Ravenfield – How to Fly a Plane

The basics of flying (and landing) in Ravenfield.

Control Basics

Note: Credit goes to Clorthax

Before you get in the cockpit its best to know how your plane works before you try and take off. I’ll be using the default planes in order to demonstrate.

First you have your wings. These are your bread and butter necessity to get airborne and cause havoc in the skies. attached to them are your flaps (S key) your rudders ( A and D keys) and your ailerons (Mouse). These are necessary parts to keeping your plane in the air and getting your plane from in the air and on the ground. Lets look at the default attack plane and default bomber plane for examples.

Notice how the rudders on the bomber are moving to the left and thus the plane itself is turning left? Same situation for the fighter. The core components of your plane will be colored with your team color.

Next there’s the throttle (W Key). This is necessary to accelerate with your plane. Your plane will kick the throttle up a bit when you enter automatically allowing you to take off easily in the game. In a dogfight, good throttle control will help you chase down and target enemy planes.

Next up we have the flares (X Key) This is your first, last, and only line of defense against locked on enemy missiles. They take a while to recharge so you better be lucky there’s not someone else who wants to blow you from the sky.

Taking Off

Here’s the easy part.

First you’re going to want to find your plane. For some people this is easier than others.

Next you want to get into the plane.

Here we have the plane on the ground starting to accelerate. The plane acts similarly to a car that just shifted into Drive.

At this point gently pull up to avoid a tailstrike.

Congratulations you are now airborne.

Combat

Here’s the meat and potatoes of any battle. Both the Fighter and the Bomber pack a mean mean punch when it comes to combat.

Fighter:

This baby packs a machine gun capable of tearing down enemy planes with ease. (Not pictured because it was a pain to do so.) This will be your primary tool for dogfights and strafing runs because of the volume of fire.

Sometimes you have a more sedentary target you need to deal with. That’s where the missiles come in.

These babies will do sufficient damage to anything you need to blow up.

Here’s the damage done to an IFV after being hit with 1 missile. Considering you have 16 of them at a time, and an infinite amount that you can access, that’s pretty good.

Bomber:

The master of precision bombing, the bomber can fly high and hit targets with ease. The bomber also comes with a front and rear machine gun, the latter of which must be crewed by an AI/Another player.

Pictured: front and rear MG’s resectively

Your bread and butter for the bomber is well, the bombs. These are your key to carpeting the enemies with the sweet smell of victory and gunpowder. You’ll want to line up the enemies in your crosshair and drop the package. Even if it doesn’t look like you’ll hit the target at that crosshair, trust me, it will.

Here’s a perfect lined up shot on some planes.

Here’s the damage spread of the bomber. One drop covers a fairly decent area.

Here’s the bomber destroying a vacant fighter with a single run. These things pack a punch.

Landing

Now here comes the hard part. You just won the battle or are in desperate need of repairs, and need to land your aircraft in order to celebrate or fix it up.

Your plane is having a no good very bad day. Time to change that.

First you want to straighten your approach. Make sure you’re not going too cockeyed into the runway. The game is very forgiving but it’s best not to push it too far.

Next you want to apply your brakes (S Key) and descend. You want to lower your altitude to make sure the landing is smooth. Too high and you have to wave off and try again, too low and you crash and burn.

When you get on the ground you want to keep holding the brakes until your speed reaches 0. At that point you can safely hop out of the aircraft and begin repairs.

Here we see the aircraft is good as new.

Once you get the hang of landing you can fully master the art of flying in ravenfield. Any landstrip, airfield, carrier, or bridge can be your stopping destination.