Helicopters: first ten hours

Which airframe to buy first, the beta control layout and its Space bar trap, and why the $18,000 gunship is a squad decision.

4 min readChecked 2026-09-09

The roster

Prices from our catalog (WardogsHub, 2026-09-09). Gates are from a Hub progression snapshot, reported rather than confirmed. Below WARDOG level 9 the whole vendor is half price.

Only the MH-6 is on sale to a new pilot; the rest sit behind a Pilot level that rises only by flying. The Lakota took over the UH-1Y's transport slot in Closed Beta 02 and its capacity is disputed: the Handbook lists the Huey at 2 crew plus 11, Wardogs HQ says nine seats, Wardogs Zone 13. Every airframe is sold empty; ammunition is bought after it.

Hour one: hold a hover

Height and direction are separate controls. The collective is height; the cyclic is where you go. The Hub's order: buy the MH-6, lift the collective until the skids leave the ground, hold head height until the wobble stops, then a little forward cyclic. Moving forward is easier than hovering; the hard parts are the two ends of the trip. For the first hours leave Flight Assists on with Stability and Auto-Hover Assist enabled, the Steam FAQ's setting for logistics pilots, and turn Auto-Hover off only if it fights your turns.

The beta layout, and the Space bar

Reported beta defaults, not confirmed Early Access defaults. Check Settings > Controls after every patch.

Mouse flight lives under Settings > Controls > Settings, not Keybindings: Rotary Vehicle Mouse Control on, swipe left and right for roll, up and down for pitch, around 60 to 65 percent sensitivity to start. Two beta bugs: infantry invert-Y also reverses helicopter pitch, and some players get roll from the mouse but no pitch or yaw. The Space bar is the trap. The Steam FAQ says Space carries a hidden helicopter weapon function the visible keybinds cannot remove, so a flight action bound to Space may fire the guns, and rebinding Space overwrites Deploy Parachute. Leave it alone, and re-check Jump, Sprint, Hold Breath and Fire after any helicopter rebind, because beta bindings are globally exclusive. The full map is on our binds page.

Landing zones and passengers

The M18 Signal Grenade: Landing Zone is $50 of purple smoke on the vendor's Building tab, with a green Supply Request beside it. The sources describe only the colour; no one has documented a HUD marker, so call the pilot on the radio as well. A passenger right-clicks to request a drop-off. Delivery pays $300 to $450 a head plus $500 if they survive ten seconds after leaving, by the Handbook; Wardogs Zone's ledger says $150 by air, so hold the figure loosely. Put people down behind cover, not on the objective: a team kill costs $1,500, that includes passengers you crash, and the crash bill lands on the pilot. A $100 Basic Parachute lets a passenger step out of a dying aircraft; the deploy prompt only appears once you are falling.

The big airframes are a squad decision

There is no missile warning: no lock tone, no direction indicator. Buildable Talon SAMs and the Vanguard CIWS sit almost anywhere and the Flakpanzer Gepard moves, so fly low behind ridgelines and never cross open ground at altitude. Destroying an attack helicopter pays the enemy thousands. The Havoc is $18,000, nearly three MH-6s, on top of a $500,000 unlock; it needs two people, and the Handbook notes its gimbal tracks only horizontally, so the gunner corrects for the pilot's line. The Hub's verdict is that whoever buys it first usually cannot afford to fly afterwards. Buy it when the squad's bankroll absorbs the loss and the second seat is filled, and fly early: demand for lifts drops once the faction's spawn vehicle is forward.