* This mod is no longer maintained. There is a fork here for newer versions. *

Tired of walking or waiting for trains? This quality mod adds a helicopter to the game.
Comes with custom animations and sounds, a machine gun, a rocket launcher, heli pads and a remote control.
The energy consumption is very high, so rocket fuel is recommended for max flight time and speed.

Adds a new research that you have to unlock before you can build it.
Ideal for getting from A to B quickly, exploring the map, building islands and nuking biters from the sky.

Default Controls

Shift+E and Shift+Q - Start and Land.
Up and Down Arrows - Increase and Decrease flight height.
Shift+L - Floodlight (at night).

If you have the remote control in your armor grid:
Shift+G - Open the remote control panel (there is also a small button in the top left corner).
Shift+F - Send the nearest helicopter to you.

Forum thread

Please feel free to report any bugs, but make sure I'm able to reproduce. That means clear, repeatable steps or a savefile (if possible, without any other mods).

Powered by Factorio-Stdlib.

Changelog:

• 0.2.17:
  • Added japanese local (thanks to shela).
  • Fuel gauge is now full at 10min flight time, beeps at 2min, quick beeps at 30s.
  • Changed heli remote recipe & tech to be accessible earlier in the game.
  • Changed heli pad to use refined concrete, added hr version. Personally I think the new concretes are really awful but I gotta stick to the theme.
  • Fixed that fuel beep mute button would disappear depending on gui scale.
  • Fixed heli tech prerequisits (it was possible to research it without being able to build one).
  • Fixed error when entering "[" in map marker gui.
  • Fixed error when opening heli selection gui while no helis built.
• 0.2.16:
  • Added mute button to gauge gui.
  • Updated russian translation (thanks to @Schmarotzer).
  • Fixed that players could dispatch a heli (Shif+F) without remote equipment.
  • Fixed graphical errors in 0.16.37 (thanks to @Carnivale).
• 0.2.15:
  • Updated russion locals (thanks to @Schmarotzer).
  • Added italian locals (thanks to @marxx).
  • Deal damage to passengers in crashes and explosions (damage multiplier in settings).
  • Added setting to prevent remote auto-landing when player inside.
  • Heli selection gui now auto-selects last selected heli when opened.
  • Fixed error when heli destroyed by high speed landing.
  • Fixed error when changing runtime-global setting.
• 0.2.14:
  • Added animated instrument pannel that shows fuel, speed, height and engine rpm. Configurable in settings.
  • Added optional fuel alert, activate in settings.
  • Removed obsolete "pushable" flags.
  • Fixed that player gets trapped when exiting heli while Bob's Character classes is installed (thanks to @jarquafelmu).
• 0.2.13:
  • Added russian translation (thanks to @IgorLutiy).
  • Added Shift+F hotkey to send nearest heli to player.
  • Added Shift+G hotkey to open remote gui.
  • Added default zoom settings for heli and helipad guis.
  • Fixed crash when heli destroyed while under remote control (thanks to @Rynvar).
  • Reactivate all inserters when heli destroyed, set all newly built inserters to active to prevent zombies (thanks to @tekin).
• 0.2.12:
  • Added german translation (thanks to @ST-DDT).
  • Fixed error when mining heli pad that was built in 0.15.
• 0.2.11:
  • Deactivate nearby inserters while flying (configurable in settings).
• 0.2.10:
  • Optimized map marker refresh code.
  • Marker sorting during refresh skipped past certain treshold to avoid having to rebuild gui.
  • Fixed sort func callback bug in markerSelectionGui (thanks to @tanuki_san and @M1r_k0).
• 0.2.9:
  • Added search field to map marker gui (enable auto focus in settings).
  • Added tooltips to guis. Added release months to changelog (thanks to @SuicidalKid).
• 0.2.8:
  • Fixed error when heli destroyed while having a driver (thanks to @LuziferSenpai).
• 0.2.7:
  • Added changelog.txt. Fixed nil value and metatable bugs (thanks to @LuziferSenpai).
• 0.2.6:
  • 0.16 compatibility. Changed landed collider to new custom collider that ejects trapped players and should work much nicer with inserters.
  • Added belt immunity.
  • Compatibility with "NewOldConcrete" mod.
• 0.2.5:
  • Compatibility update for "New Game+" mod.
• 0.2.4:
  • Decreased heli pad selection box size, to ensure that a landed helicopter is always selectable.
  • Made heli recipe more expensive.
• 0.2.3:
  • Added floodlight. Press Shift+L to activate at night.
• 0.2.2:
  • Remote control will cancel when targeted player enters heli.
  • Fixed bug with metatables.
• 0.2.1:
  • Fixed bug when loading save
• 0.2.0:
  • Added remote control for helis.
  • Added heli pads.
  • Switched to state based model for helis which results in much cleaner code.
  • General code refactoring.
  • Changed default controls to Shift+E and Shift+Q for up/down (will not change if you had a previous version installed), due to an issue where you could not move up and down while placing ghosts.
• 0.0.6:
  • Fixed issue with trains stopping.
  • Increased turret rotation speed.
  • Fixed that fuel level can go into negative when hovering.
  • Partial fix for inserters accessing wrong entity.
• 0.0.5:
  • Compatibility update for Vehicle Grid mod.
• 0.0.4:
  • Small fix that prevents a glitch when mining a helicopter while not having enough inventory space.
• 0.0.3:
  • Fixed loading error with AAI mod.
  • Heli will consume fuel at all times when in air.
  • Fixed excessive pollution.
• 0.0.2:
  • Updated short description. Heli will land if you jump out of it.

Known issues

• Landed collider and smoke may be slightly out of place.
• No rear rotor and gun turret animation, to be honest you'll hardly notice it.
• You can land on water. However you can't exit the helicopter. If you mine it while above water, you die instantly.
• You may get stuck when exiting the helicopter before it is fully landed. Simply enter and exit the vehicle again to get freed.
• Probably some other minor things I forgot.