🚁 Vehicle Info

⚠️ Health warning: read this first

Before anything else: every vehicle in this game is buggy, and helicopters are the buggiest of all — and this will almost certainly get you killed in frustrating circumstances at some point. Losing your favourite heli is genuinely painful, but please go in expecting it to happen, and to happen more than once. Helicopters were a key part of the original DayZ Arma 2 mod that the standalone devs never brought back, so we rely on third-party mods doing their best with a janky engine. If we want helis, we all have to tolerate the bugs that come with them.

For that reason, admins will not replace any vehicle under any circumstances. Vehicles are lost every day to problems outside a player's control, and the same applies if you die because of a vehicle bug, or lose all your C4 because it was stashed in a heli that lagged into the ground. You take on that risk the moment you step near a vehicle.

Expansion helicopters

To get a helicopter flight-ready you need:

• A helicopter battery
• Hydraulic hoses
• An ignitor plug
• Aviation fuel (see below — this must be manufactured)

You may also want to top up the hydraulic fluid — without it the aircraft flies more sluggishly. The mod's documentation suggests you lose fluid when the hoses are damaged or engine health drops below 25%; we couldn't reproduce that in testing, but it's mentioned here in case it does apply in practice.

Where the helis spawn

Little Birds

Airfield Vybor                    4169.2 / 10990.3
Prison Island                     2610.0 / 1306.5
Military Base Tisy                1689.9 / 14343.2
Chernogorsk Military Tents Hill   7236.0 / 3063.3
Kamenka Military                   748.7 / 1862.7
Pavlovo Military                  2076.9 / 3502.9
Zeleno Military                   2452.6 / 5111.3
NWAF                              4209.0 / 10108.7

Merlin

Airfield Vybor        4746.2 / 10355.4
Military Base Tisy    1756.3 / 14025.9
Balota Airstrip       5029.3 / 2353.2

UH-1H Huey

Airfield Vybor              4096.7 / 10652.2
Military Base Kamensk       8007.4 / 14627.9
Biathlon Arena               504.4 / 11237.2
Balota Airstrip             5054.5 / 2331.4
Military Base Tisy Radar     569.4 / 13664.2

Gyrocopters also spawn, but you'll have to find those locations over time. We also have buses, Land Rovers, Vodniks and tractors from Expansion spawning around the map — again, you'll discover those as you explore.

Settings

You can adjust your helicopter settings here:

Questions about how to fly are best answered on the Expansion Discord. If you report an issue there, note that Vehicle Maintenance and Aviation Fuel are unique to our server — raise those in a ticket with us instead. They don't affect how the vehicles fly in general, so other flight matters are fine to discuss over there.

Aviation fuel

Every heli now requires aviation fuel, which must be manufactured. Gas stations won't fuel a helicopter, and there are no aviation fuel tanks around the map — so if you want to use a heli for missions or airdrops, you'll need to have planned ahead and made enough fuel for the trip. When two groups both use helis to reinforce a fight, the side that prepared better logistically should have the edge.

To make the fuel you need two items not found in the regular game: Motor Oil and a homemade still.

Motor oil is a heavy oil that can be distilled into the lighter aviation fuel (kerosene). With no working refinery on Chernarus, we improvise a still that does the same job. The still is crafted from a Standalone Smelter + 20 metal sheets, and the Standalone Smelter is crafted from a portable gas stove or gas lamp + 5 metal sheets.

The still needs a gas canister before it will switch on (consumed at a rate similar to a gas stove). To make fuel, attach the motor oil to the slot under Heavy Oil, attach a jerry can to the jerry can slot, and switch it on. The inventory locks while processing and unlocks again after about 2–3 minutes; once you can see the attached items again, it's done, and the aviation fuel will be in the jerry can. A few things to note:

• You must turn the still off manually to preserve gas — and you can't switch it off while it's processing.
• If the inventory doesn't lock (it vanishes from view when it does), the usual causes are: not enough motor oil; the jerry can is missing, full, or holds a liquid other than aviation fuel; or the gas canister is empty.
• The on/off switch is a little janky — you may have to toggle it a couple of times. If the still is already on when you attach oil and a jerry can, it'll detect them and start after a few seconds.

The still's attachment slots look like this:

When the inventory locks during processing:

And when it unlocks 2–3 minutes later, the motor oil is gone and the jerry can holds fuel. Remember to switch the still off once you're finished:

As the screenshot sequence shows, the conversion rate is such that one motor oil produces roughly half a jerry can of fuel.

Vehicle maintenance

One of our founding principles is never to limit what players can build or stash — but that gets awkward when one or two teams hoover up every vehicle on the map. That's still possible, but the vehicle maintenance system makes hoarding much harder and frees up vehicles left in the bases of players who've gone inactive.

When you look at a vehicle, press F to check its maintenance:

This shows how long the vehicle has left before it expires, unless it's serviced first:

• At 100%, a vehicle lasts 5 days without being serviced.
• The main way to service one is a blowtorch with a gas canister — the more gas you have, the more time you can add.
• A pipe wrench or electronic repair kits also work, but add only small amounts.
• To service, just hold the tool in your hand and look at the vehicle.

Some caveats to be aware of:

• Helicopters require twice the materials to maintain as cars.
• Maintenance does not deplete while the engine is on, or for 30 minutes after use — so you won't lose a low-maintenance vehicle while you're actually using it.
• Boats don't require maintenance (they use a different respawn mechanic that already makes them hard to stash).
• Maintenance is not the same as health: you could sit at 1% maintenance on a perfectly healthy vehicle, but it will be completely ruined if it hits 0%. Repairing a vehicle part with a blowtorch should also count as maintenance and extend your timer.