Helicopters in WARDOGS are simulated rather than arcade-style, so your first few flights will probably end on their side. That is normal. This guide covers what to buy first, how the controls fit together, which settings to change before you take off, and how to land without losing a cabin full of squadmates.
Start with the MH-6
Most sources agree that the MH-6 Little Bird is the right first helicopter. It is the only airframe with no Pilot gate, it seats six, and it carries 105 litres of fuel. It is a pure transport with no weapons to manage, so you can focus entirely on piloting.
The community-recorded price is about $6,250, so repeated crashes will hurt a new account. Treat it as a way to learn the fundamentals rather than as something disposable. Prices in this guide come from community tracking, not the official notes, so check the vendor in game.
Practise where crashes are free
The Firing Range is the place to start, because crashes cost nothing there. Get takeoff, hovering, turning and landing sorted before you think about combat.
The four controls
Every helicopter is flown with four inputs, and they all affect each other:
- Collective gives you altitude, up or down.
- Pitch tilts the nose forward or back, which pushes you along or brakes you.
- Roll tilts the whole airframe left or right and is your main tool for turning while moving.
- Yaw rotates the helicopter in place, so you can point the nose wherever you need.
The interaction that catches people out is that tilting the nose down to gain speed costs you vertical lift, so you need a little more collective to hold height.
Default key bindings are reported differently across guides, so open your keybindings and check them rather than trusting a list from the internet. Look for the Rotary section and the countermeasure bind.
Settings to change before your first flight
Vehicle sensitivity
Vehicle sensitivity is a separate slider from your infantry sensitivity. An infantry-tuned value tends to turn every small hover correction into an over-correction. Lower it first, then practise holding a hover before anything else.
Mouse control
On mouse and keyboard, setting Rotary Vehicle Mouse Control to Enabled lets you bind the mouse axes to your cyclic controls. Arrow keys give you full deflection or nothing, while the mouse lets you ask for a small amount of tilt and then stop. If you find the keyboard too coarse, try the mouse.
Flight assists
The settings include Stability Assist, Auto-Hover, Envelope Limits and Turn Coordination. Stability Assist levels the helicopter when you release the controls, and Auto-Hover Assist holds altitude and position when the collective is near neutral.
My advice is to keep the assists on while you learn. If the helicopter starts to feel like it is fighting your turns, turn off Auto-Hover first, not the whole package at once. Experienced pilots often turn most of them off for more agility, but it is sensible to keep at least Stability Assist on during transport runs. Change one setting at a time, so you know what caused any difference.
Taking off, stopping and landing
Takeoff
- Raise collective slowly until the helicopter leaves the ground.
- Stop climbing once you have clearance below you, and keep pitch and roll close to neutral.
- Correct drift with very small inputs, then add a little forward pitch once it feels stable.
- Add collective if you start losing too much altitude.
Stopping
Letting go of forward pitch will not make your momentum disappear, so start slowing well before the point where you want to hover. Level out, pitch back to bleed speed, then level again as you slow down.
Landing
The common mistake is arriving at the landing zone with too much speed and trying to fix speed, altitude, heading and drift all at once. A better order is:
- Choose the landing zone while you still have room to leave, preferably open ground with a clear way out.
- Reduce forward speed before the final descent.
- Level the helicopter and remove major pitch and roll before you descend.
- Descend in stages, and if you need a big correction near the ground, stop descending first.
- Go around if the approach is unstable. A missed landing costs seconds, while a forced one can cost the helicopter and everyone aboard.
Avoid the "death dive" style of braking only on the vertical axis, because it leaves you an easy target when you are most vulnerable.
Hovering
Hovering is not about staying perfectly still. Good hovering means tiny adjustments, returning towards neutral and letting the aircraft settle instead of constantly fighting it. If you slide right, give a small correction left, then neutral, rather than holding full left.
Earning Pilot XP and money
Helicopters unlock on the Pilot track, and XP from driving ground vehicles does not count towards it. Carrying passengers and supplies earns Pilot levels, while shooting does not. Ferrying squadmates towards the Control Zone is the cheapest way to farm it, and passengers who survive the drop and keep fighting keep paying you.
Unlocking has two costs. You pay a one-time fee once the tile is available, and after that the item sells at its listed price. For example, the AH-6M [Miniguns] needs Pilot 4 and $50,000, and is the first armed helicopter you can own. These figures may change with Season 2.
Squad nights are a good time to practise this, because a pilot with a full cabin of friendly passengers has a much easier and more rewarding job.
Staying alive
- Buy flares. Flares are an anti-air countermeasure that deploys three bursts. You have to buy them into your loadout. Save them for the moment a lock-on warning goes off.
- Watch the terrain. Terrain kills more Little Birds than anti-air does, and power towers and tree lines are instant write-offs at speed.
- Don't loiter. Hovering makes gunnery easy for everyone on the ground, so make the pass, drop or extract, and leave.
- Tell your passengers what you are doing. Say whether you are landing, hovering briefly or aborting, and do not assume everyone is ready for a parachute drop.
- Think about dropping. Landings and parachute drops both pay out, so holding height over a hot zone can be safer than forcing a touchdown. If your squad does this, a Basic Parachute is $100 and has to be deployed manually. Stick to that when briefing them.
What Season 2 changes
Season 2 starts on 15 October, and the details below come from the preview rather than from play. The wider changes are covered in our Season 2 guide.
- The Havoc helicopter is going from $18,000 to $28,000, as part of price changes to armed vehicles.
- The MMGL is being nerfed, especially when fired from Little Bird benches: slower muzzle velocity, sharper explosive falloff and more sway.
- The Flakpanzer Gepard is listed as a dedicated anti-air vehicle. Its price, unlock and damage have not been confirmed, so assume more danger over contested ground.
- Rain should at least change visibility visually, which may make targets on the ground harder to pick out.
All cash and progression are reset, so it is a good moment to relearn the MH-6 cheaply. Check the vendor and your keybindings after the patch.
Common mistakes
- Using your infantry sensitivity in the air.
- Switching off every assist because a better pilot did.
- Arriving at the landing zone too fast.
- Hovering above an active objective.
- Spending money on armed helicopters before you can hover reliably.