Flying a helicopter in Wardogs is a little trickier than you might expect. You’ll have to balance altitude and realistic controls to avoid killing anyone in your helicopter in a blazing wreckage. However, there are ways you can practice before heading into a match, and we’ve got some tips on how best to control your aircraft.
How to practice flying a helicopter
You can practice flying in Wardogs in the firing range. To access it, look at the bottom left area of your menu. When you’ve entered the firing range, head to the left to seek out the Vehicle Vendor. This will spawn in any vehicle in the game for free, so head to the “Air” tab and select the aircraft of your choice. Once the helicopter has spawned in, make sure you’re on the driver’s side, jump in, and start practicing.
Best Wardogs flying control settings
Before you start flying, it’s important to note the controls. They’re not your typical arcade-style helicopter controls that you might be used to from other games. We’ll be talking about a few recommended changes to the default settings that we find makes helicopters easier to fly. If you want to change your own settings to match ours, they’re at the bottom of the controls section of the settings menu.
Rotary vehicle mouse control alters your ability to control a rotary vehicle using your mouse. To get the most out of flying, make sure this is enabled.
Next, set the helicopter mouse swipe left/right to “yaw,” and up/down to “pitch.” For the helicopter mouse pitch sensitivity, you want it around 80%, and the same for yaw. For the mouse axis isolation, set that to 70%. Make sure invert Y axis for air vehicles is turned off.
To change the keybinds, you’ll need to go down near the bottom of the keybindings tab. Look for the section titled “rotary vehicle keybinds.” We have chosen to change a few of these to make flying feel more intuitive. Collective (raise) is essentially your throttle, and we’ve bound that to spacebar. Collective (lower) can be bound to left shift. Increase and decrease cyclic x are on W and S respectively, while increase and decrease cyclic y are on D and A respectively. Yaw left and right are on Q and E respectively.
Wardogs flying tips
There are a few other things to note about flying. Be default, your helicopter will be locked, so you can use L to unlock it. V is for your flares, which are used to intercept incoming missiles. C allows you to toggle the camera so you can view the surrounding area from the cockpit.
How to fly in Wardogs
Now that your settings and controls are optimized, it’s time to fly. To start off, hit space to turn the engines on. Hold space to lift off from the ground until you reach an altitude you’re happy with. If you take your hand off the spacebar, the helicopter will hover. To descend, hold left shift, but watch the bars at the bottom of the screen to ensure you’re not descending with too much momentum. It’s a good idea to begin to toggle left shift and spacebar when you’re getting near the ground to slowly descend rather than thudding to the ground and potentially damaging your aircraft.
After taking off, use Q and E to twist your helicopter around–or use your mouse. Use W and S to tip the helicopter forward and backward. To fly forward, hold spacebar and tap W to tilt the helicopter. You’ll start moving in the direction the helicopter is tipping. If you tilt too far, you’ll get too close to the ground and could crash. If this is happening, tap S to rectify the helicopter’s angle. Basically, use Q and E to change direction, and W and S to change forward and backward momentum.
To land easily, use S to tilt your helicopter backward and left shift to get closer to the ground. If anyone’s trying to disembark your helicopter, they should be clear to leap to the ground from around five meters. You can see your altitude on the dials at the bottom of the screen.
If you’re holding Q or E and spacebar at the same time, your helicopter will tip in that direction. Make sure you’re using W and S to rectify any altitude problems that might happen as a result of this. It’s well worth using the firing range to practice ascending, descending, and making turns.
To slow down your helicopter without gaining altitude, you can choose a direction, hold shift, and go back and forth until you land safely. This is because your momentum will be sideways rather than vertical–it means you can go in one direction quickly, lose momentum and altitude, and get to the ground quickly. This is important to prevent the opposition from using anti-air tactics on you while you’re vulnerable.
It sounds complex, but after a short while it begins to feel very natural. When you’re comfortable with this technique, put it all together and practice as though you’re in a game. Take off, head to a designated area, and land safely.
Now that you’ve mastered flying, take it to the battlefield. Helicopters can be a great way of earning money, and mastering flying them is a skill you should put time into.
