---
title: "Cruise flight"
package: "@phaser-ae/cruise-flight"
tier: Pro
version: 3.0.0-1
released: 2026-10-19
updated: 2026-10-20
description: "An easy first-person flight model for flying low over a landscape: fly where you look, at a cruise speed that holds, over ground you never crash into."
url: https://phaser.io/packs/cruise-flight
site: Phaser - https://phaser.io
---

# Cruise flight

A first-person flight model over a landscape: you fly where you look, at a cruise speed that holds when you let go, and
the ground is never in your way. The flying stays easy, so the player's attention goes on what they are doing.

## What it does

One function, `fly`, advances one flyer by one step. Each step you pass what the rider is doing: thrust forward or back,
a strafe, a turn and an aim pitch. Held thrust moves a cruise speed up or down, and it holds when the key is released,
with a single tap stepping it by a set amount. A strafe key slides the flyer sideways and the slide decays when
released. The turn is capped at a turn rate and the pitch at a maximum, so a fast mouse cannot spin the view.

Height takes care of itself. Looking up climbs fully below one height over the ground and fades to nothing at a soft
ceiling, above which the flyer sinks. It never goes below a clearance over land or sea, so it rides up hills rather than
crashing into them. Horizontal speed holds whatever the pitch, so looking down at a target does not slow the flight. The
turn rate the step reports drives a bank of the camera into turns.

The flyer and its command are plain numbers, so a snapshot is just those numbers, and the model asks of the ground only
its height at a point and how coordinates wrap. That makes it fit a wrapping world, a terrain field or a flat plane
alike. It is pure, deterministic and draws nothing.

## Features

- **Fly where you look** — yaw and pitch steer the flight, and `lookVector` gives the direction for aiming shots.
- **A cruise that holds** — held keys move the cruise speed, a tap steps it, `stop` zeroes it, and a reverse speed is a
  share of the top speed.
- **Slides that decay** — strafing moves at a slide speed and eases off at a decay rate when released.
- **A soft ceiling and terrain following** — climbing fades out towards the ceiling, the flyer sinks above it and rides
  at a clearance over hills and sea.
- **Wrapping worlds** — positions fold through the ground's own wrap, so a torus world has no edge.
- **Camera numbers** — the rider's eye height, the share of the aim pitch the camera shows and a bank per unit of turn,
  plus a speed scale for boosts.

## Good for

- **Flying-carpet and wizard battles** in the style of Magic Carpet, where the player and every rival fly by the same
  model.
- **Exploration flyers** over open landscape, such as a glider, a broom or a spirit, where crashing would only get in
  the way.
- **Drone and camera flights** that should hug the terrain at a steady height.
- **Arena shooters over terrain**, where the player strafes and aims while the cruise carries them on.

## Make it yours

A `FlightDef` holds every number, in world units and seconds: top speed, how fast held keys move the cruise, the tap
step, reverse speed, strafe speed and decay, turn rate and pitch limit, the full-climb height, the ceiling, the sink
rate and the clearance, plus the eye height, view pitch share, bank, and boost multipliers for a held boost and after
it. The ground is any object with `groundAt(x, z)` and `wrap(v)`.

Two quite different uses: a quick, agile carpet with a fast turn rate and a low ceiling, skimming a wrapping island
world in a duel; and a slow, stately glider over a flat terrain field, with a gentle turn, a high ceiling and a long
slide decay, for a calm sightseeing game.

## A quick look

A flyer stepped by the keys and mouse, with the camera following its yaw, pitch and bank:

```ts
const { fly, lookVector } = game.cruiseFlight;
const f = { x: 0, y: 40, z: 0, vx: 0, vy: 0, vz: 0, yaw: 0, pitch: 0 };   // a Flyer
const c = { cruise: 0, slide: 0, turnRate: 0 };                             // its FlightCommand
fly(f, c, { thrust: keys.up ? 1 : 0, strafe, turn: mouseDx * 0.003, pitch: aim }, def, land, dt);
camera.yaw = f.yaw; camera.pitch = f.pitch * def.viewPitch; camera.roll = c.turnRate * def.bank;
lookVector(f.yaw, f.pitch);    // where shots go
```

## Works with

- `torus-land` — a wrapping land that answers both questions the model asks of the ground.
- `terrain-3d` — a terrain field, with an identity wrap.
- `mana-conquest` — a flying-carpet conquest game that flies the player and every rival by this model.
- `jet-combat` — for aircraft with banking and energy.
- `heli-assault` — for hovering gunships.
- `rail-route` — for a flight that flies itself.

## Good to know

- There is no physics: no momentum beyond the slide, no stall and no gravity below the ceiling.
- The only collision is with the ground, through the clearance; obstacles above it are your game's to handle.
- One call moves one flyer: formation, avoidance and AI steering are the caller's.

---

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