WARDOGS helicopter controls: the bindings and assist settings by name, what the changelog fixed, and how the taxi economy pays for the learning curve

The Keybindings menu has a Rotary Vehicle group. Per the forum FAQ, its entries are: Collective Raise, Collective Lower, Yaw Left, Yaw Right, Increase Cyclic X, Decrease Cyclic X, Increase Cyclic Y, Decrease Cyclic Y. Infantry entries that matter in and around a helicopter: Deploy Parachute (the Sports Parachute is a Career unlock at level 35 per the changelog) and Freelook. Thrustmaster's guide explains the terms in the studio's words: 'The cyclic controls the helicopter's movement forward, backward and sideways', 'The collective changes the lift generated by the rotor system and plays a major role when climbing, descending and maintaining altitude', and 'Yaw rotates it around its vertical axis.'

Default keys are not published by BULKHEAD. Third-party guides describe a W/S collective, A/D yaw, mouse-pitch-and-roll default; we cannot confirm that against an official source, so treat it as the common description rather than a fact, and check the Keybindings menu, which shows the current binding next to each name.

The FAQ names three toggles — Flight Assists as a master switch, Stability Assist and Auto-Hover Assist — and third-party guides describe the recommendation to fly first flights with all three on and switch the master off later for 'greater freedom' at the cost of stability. BULKHEAD's own tips in the Thrustmaster guide say the same thing in the studio's voice: 'Practise away from the action' and 'Plan your landing before you arrive'. PC Gamer's Morgan Park adds where to practise — 'practice flying a helicopter in the firing range' — which costs nothing.

The changelog matters here because it changed the feel between beta and launch: 'Helicopter input damping now applies to every input device' and 'Z20 Lakota balance pass, and a fix for sluggish pitch.' A beta pilot who found the Lakota unresponsive in pitch was feeling a bug that is now listed as fixed.

The Thrustmaster guide carries five tips it attributes to the studio, and two are quotable verbatim: 'Practise away from the action' and 'Plan your landing before you arrive'. The rest, in the guide's paraphrase, push transport and resupply over combat — ferry people and supplies before you try to fight from the air — which is the same priority the money guides give. Read with PC Gamer's note that the firing range is where to practise and PCGamesN's advice to use a spawned car before buying a helicopter, the official message is consistent: the helicopter is a logistics tool first, and a $35,000–$50,000 one.

The forum FAQ documents two problems that are not settings you can fix. First: 'Spacebar currently has a hidden helicopter weapon function that cannot be removed through the visible keybindings.' Second, a pitch/roll inversion problem 'related to infantry Y-axis inversion settings affecting helicopter controls inversely' — so if the aircraft feels inverted, check the Invert Y Axis – Infantry toggle as well as the Air Vehicle one. The FAQ also notes that 'WARDOGS currently handles some custom bindings as globally exclusive, even when one action is for infantry and another is for a vehicle', which explains why rebinding a vehicle key can silently unbind an infantry one; unbinding is done with the Delete key rather than by assigning a replacement.

Neither bug appears in the Season 1 changelog or patch 0.11 as fixed, so as of 14 September they should be assumed present.

HOTAS is described as supported in Thrustmaster's guide — the article's whole premise is binding the game to its sticks — with the mapping logic 'A flight stick can handle pitch and roll. A throttle provides a progressive physical axis for power or collective-style inputs', and pedals for yaw. Because the FAQ says damping now applies to 'every input device' (the changelog's phrase), stick users get the same damping as mouse users. No official binding list for sticks exists; the Keybindings menu's Rotary Vehicle entries accept whatever device is pressed.

Gamepads: BULKHEAD's pre-order post says its '10 Reasons NOT to Buy' devlog covers 'gamepad support', and the Steam listing carried no controller badge on 13 September. Expect a gamepad to bind, and expect no curated layout.

Two helicopters have published Season 1 prices. The Little Bird with miniguns is $50,000 on the Pilot track (doubled from $25,000). The Z20 Lakota is $35,000 (down from $50,000) and got the pitch fix and a 6 dB reduction in its 'chase camera rotation rattle'. A transport Little Bird exists — the Supporter Pack's 'Littlebird Helicopter Taxi Camo' names it — with no published price. PCGamesN's Season 1 report counts 27 vehicles at launch; how many are rotary is not published.

The armed Little Bird's price doubling and the Lakota's cut are a deliberate statement: the transport helicopter got cheaper and the gunship dearer in the same changelog.

Transport is a paid teamplay action on the wiki's list and the second-most-cited money method in the press. PCGamesN: 'Ferrying people to and from the zone earns you a decent chunk of change, and any assists your passengers get after you drop them off award you bonus cash… Players can tip you.' PC Gamer (Morgan Park, beta-era, 9 September): 'Not only do you get direct cash for dropping people off in the zone, but nice people will give you tips, and you'll also get assist cash if they go on to get kills.' Dexerto (7 September) puts beta figures on it — '$450 for dropping off a teammate' and 'an additional $500 if they survive the drop' — which BULKHEAD has not confirmed and the changelog may have changed.

Supply flying pays too: pilots buy crates at spawn ($10,000 for the small armoured crate after Season 1), fly them in, and are paid when teammates buy from them. The money guide has the full method list; PC Gamer's caution applies to all of it: 'Helicopters aren't cheap for a new player, and you have to be good enough at flying to not crash or get blasted out of the sky by an RPG.'

The wiki's FOB defence list includes Talon anti-air launchers and CIWS air-defence systems, and Switchblade drone launchers; PC Gamer mentions RPGs. A helicopter approaching a built-up FOB is flying into all of them. The towers guide explains why FOBs cluster at towers and the FOB guide lists what they can mount; for a pilot the practical reading is that the zone's edges are safer than its centre, and that the Hot Zone — where every team wants to be — is the most defended airspace on the map.

Default key bindings (BULKHEAD has not published them). Helicopter speeds, seat counts, fuel, health. Whether pedals and throttles have dedicated axes in the menu or are bound through the Rotary Vehicle entries. Any change to the two FAQ bugs since 3 September. A Steam community guide titled 'how to fly helicopters' was trending on 13 September but its text was not retrievable for citation. When BULKHEAD publishes a control sheet, this page will carry it with the post's date.