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Delivered
Previously on this roadmap and now shipped — see the changelog for the full release notes.True Force-Model Flight (v0.2.8)
Done. Flight is driven by real physics forces rather than scripted movement, so the pilot’s controls respond instantly and smoothly. Since v0.2.9 passengers and co-pilots see the same smooth flight that the pilot does, just as they would in a normal vehicle.
Wind Physics (v0.2.9)
Done. The live weather’s wind can physically shove the aircraft about in gusts. It is optional, set separately for Simple and Advanced flight, and off by default.
Advanced Flight Feel (v0.2.9, retuned v0.3.0)
Done. Real helicopter behaviours you have to fly around: sinking into your own downwash if you descend too fast, the nose swinging as you pull power, and the nose rising as you pick up speed. Advanced mode only, and every part is adjustable. Retuned and flight-tested in v0.3.0, with hard limits so no setting can take control away from the pilot.
Survivor Animations Integration (v0.2.8)
Done. With the Survivor Animations mod loaded, pilots hold a proper helicopter pilot pose instead of the steering-wheel grip — automatic soft-detection, no configuration.
In-Game Admin Panel
Done. Run the whole fleet from inside the game (F10 by default) — teleport, repair, refuel, reset, delete, repair everything, delete empty aircraft, reload the configs without a restart, a map view, and roles that limit what each admin can do. Since v0.2.9 the panel shows exactly the same settings as the config files.
Full Controller Support
Done. Fly entirely on a gamepad — cyclic on the left stick, collective on the triggers, yaw on the shoulder buttons. Every binding is rebindable.
Wreck Fire
Done. A destroyed helicopter catches fire and burns for as long as you set, and the fire hurts anyone standing too close. Wrecks underwater do not burn. Since v0.3.6, repairing a burning wreck puts the fire out straight away.
Observer-View Smoothing (v0.3.5–v0.3.6)
Done. The slight stuttering that everyone except the pilot used to see is gone. Watching a helicopter fly is now smooth whether it is empty (v0.3.5) or flown by someone else (v0.3.6), and whether you are on the ground, in a seat or walking about in the cabin. Flying it yourself was always smooth.
Tandem-Rotor Airframe — MH-47G Chinook (v0.3.9)
Done. The twin-rotor groundwork laid in v0.2.9 was for one aircraft in particular, and it has arrived: the MH-47G Chinook — 27 seats, a hold you can stand up in, entered off a folding rear ramp, two lifting hooks (front and rear), and, with the CH-47D, the heaviest lift in the fleet.
Sling Load (v0.3.9)
Done — still being polished. Carry a vehicle underneath the helicopter on a rope. Hook it up from the pilot seat, or from the ground standing next to the vehicle, wind the rope in and out between 4 m and 22 m, and drop it from either place. Each helicopter has its own weight limit, from the Barrel Helicopter’s 120 kg to the two Chinooks’ 10,000 kg. It is safe to run and perfectly playable, but the ropes and the way a load handles are still being worked on —
sling.enabled = 0 turns it off.Mouse Flight (v0.3.9)
Done. Steer with the mouse instead of the keys — press K in the pilot seat to switch, and a KEYBOARD or MOUSE label on the instruments tells you which you are in. Your choice is remembered between sessions. The keys keep working either way. v0.4.0 added an on-screen message every time you switch, and since v0.4.2 you set mouse sensitivity and keyboard steering strength in the Settings tab of the Pilot Panel (O).
Thinner Air With Height (v0.3.9)
Done. The higher you climb the thinner the air gets, and the less lift you have — roughly 9% less for every 1,000 m, following the real standard atmosphere. Server owners adjust it with
flight.isaAirDensity (default 1.0; 0 turns it off completely).Runways for the Osprey autopilot
Done in v0.4.7. Admins mark a runway in game with the runway creator, clicking each end from a free camera, and it is saved for that map. An Osprey on autopilot lines up with it and lands along it like an aeroplane, and engaged near a runway it taxis out, rolls down it and takes off. See Autopilot.
Chin camera
Done in v0.4.7. The nose camera works on the nine aircraft that carry one: day, night vision and thermal, zoom up to 40x, a shared target marker and a camera spotlight, from the pilot or co-pilot seat. See Chin Camera.
Co-pilot takes the controls (v0.4.8)
Done. Transfer Flight Control (T) hands the controls to the co-pilot in their own seat, and back again, without anyone moving seats.
Helicopter parts (v0.4.8)
Done. An igniter plug, hydraulic hoses, an avionics computer and a camera pod to fit, and turbine oil and hydraulic fluid to pour in, each with its own effect on the aircraft. Details
Working cockpits
Done in v0.4.7. Live gauges and a GPS screen with waypoints in every cockpit, a radar on five aircraft, and radar and terrain warnings. See Cockpit, Radar & Warnings.
Gameplay & Crew Systems
Player Rappelling
Crew will be able to rope down from a hovering helicopter onto the ground, a rooftop or a ship’s deck. Meant to be used with Auto Hover: the pilot holds the aircraft steady while the crew go down the ropes from the doors or the rear ramp.
Parachutes
Jump out of a helicopter or an Osprey in flight and float down under a parachute you can steer, instead of falling. Packed parachutes would be items players find and wear, so a high drop over the map becomes a real way to get in.
Winch System — Player Extraction
The cargo half of this arrived as sling loading in v0.3.9. What is left is the crew half: winching a player up to a hovering helicopter and lowering them back down. It is planned to work with Cabin Mode and Autohover.
Drive-in Vehicle Loading
Carrier versions of the Chinook with the rear cabin seats taken out, so you can drive a car up the rear ramp, have it held in place for the flight, and drive it off at the other end. The Chinook’s hold is wide enough for a small car once the seats are gone. The Osprey’s hold is narrower, as it is on the real aircraft, so it would only take smaller vehicles.
Helipads
Landing pads that admins can place on their map. They show up on the autopilot map as destinations, and the autopilot sets down on the pad itself rather than searching for clear ground nearby.
Flight Model
Tail Rotor Authority vs. Speed
Making the tail rotor weaker when you are slow and stronger once you have speed on, so turning the nose feels more like it does in a real helicopter.
Weather Extremes
Building on the shipped wind physics (v0.2.9) — further weather-driven flight hazards such as lightning are being explored for a future update.
Immersion & Visuals
Damage Visual States (v0.4.1)
Done. Every helicopter now looks the part as it takes damage: five stages on the body and tail — clean, worn, damaged, badly damaged and wrecked — on every colour variant. Doors and wheels wear out on their own, separately from the aircraft. A destroyed helicopter is visibly burnt: scorched paint, blistered metal and soot. Custom repaints get all of this automatically. Actually bending and crumpling the shape is still something we may look at later.
Content
Additional Helicopter Variants
More helicopter types beyond the current twelve. Each candidate is judged on whether DayZ’s physics can carry it and whether its cabin, seats and doors can be built the way the existing ones are.
Armed Helicopters
The Gazelle and the Mi-24 as working armed helicopters with rockets and machine guns, built on a weapons system that later helicopters can use too.
Door Gunner Positions
Proper firing positions at open doors on the helicopters that suit it, where the gunner is fixed in place and can only aim within a set arc that matches the shape of the aircraft.