Call of Duty: Warzone’s map Caldera came with a new Pacific map. This map – or specifically the Battle Royale game mode Vanguard Royale – has a new addition; planes.
These planes grant players many advantages if they can master how to pilot them.
However, since enemies can also fly planes and there are quite a few that are scattered around the map, many disputes are solved in exciting dog fights among the clouds.
Unfortunately, flying those planes is not the easiest thing to learn, and you cannot enjoy chasing an enemy plane or using your machine guns on grounded soldiers if you don’t know how to control your aircraft.
Since we want you to have success in the skies, we’ll teach you how to fly planes in Caldera Warzone Pacific in this guide.
Plane Flying Controls
If you’ve played Vanguard’s campaign, the controls are not that different from what you had to do during the carrier bombing mission.
Here are the default Controls for all platforms:
| PC | Xbox | PlayStation | |
| Air Brakes | Space | LB | X |
| ADS | Right Mouse Button | LT | L2 |
| Speed | W/S | Left Stick | Left Stick |
| Exit | F | X | Square |
| Free Look | Q | RB | R1 |
| Fire | Left Mouse Button | RT | R2 |
| Roll | A/D | Right Stick | Right Stick |
| Switch Seats | Left Ctrl | A | L1 |
| Advanced Controls | E | Right Stick Button | Circle |
If you don’t play on the ‘Default’ button layout then your controls will be different to what’s listed above.
Press down on your controller d-pad whilst flying to show your flying instructions on screen. Here, you’ll see which buttons you need to press based on your button layout.
Pressing forward will make the plane speed up, and pressing down will make it slow down. You will need speed to take off if you’re on the ground — obviously.
Things get trickier because you need both hands to control the plane’s movement. The mouse or analog stick will be responsible for maneuvering the airplane. Turning it left or right doesn’t make you go left or right, but it makes the plane spin in that direction.
So, in order to make a turn, you need to push left or right — with the mouse or the right analog stick — and then push down. It’s like going up, but the plane needs to be sideways.
It might feel weird at first, and it will be easy to lose control while you learn how to spin and dive properly, but time and practice will make it perfect.
Remember to slow down to make it easier to aim at targets on the ground and speed up when you are being chased by another plane.
The finest of our Caldera flying tips is to make sure you turn on Advanced Controls, once you’ve learned the basics of flying. If you don’t, you won’t be able to pull off impressive manoeuvres such as loops and barrel rolls, and you’ll have a lack of movement during fights.
The way a plane feels is entirely different when Advanced Controls is enabled, and you should move towards having it turned on as soon as possible.
If you want to know how to turn advanced controls on, remember: press down on your d-pad whilst flying to show the instructions based on your button layout.
How to Land Planes in Warzone
One thing that’s much trickier in planes compared to Verdansk’s helicopters is landing. To land planes in Caldera, you’ll need a good amount of room to land your plane — like you would in real life, though not quite to that extreme.
When you are close enough to the ground and slow enough to make a reasonable landing, your plane’s landing gear will come out. This will allow you to make a safe landing.
Fly as close to parallel to the floor as you can and slow down enough so that you can control the descent and landing, slam on the brakes, and jump out safely.
Final Thoughts
Caldera is a huge, beautiful map, and the best part of it is to enjoy the match from above everybody else.
Flying these planes gives you a significant tactical advantage in Caldera. Therefore, it only makes sense that it wouldn’t be that easy to be a good pilot, but you don’t have to be UnRational to have fun while flying the planes.
Once you get the hang of it, you will enjoy the freedom of going over the entire map.
Just make sure you don’t get too close to the trees. The momentum of these airplanes might be tricky to control, and flying too close to the trees might be a fast track ticket to the gulag.
Now that you have all the information you need, go get a plane and practice.
