Terminology

The four controls

A helicopter has one engine driving one rotor, and four ways to point the force it makes. Every other word on this page is really a statement about one of them.

Collective#Altitude · Power

The lever at the pilot's left hand. It changes the pitch angle of all the main rotor blades at once — collectively, all the way around the circle — so it changes how much total lift the rotor makes. Pull up: more blade bite, more lift, you climb. Push down: less lift, you sink.

This is your altitude and total energy control. It is not your speed control, and treating it like a throttle in a car is the single most common beginner error.

In WARDOGS: Two keys, raise and lower. Holding raise from cold also spins the engine up — that is the start sequence. Watch the vertical bar low on the HUD: bar rising = climbing input, bar falling = descending, bar at neutral = holding altitude.

Cyclic#Pitch & Roll · Direction

The stick between the pilot's knees. It changes each blade's pitch cyclically — once per revolution — which tilts the whole rotor disc. Tilt the disc and you tilt the lift, and the aircraft goes that way.

Fore/aft is pitch: nose down accelerates, nose up decelerates — this is your airspeed control. Left/right is roll (bank) — this is how you turn.

In WARDOGS: The keybind menu calls these Increase / Decrease Cyclic X (pitch, nose up/down) and Increase / Decrease Cyclic Y (roll, left/right). It never uses the words “pitch” or “roll”, which trips up everybody the first time.

Yaw#Pedals · Tail rotor

The tail rotor, worked by foot pedals in the real aircraft. It swings the nose left and right about the vertical axis without changing where the aircraft is travelling. Its real job is anti-torque: the main rotor tries to spin the fuselage the opposite way, and the tail rotor cancels that out.

Practically, yaw is how you keep your guns on a target while flying sideways past it, and it is half of a J-hook.

In WARDOGS: Either two keys or a mouse swipe axis. Keys give you fast, committed turns; the mouse gives you fine aim. Several pilots bind both.

Lift vector#Not a control — the reason

The rotor only makes force in one direction: straight out of the disc, perpendicular to it. When the disc is level, all of that force holds you up. The moment you bank or pitch, that force splits into a vertical component (still holding you up) and a horizontal component (dragging you forward or sideways) — and the vertical half just got smaller.

So every bank and every nose-down attitude costs you altitude unless you add collective or raise the nose. Tilt far enough and you spill so much lift you simply dive that way. That one fact explains ballooning on approach, sinking in turns, and why a J-hook works.

In WARDOGS: Nothing to bind. This is the model the whole aircraft runs on, and the reason the game punishes big inputs.

Attitude and forces

Rotor disc#

The circle the blades sweep out. Almost every explanation of helicopter flight is really a statement about which way the disc is tilted.

Attitude#

The aircraft's angle relative to the horizon — nose attitude (pitch) and banked attitude (roll).

Bank#

Rolling the aircraft so the disc tilts to one side. Bank is what turns a helicopter; the pedals only point the nose.

Spilling lift#

Tilting the disc so far that too much of the lift points sideways and the aircraft sinks or dives in that direction.

Inertia#

Speed resists a change of direction. Rule of thumb: double the speed and the turn radius roughly quadruples.

Crab#

Flying with the nose pointed somewhere other than the direction of travel. A large deliberate crab is what makes a J-hook brake so hard — the fuselage is presented to the airflow.

Slip / skid#

Slip is yaw opposite the bank; skid is yaw into the bank. Both point the nose independently of the turn.Not to be confused with the skids, which are the landing gear.

Weathercocking#

The nose wanting to swing back into the relative airflow, like a weathervane. Very obvious in backwards flight.

Correlation#

Cologne TM's word for the link between what your hands do and what the aircraft does. Building it is the actual point of the practice drills.

Maneuvers

Flare#

Raising the nose near the ground to bleed off speed without climbing. Collective down, nose up just enough to hold height while the speed washes off.Also the countermeasure you fire at a missile. Context tells you which.

J-hook#

Arrive fast and low alongside the landing zone, dump the collective, roll toward the spot and hold pedal so the tail swings while the nose stays on it. The turn is the airbrake.Because the radius follows the square of your speed, the turn tightens on its own as you slow — which is why it draws a J and not a circle.

Quick stop#

Fast and low to a standstill in one movement without climbing. The building block a J-hook is made from.

Run-on landing#

Landing with a little forward or backward speed still on and sliding to a stop. Has to be slow or you break the airframe.

Pedestal landing#

Setting down on a raised surface — a rooftop or a tower.Height perception is badly skewed without nearby ground references, so expect to over- or undershoot.

Turning about a point#

Flying a constant-radius circle around a fixed object while holding the nose on it with the pedals. Cologne TM rates it the single best all-round drill — it is also exactly the gunship orbit.

Nap of the earth#

Flying down in the terrain rather than above it, using ground and buildings to break line of sight. Also called terrain masking.

Instruments and readouts

AGL / ASL#

Above ground level — use it for drops and crates. Above sea level — use it for terrain and obstacle clearance.AGL changes as the ground rises underneath you. It is the one to fly by.

Pitch ladder#

The attitude scale in the middle of the HUD. The arrows slide down the ladder as the nose drops.For maximum speed run near the bottom notch — not the very bottom, or you descend.

Collective indicator#

The vertical bar low on the HUD. Rising means a climbing input, falling means descending, and centred means you are holding what you have.

Bingo fuel#

The fuel state at which you have to turn for home.Landing at main base refuels and repairs automatically.

Tactical

LZ#

Landing zone. Choosing a good one matters more than flying the approach perfectly.

Hot zone#

The contested objective area. Everything you do inside it pays double, passenger drops included.

FOB#

Forward operating base. What your supply runs feed, and what the enemy mortars strip of building supplies.

Rifle aim#

The community's name for putting yaw on the mouse, so you point the aircraft's nose the way you would point a rifle.