Every key in the game. You don't need to learn them all at once. The first two tables are enough to fly and fight, and F1 shows a summary in the game at any time.
Flying
Key
Action
W or ↑
Pitch nose up (climb)
S or ↓
Pitch nose down (dive)
A / D or ← / →
Roll left / right
Q / E (or numpad 7 / 9)
Rudder: yaw the nose left / right
Left Shift or Page Up
Throttle up (hold)
Left Ctrl or Page Down
Throttle down (hold)
Mouse wheel
Throttle up / down in small steps
Backspace
Full throttle instantly
` (the key left of 1)
Cut throttle to idle instantly
Arcade pitch.W climbs and S dives, the way most arcade games work. A real control stick works the other way: you push forward to dive. If you fly with a joystick and it feels backwards, invert the pitch axis in F2 Joystick Settings.
Weapons & targeting
Key
Action
Space or middle mouse button
Fire guns (hold)
B
Drop a bomb or depth charge. In the He 111 and Do 17, one press releases a whole stick: the bombs go automatically, one every 0.6 seconds. At first the stick is all of your bombs.
N
He 111 and Do 17: set the stick size to single, 2, 4 or all. It's shown next to the bomb count. A short stick leaves bombs for a second run.
T
Cycle your ship / ground target. By default the nearest one is selected. T steps to the next, and the game remembers your choice until that target is destroyed.
V
Target vector on/off: shows markers pointing at your nearest target and at your wingman, even when they're off-screen
O
Step through the objectives that are still open. The chosen one is marked [>] in the Objectives panel, and the blue bearing marker points to it.
Crew stations
In any aircraft with gunners (the He 111, Do 17, Bf 110, Ju 87 and Sunderland) you can leave the controls and man a gun yourself. While you're away from the controls, the autopilot holds the course and height you left it on. See Manning a gun for how to shoot from a gun position.
Key
Action
1 – 5
Man that gun position. The HUD lists the positions for your aircraft. In the He 111, for example, 1 is the nose, 2 the dorsal gun, 3 the ventral gondola, 4 the right beam and 5 the left beam.
0
Go back to the pilot's controls
C
Move to the next gun position
Flight keys, stick or mouse
Swing the gun
Space or the trigger
Fire the gun
The number keys on the keypad work too. You can't drop bombs from a gun position.
Views & looking around
Key
Action
C
Cycle the views: the chase view behind the aircraft, the cockpit view, and in bombers the bombsight, looking down through the nose
, (comma)
Look left (hold)
. (period)
Look right (hold)
/
Look behind you (hold). This is the key for checking your six.
;
Look up through the canopy (hold)
'
Look down over the nose (hold). Useful for lining up a bomb.
Right Shift + , / .
Look diagonally up-left / up-right
Right Ctrl + , / .
Look diagonally down-left / down-right
G
Show or hide a reference grid on the ground and sea
Look keys only work while held down. When you let go, the view swings back to straight ahead. They work in both the chase view and the cockpit view.
Mouse
Input
Action
M
Mouse-fly on/off. When it's on, moving the mouse rolls and pitches the aircraft, the cursor is hidden, and MOUSE-FLY appears in the corner of the screen. Keyboard input still takes priority whenever you press a flight key.
Left / right mouse button
Rudder left / right
Middle mouse button
Fire guns
Mouse wheel
Throttle
Game & display
Key
Action
Esc
Pause menu: Resume, Change aircraft, Quit, or choose another mission
R
Restart the current mission
P or Pause
Photo pause. It freezes the action, but the camera, C and the look keys still work. Press again to continue.
F10
Save a screenshot
F1 or H
Controls summary (the game pauses while it's open)
F4
Tips & reference: a scrollable page on ammunition, convergence, attacking bombers, aiming, ground avoidance, wingmen and U-boat hunting. Scroll with ↑↓, Page Up / Page Down or the wheel.
F2
Joystick settings
F11
Full screen on/off
K
Mute or unmute sound
Replay
Press F8 during or after a mission to watch a replay of the attempt so far. The replay always starts from the beginning.
Input
Action
F8 or Esc
Leave the replay
Space
Pause / play
← / → (hold)
Rewind / fast-forward
[ / ]
Halve / double the playback speed (from 0.1× up to 4×)
Tab
Follow the next aircraft, ship or vehicle. You can even watch a Stuka dive from the deck of the ship it's attacking.
Mouse / wheel
Look around / zoom
Joystick
Joysticks, HOTAS setups and gamepads all work. The game reads the device directly, so flight sticks that other games don't recognise will usually work too. Set it up with F2 (see Setting up a joystick). These are the actions you can assign:
Type
Actions
Axes
Roll, Pitch, Yaw (rudder), Throttle. Each one can be inverted.
Look left, right, up, back and down, plus the diagonals up-left, up-right, down-left, down-right, back-up and back-down. A hat switch is ideal for these.
The keyboard still works with a stick connected. If you press a key, the keyboard takes over for that control. At a gun position, the stick swings the gun, the trigger fires it, and the view button moves you to the next gun.
Practice aids
Key
Action
F9
Invulnerable mode on/off. You take no damage and can't crash, and GOD MODE shows on screen. Everything else fights normally. Use it to scout a mission (when each raid arrives and from where) before you fly it for real.