Trainer / How to fly

How to fly helicopters in Wardogs

We watched the twenty most-viewed Wardogs flying guides on YouTube, from real helicopter pilots to the game’s top gunship players, read the best written guides, and boiled it down to what they agree on, what they argue about, and how to practise it.

Updated 2026-09-28

Before you fly: practise for free

The Firing Range is a separate map where nothing you do costs money or touches a live server (AllThingsHow). Open it from the bottom left of the main menu, walk to the vehicle vendor, open the Air tab, and spawn any helicopter for $0. Get in on the side marked pilot. If you crash far from the vendor, Esc → Return to spawn gives you a fresh one (GhostGaming, Fallout Plays).

Learn in the MH-6 Little Bird. It is unlocked from the start, is the cheapest to replace, and has no weapons to think about. IceManIsaac, a former US Air Force instructor pilot, steers beginners away from the Lakota for now: its stabilisation felt buggy and over-correcting to him.

StratzFPS' first mistake to avoid is skipping the range and crashing an expensive loadout in a live match.

The controls

Four controls, all working all the time. Cologne TM, a real helicopter pilot with more than 3,000 hours, says most beginners crash within 30 seconds simply because nobody told them what each control does.

Mouse flight is off by default, and almost every experienced pilot turns it on. The setups of Hieb, Silk, ProLosco, GhostGaming, LewF20, IceManIsaac and others are on the keyboard and mouse page; there are also guides for HOTAS and controller.

Press L before takeoff if you want passengers: the helicopter is locked to your squad by default.

Takeoff and hover

1. Spin up fully first. Raise the collective to start the rotor, then wait for maximum RPM with the collective down before lifting. IceManIsaac warns that pulling full power while the rotor is still spooling gives a slow, drifting lift-off, often into the tree or slope next to you. Wait for full RPM, then lift decisively.
2. Gain height before you tilt. A steep nose-down straight after lift-off throws away lift (Skycoach, Overgear).
3. Hover with taps. Small cyclic inputs, then back to centre, and wait for each one to take effect before the next. Sim Controls: the stick commands a rotation rate, so even a tiny held input keeps the aircraft tilting.

The auto-hover assist will hold a hover when you release the collective. It is fine for your first flights; most experienced pilots turn it off later because it hides where the collective really is. More on the hover drill page.

Forward flight and turns

• Tilting the disc spills lift. Nose over or bank and you sink unless you add collective or raise the nose (Cologne TM, OnMapleWings, Sim Controls).
• Turn with roll plus yaw in the same direction, not yaw alone; yaw alone turns like a boat at speed (miksu's Steam guide, GhostGaming, IceManIsaac). The steeper the bank, the more collective you need.
• Energy is everything. A gentle turn keeps your speed; a hard turn scrubs it and takes a long time to recover (Sim Controls). Height can be traded for speed and back: pitch back to climb fast, push forward with the collective down to descend fast (GhostGaming).
• If you are about to hit the ground: take out the yaw, level the wings, pull the nose up. IceManIsaac notes that every input costs lift, roll the most, and that adding collective alone will not stop a plunge.

Slowing down and landing

This is where most pilots die, and where the guides agree most. Slow down early, with the collective down and the nose up just enough to hold your height. Too much nose-up balloons you upward; too little and you sink into the ground. Silk calls the classic mistake the “death elevator”: arriving fast and bleeding all that energy straight down into the landing zone while everyone shoots at you.

Three ways in

The touchdown

• No sideways drift at contact. Forward motion is forgiving on skids; sideways motion rolls you over (GhostGaming). Most rotor strikes at the vendor are this.
• Feather the collective near the ground, then dump it as soon as a skid touches, especially if you are slightly off level (IceManIsaac, Skycoach).
• Hold the collective down for a second or two after landing, or the helicopter can lift off on its own (Hieb, GhostGaming).
• If it goes wrong, go around. Add power and try again rather than forcing a bad landing (IceManIsaac, Overgear).
• Use your eyes. Free look or third person helps you see the ground: IceManIsaac flies first person in transit and third person to land.

Where you land matters as much as how. Cologne TM never lands in an open field without cover, and prefers to land behind his own team, where they have just cleared.

Carrying troops and making money

• Drop low and still. Passengers can jump safely from about 5 m; around 10 m it kills them (LewF20, Nova Gaming, GameSpot). Read the AGL figure on the HUD. You do not have to land: a low hover is enough.
• Drop in the hot zone. OnMapleWings says it pays double for everything, drops included.
• Drop where they will live. Pay includes a bonus if your passengers survive after the drop (StratzFPS, LewF20, OneTaps), plus assists on their kills. Drop short of the fight rather than into it.
• Parachutes split opinion. LewF20 and IceManIsaac suggest passengers carry one for uncertain drops (the HUD shows who has one). Silk prefers they don't jump: parachuters drift apart from their squad and are easy kills.
• Supply runs pay too. LewF20 carries build supplies, meds and ammo to the front and marks them up. Small crates break if dropped from above 60 m and armoured crates above 80 m, and both break if you swing them into the ground.

Practise it with the hot drop drill.

Surviving anti-air

1. Stay low near threats. Lock-ons need you above a height line. Your Chopper Pilot puts it at about 30 m above ground; Silk flies under about 10 m to be safe. Your Chopper Pilot cruises at 40 to 60 m and dives the moment he hears a lock.
2. Know the tones. Intermittent beeping: you are being locked. A steady tone: you are locked, and a missile may be in the air.
3. Flare late, not early. If the steady tone continues once you are low, a missile is coming: flare after about half a second to a second, or when you see it one to two seconds out. Flares have a cooldown, and a patient shooter waits it out before firing (Hieb, IceManIsaac, Silk).
4. Carry spares. $750 each; the Little Bird holds up to 9 and the Lakota 20 (Your Chopper Pilot). Hieb: never fly with just one.
5. Kill the operator. CIWS and Talon cannot aim straight up. Come in low behind cover, pop up, and circle overhead to shoot the operator. Better still, kill them before they finish building: unfinished ones have far less health (Hieb, Silk).
6. RPGs give no warning. Stay fast and do not loiter near infantry who are watching you without firing (Hieb).

Not everyone flies low all the time: OnMapleWings keeps nap-of-the-earth flying for the final approach, because transiting that low is risky and costs you the view of the battlefield. Practise both with contour and under the radar.

Attack flying

• Circle strafe instead of hovering. Yaw keeps the nose on the target, roll keeps you on the circle, pitch sets distance, collective sets height (Hieb, Silk, ProLosco, IceManIsaac). A hovering standoff gets you sniped. Drill.
• Shoot slow. Yaw authority fades with speed: ProLosco loses most control above about 100 km/h, and Silk starts his runs at 0 to 30 km/h and finishes at 80 to 100.
• Minigun aim. The guns converge at about 30 m. Beyond that, rounds land in the top-right quadrant of the reticle; closer, pick one gun's stream. Rockets go dead centre (Silk, ProLosco, GhostGaming). Drill.
• First burst counts. A missed first burst makes the target move (Silk).
• Quick 180. Pitch up while yawing and rolling hard the same way: it dumps energy and whips you round, for when a strafe fails or someone is on your tail (Silk).
• Against the Havoc, run. Hieb and Silk agree a Little Bird cannot out-damage it head-on; keep moving, or build a CIWS.

The helicopters

Figures from wardogshub.gg, wardogs.fit and AllThingsHow as of the Season 1 patch (9 September 2026), which changed several unlock prices. Sources disagree on the AH-6R unlock ($200k or $250k).

The most common mistakes

A practice plan

Fallout Plays' six range exercises make a good ladder, and each maps onto a drill in the browser trainer:

1. Collective only: lift a few feet, hover, feather down. Three landings without crashing. Hover hold.
2. Hover and yaw a full circle each way, then land.
3. Climb out, fly big U-turns with roll and a little yaw, and tune your sensitivity. Low forward flight.
4. Fly at tree height and practise dropping flares. Contour route.
5. Land at chosen spots in open ground, using free look, then land out of a turn. Flare stop, J-hook.
6. Land precisely on the helipad, then fly real taxi runs. Clean touchdown, Hot drop.

Cologne TM's favourites to add once those are easy: fly sideways along the train tracks, pirouette while sliding down them, balance one skid on a roof edge, and turn about a point with a tower on your nose (hover taxi, target orbit). His advice is to repeat them on an empty server until they are boring.

Where the experts disagree

None of these has a single right answer. Pick one side, practise it until it is automatic, and change only if it keeps failing you.

The twenty videos

The twenty most-viewed YouTube videos on flying helicopters in Wardogs as of 28 September 2026, from searches for how to fly, helicopter guides, tutorials, HOTAS and controller. Two Arma Pilot videos have no captions, so we used only their descriptions and a published transcript of his HOTAS settings.

Also used

• Cologne TM: REAL PILOT Teaches You How To FLY - WARDOGS Helicopter Tutorial (Intermediate) (YouTube, 35k views). Real helicopter pilot, 3,000+ hours.
• Sim Controls: WARDOGS HOTAS Helicopter Guide | Basic Flight Training (YouTube, 35k views)
• ProLosco: WARDOGS - You’re Aiming the Little Bird Wrong | Minigun & Circle Strafe Guide (YouTube, 31k views)
• Your Chopper Pilot: Never waste a flare again! WarDogs Flare tutorial (YouTube, 31k views)
• OneTaps: The Secret War Dogs Controller Settings the Top Pilots Use! (YouTube, 10k views)
• Swaguley: WARDOGS Controller Settings Guide (YouTube, 43k views)
• AbradantMatthew: Wardogs Tutorial - Fly with controller with SUPER responsiveness! (YouTube, 14k views)
• Arma Pilot (transcript on SozAI): Best Wardogs HOTAS Settings from an Experienced Arma Pilot (+ Beta Gameplay). Beta-era settings.

Written guides

• GameSpot: How To Fly In Wardogs
• AllThingsHow: Wardogs: Where to Practice Flying Helicopters for Free
• AllThingsHow: Wardogs HOTAS setup guide: bindings, deadzones and sensitivity
• AllThingsHow: Wardogs minigun Little Bird: how to get rounds on target
• Skycoach: WARDOGS Flying Guide
• wardogshub.gg: How to fly helicopters in Wardogs
• wardogs.fit: Helicopter Flying Guide
• Overgear: WARDOGS Flying Guide
• MetaForge: How to Fly a Helicopter in WARDOGS: 8 Helicopter Tips
• Steam Community: WARDOGS Keybind and Helicopter Controls FAQ
• miksu (Steam guide): how to fly helicopters
• BisectHosting: WARDOGS Controls Guide: All PC & Controller Key Bindings
• Shacknews: Wardogs Season 1 changelog and patch notes (9 Sep 2026)

Practise in your browser

The Wardogs Flight Sim is a free trainer that runs in the browser, with all six helicopters and eleven drills built around the mistakes above. It uses the same rate-based cyclic as the game, on keyboard and mouse, stick, HOTAS or controller, with a debrief chart and replay after every run.

Open the trainer See the drills