away you are standing: 3 m or less to repair a rotor, 5 m or less for the body, engine, chassis and fuel tank. One sitting on the ground always passes; one perched on a roof may not
  5. You standing up — crouching or lying down hides the action
  6. You out of the aircraft — you cannot repair from a seat
If all conditions are met and the action still doesn’t appear, confirm CZ_HelicopterRepairKit is in your types.xml and spawning in the world.
Adjust these settings in the damage section of the helicopter’s JSON config:Since v0.4.6 a gentle nudge, a ramp resting on the ground, a kerb or a sliding landing no longer counts as a crash, heavy aircraft are no longer several times more fragile than light ones, and a knock only takes out a rotor if it lands inside that rotor’s disc. If you raised these settings to work round that on an older version, you may want to put them back.To make a helicopter completely indestructible, set every damage area to 0 under damage.zones:
Fixed in v0.4.0 — update the mod. We no longer override another mod’s decision to switch damage off, so a zombie damage-off mod (or any mod that turns damage off on a vehicle) now works on the helicopters just as it does on every other vehicle.If you cannot update yet, make the helicopter indestructible from our side instead: set all six damage.zones.* values to 0 in its JSON config, exactly as shown above.

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Cabin Mode

  • Four helicopters have Cabin Mode — the UH-1H Iroquois, the MH-60L Blackhawk and the MH-47G and CH-47D Chinooks. Of these, only the two Chinooks let you stand fully upright; in the others you stay crouched. The AW101 Merlin and the two Ospreys do not have it and do not need it: getting out of any of their seats already leaves you standing inside. The Mi-24 has no Cabin Mode: its cockpits are sealed off from its cabin
  • You have to be sitting as pilot or co-pilot. Passengers in the back never get this action, because their normal “Get Out” already puts them on their feet inside
  • Look back towards the cabin — the action only shows when you are facing the seat area you would be moving to.
  • It is not offered while the helicopter is lying on its side
  • Check crew.cabinModeEnabled is 1 (the default since v0.2.8). If you turned it off during the v0.2.3/v0.2.4 rework, your 0 is kept through updates until an admin changes it back

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Ramp & Doors

Fixed in v0.4.0 — update the mod. A ramp (or landing gear, or a side door) left open over a restart came back with the closed shape still blocking the way, even though it looked open. That shape is now rebuilt correctly on the server and on every player’s game after a restart.

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Configuration

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.
Since v0.2.3, a mod update migrates your configs in place — new keys are added, removed keys cleaned up, and all your custom values are kept. It is triggered by the version field stored in mod_config.json changing.
  • Your originals are backed up first to $profile:\CZAutoz_Heli\Backups\v<oldversion>_<date>\ before any migration touches a file
  • Only when first moving from v0.2.2-or-earlier onto a v0.2.3+ build might a one-time re-apply be needed
  • Do not manually edit the version field in mod_config.json — let the mod set it
Since v0.2.3 a mod version update migrates configs in place, so new keys are added automatically while your existing custom values are kept. If new keys are still missing after a server restart, check your RPT log for errors during config loading.

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Mod Compatibility

Since v0.2.1 the helicopters count as ordinary vehicles, so 3rd-person camera mods such as Vehicle 3PP now apply their whitelist to them. Older builds skipped that list entirely and always gave you 3rd person. If your helicopters are stuck in 1st person, they just need adding to the 3PP whitelist:
  • Open $profile:3PPVehicleWhitelist.json
  • Add CZAutoz_Helicopter_Base to the Whitelist list — that single entry covers every CZ Autoz helicopter, so you do not need to list them one by one
  • Or leave the Whitelist array empty to allow 3rd person on all vehicles
  • 3PP’s DriverOnly setting still applies: "true" lets only the pilot use 3rd person (passengers locked to 1st); set "false" to allow everyone
This is a one-time setting on the 3PP mod’s side — nothing needs changing in CZ Autoz. The 3rd-person view you get is the mod’s own smoothed helicopter chase camera.
First make sure every player and the server are on exactly the same version of the mod — both PBOs, not just one. A mismatch (say a player still on last week’s build while the server runs today’s) is by far the most common cause of a crash when a helicopter spawns, because the two sides disagree about what a helicopter is. Fully update or re-subscribe on every machine, then try again.
Fixed in v0.4.0 — update the mod. Those repair actions fill every empty slot on a vehicle, which fitted all of the optional extra cargo modules whatever your cargoModules settings said. The helicopter now spots modules added by an outside tool and puts itself back to your configured number a moment later, so CFTools, VPP and Expansion admin repairs all end up matching your config. Modules you actually configured, and anything stored in them, are never removed.
Fixed in v0.4.0 — update the mod. The server moved the helicopter properly, but players’ games never caught up, so it looked as though it had stayed put or vanished. A parked helicopter moved by another mod now jumps straight to its new spot for everyone. Nothing about normal flight changed.
This happens when a server jumps from v0.4.1 or older straight to a current build with helicopters already sitting in an Expansion-type virtual garage. v0.4.2 changed what a helicopter writes into its save data, and a garage hands the helicopter back exactly as it was stored — so the first retrieval under the new build misreads the old save. The helicopter comes out heavily damaged, usually burning, and the server can freeze for anywhere from twenty seconds to over a minute on each of those first pulls.It is one-time per helicopter, and nothing is lost for good:
  • Retrieve the stored helicopters one at a time — each old one can freeze the server on the way out, and pulling several together makes it much worse
  • Repair each one as it comes out — the Admin Panel’s Repair (or Repair All) restores everything, fire included
  • Once a helicopter has been stored again, it is on the current save format and is permanently fine
Helicopters that were parked out in the world through the update are unaffected — a normal restart migrates them cleanly. Anything stored after the update comes out untouched, which is also the quick way to confirm this is what you are seeing: store a fresh helicopter, pull it straight back out, and it should be perfect. One more thing worth knowing — the freeze hits everyone on the server at once, so it often gets blamed on whatever players happened to be doing at that moment. If the server is stalling after an update, check for garage retrievals first.

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Historical Fixes

These describe problems that were fixed long ago. They only matter if you are coming from an old build, or still carry a config value you set on our earlier advice.Cabin Mode (v0.2.8–v0.3.0) — Cabin Mode was rebuilt in v0.2.8 and tidied up further in v0.2.9 and v0.3.0. Moving into the cabin in flight is now smooth and reliable at any speed, any angle and any frame rate. The old snapping, teleporting and stuck-falling problems from v0.2.3 and v0.2.4 are gone, and v0.3.0 fixed a case on very fast machines where you could briefly get wedged in a falling pose. It is on by default (crew.cabinModeEnabled = 1).
  • If you set cabinModeEnabled = 0 on our earlier advice, set it back to 1. Updates keep your own values, so an old 0 stays until you change it. Change it in the Admin Panel and it applies immediately; edit the JSON by hand and you need a restart
  • Getting out into the cabin, and riding along on the outside, are handled by the game itself and were never affected
Distant engine sounds and prompts (v0.3.0) — engine starts and shutdowns now reach every player no matter how far away they are, so a distant helicopter audibly winds down when its pilot shuts off, and the prompt you get walking up to one (“Start Engine” or “Shut Off Engine”) is always right. If you still see the old behaviour, someone is on a different version — make sure the server and every player have the same build of both PBOs, then try again.

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Logging & Diagnostics

CZ Autoz Helicopter writes its own log files, separate from DayZ’s usual .RPT. Start here with any problem. They live in your server’s profile folder and say in plain terms what the mod found, which the general RPT cannot.

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Log File Overview

Both are written to the root of your profile folder (not inside CZAutoz_Heli\), and both are date-stamped and roll over daily — one file per log, per day.

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Whitelist Log

Check this first whenever helicopters are not responding or controls are dead. Since v0.3.0 the helicopter reports into the same date-stamped whitelist log as the CZ Autoz vehicle mods — one shared file for the whole fleet, one RESULT line per product per check: Each line also shows the server IP and port the mod detected — compare these against what you submitted to the whitelist bot. If they don’t match, that is your problem.
The file is appended (one dated file per day) and self-trims, so it never grows without bound. Before digging into a network result, check whether the CZ Autoz whitelist service itself is online: status.czautoz.co.uk. If the service is down, a network result is expected and no server-side fix is needed — the mod keeps retrying and recovers on its own.

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Activity Log

A daily timestamped record of the helicopter events that matter to admins — engine starts and stops, seat enter/exit, parts fitted and removed, crashes, crash explosions and wreck fires, rotor kills, sling loads, trackers, runways, admin actions, combat logging indicators, and more. Each entry includes the player’s display name, Steam GUID, and helicopter classname. From v0.4.7 it is trimmed to what helps with grief and rule-breaking: routine lines such as refuels, repairs, lights, ramps, landing gear and windows are no longer written to it. This is the primary tool for admin investigations, compensation decisions, and dispute resolution. Enabled by setting logging.activityLog = 1 in mod_config.json — we recommend enabling it on all servers. See Global Settings for the full list of recorded events and what data each one captures.

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Still Need Help?

If your issue isn’t covered here, visit the CZ Autoz Discord for community support.

CZ Autoz Discord

Get help from the community and the development team