Player guide
Controls and keybinds
All of the mod's own controls live under RotorCraft Evolution in the DayZ controls menu and can be rebound there. These are the defaults.
Flight controls
Only the pilot seat flies.
| W / S | Nose down / nose up |
| A / D | Bank left / right |
| Q / E | Pedal left / right (turn the nose) |
| Wheel up / Wheel down | Lever (collective) up / down one notch |
| Up arrow | Lever straight to +10 (full) |
| Right arrow | Lever straight to 0 (centre) |
| Down arrow | Lever straight to -10 (lowest) |
| Left arrow | Recovery: level the aircraft |
The three arrow settings act once per press. Holding the wheel inputs keeps stepping the lever. During ground spin-up, wheel up and Up arrow stop at centre until rotor speed reaches 100%; press Up arrow again afterwards if you want +10. Lowering always works.
Weapons
The same scheme works for the AH-6 pilot, the Gazelle cannon pilot and both Black Hawk door gunners.
| Hold RMB | Arm and show the gunsight |
| LMB or X while armed | Fire the selected weapon |
| Release RMB | Make safe |
| T | AH-6: switch between M134 and 40 mm HE (armed or safe) |
Two extra actions are unbound by default: a direct trigger for the AH-6 grenade launcher and an alternate door-gun trigger. Both still need you to hold arm. See Aircraft weapons for loading and the sight.
Aircraft and general
| Hold F | Get in / get out |
| Hold LMB | Start engine (while safe) |
| Click LMB | Stop engine (on the ground, while safe) |
| Hold LMB | Refuel or repair, when the prompt shows |
| Prompt | Change seat: follow the on-screen prompt |
| L | Exterior lights |
| Tab | Inventory |
| Left Alt | Free look |
| V | Change view |
| MMB | Zoom |
What changes while you fly
- The normal car WASD driving inputs do nothing in a helicopter. If you move the flight controls to other keys, the car inputs stay switched off.
- While you are at the flight controls with no menu open, a few vanilla inputs that clash with flying are paused: gear, action selection, weapon toggle, horn and voice range. They come back when you leave the seat. Voice range on the Up arrow and Down arrow is off for the pilot only; passengers keep it.
- Flight input is ignored while a menu is open.
- While you hold RMB in a weapon seat, engine start/stop and the other default actions are blocked. They return when you release it.
Rebinding
- Open the DayZ Controls menu.
- Find the RotorCraft Evolution section.
- Change any binding there. Every custom action can be rebound.
There are no gamepad defaults. Cyclic and pedals read analog values if you bind them to an axis.
Fixing an old saved preset
If you played an earlier version, your saved preset may still carry old defaults:
- Recovery on X: rebind recovery to Left arrow.
- Weapons don't fire: bind the master-arm action to RMB and add LMB to Fire selected weapon. Older presets may still have weapon actions on X only, Insert, Delete or Home.
- Or reset just the RotorCraft Evolution actions to their defaults.
Test your preset after reconnecting and after changing your mod list.
Something missing or wrong? Ask in the Discord.