You spend hours building a dirt hut, then a stone castle, and finally, a sprawling kingdom. But looking at it from the ground feels... small. You want that bird's-eye view. You want to zip between your iron farm and your villager trading hall without dodging creepers in the dark. Learning how to fly in survival in Minecraft is basically the moment you graduate from being a "player" to being a "god" of your own world. It changes everything. Honestly, once you get those wings, walking feels like a chore.
Most people think it’s just about getting the item. It isn't. It's about the logistics, the hidden mechanics of durability, and the very real risk of smashing into a mountain at 30 meters per second.
The Elytra is the only way (mostly)
Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way first. You aren't going to craft a potion of flight. That doesn't exist in vanilla survival. You aren't going to find a "flying horse." If you want to know how to fly in survival in Minecraft, you're looking for the Elytra. It’s a pair of wings that takes up your chestplate slot. This is a huge trade-off. You’re giving up the protection of a Netherite chestplate—which is basically a tank—for the ability to glide. One wrong move and a stray arrow from a Skeleton can end your hardcore run because you lacked that armor.
Getting them is the real hurdle. You have to beat the Ender Dragon. Well, technically you just have to get past her. Once you're in the Outer End islands, you’re hunting for End Cities. Not just any city, though. You need the ones with a floating ship. Inside that ship, framed on a wall like a trophy, is your ticket to the sky.
Breaking the physics of gliding
When you first put them on, you aren't "flying" yet. You're falling with style. You jump off a cliff, hit space, and you glide. To actually fly—as in, go up, stay up, and travel thousands of blocks—you need Firework Rockets. This was a game-changer added in the 1.11 update. Before that, players used bows with Punch II to shoot themselves in the butt to gain momentum. It was as painful and ridiculous as it sounds.
Now, you just right-click a rocket while gliding. Boom. Kinetic energy.
But here is where people mess up: the recipe. Do not use Firework Stars. If you add a star to your rocket recipe, the rocket will explode when you use it. You will take damage. If you're low on health and trying to escape a raid, your own propulsion will kill you. Use only one piece of paper and one to three pieces of gunpowder. That’s it. More gunpowder means a longer flight duration per rocket, but most pros stick to "Flight Duration 1" for better control in tight spaces like caves or dense forests.
Why your wings keep breaking
Nothing hurts more than hearing that "snap" sound and realizing you're plummeting toward a lava lake in the Nether. Elytra have durability. 432 points, to be exact. Every second of flight eats away at that.
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If you want to master how to fly in survival in Minecraft, you need two specific enchantments. No exceptions.
- Unbreaking III: This gives your wings a chance to not reduce durability when used. It effectively quadruples your flight time.
- Mending: This is the big one. Since you can't craft Elytra, you can't just keep making new ones easily. Mending uses experience orbs to repair the wings.
Pro tip: Keep a small "XP bottle" or a stack of them in your inventory. If you notice your wings are looking tattered (the icon actually changes in your inventory), splash a few bottles of enchanting at your feet. The wings drink the XP, and you're back in the air.
The Riptide alternative
There is actually a second way to fly, though it’s conditional. It’s the Riptide enchantment on a Trident. If it’s raining, or if you’re standing in water, throwing the trident launches you with it. In a thunderstorm, this is actually faster than Elytra and rockets combined. You can chain launches to move through the sky like a literal god of thunder.
The downside? If the rain stops, you fall. If you enter a desert biome where it doesn't rain? You fall. It's a niche way to handle how to fly in survival in Minecraft, but for ocean-based bases, it's arguably better and cheaper than burning through gunpowder.
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Don't ignore the "Kinetic Energy" death message
The game tracks your velocity. If you hit a wall while flying at top speed, the game calculates the impact. It's often fatal. Even with full Netherite boots with Feather Falling IV, a direct face-plant into a cliffside will delete your health bar.
When landing, don't aim for the ground. Aim parallel to the ground. You want to bleed off speed by circling. Think of yourself like a plane, not a helicopter. You need a runway, or at least enough space to spiral down slowly. If you're panicked, just hold a water bucket. If you're about to hit, look down and spam-click. It’s the "MLG water bucket" move, and it saves lives.
Managing your fuel supply
Once you start flying, you will realize you are now a slave to the Creeper farm. You need gunpowder. A lot of it. A single 1,000-block trip can easily eat half a stack of rockets if you’re impatient and spamming them.
Build a basic mob grinder early. Even a simple dark-room flusher will give you enough gunpowder to keep you airborne. Pair that with a sugarcane farm (for the paper), and you have infinite flight. If you're still manually harvesting sugarcane by hand in 2026, you're doing it wrong. A simple observer-piston setup is all you need to automate the "paper" half of your flight fuel.
The technical nuance of "Slow Falling"
If you're still terrified of the End and haven't gotten your wings yet, there's a "diet" version of flying: the Potion of Slow Falling. Made using Phantom Membranes, this potion is the perfect safety net for the Ender Dragon fight itself. It doesn't give you upward thrust, but it allows you to jump across massive gaps in the End islands without the fear of falling into the void.
It’s the training wheels for learning how to fly in survival in Minecraft. Phantoms are annoying, sure, but their membranes are the only way to repair Elytra on an anvil if you don't have the Mending enchantment yet. It’s worth staying awake for a few nights just to hunt a few.
Step-by-Step Action Plan for Mastery
- Secure the Gateway: Kill the Dragon and find an End Ship. Don't leave the End without at least two pairs of Elytra; one is a backup for when you inevitably lose the first one in a lava pit.
- The Enchantment Priority: Immediately apply Mending. If you don't have a Mending villager yet, stop everything and get one. Flying without Mending is a ticking time bomb for your gear.
- Automate the Fuel: Construct a 0-tick or standard automatic sugarcane farm and a basic Creeper farm. You want a chest full of "Flight Duration 1" rockets at your front door at all times.
- Practice the "Spiral": Go to a high mountain and practice landing on a single block. Learn to use the "S" key (backwards) to stall your momentum right before touch-down.
- Carry a Totem: Always keep a Totem of Undying in your off-hand while flying. If you hit a mountain or run out of rockets over the ocean, the totem will give you a second chance and a brief window of Fire Resistance/Regeneration.
Flying isn't just a mechanic; it's a phase shift in how you play. The world becomes smaller, your builds become bigger, and the danger shifts from the zombies on the ground to the cold, hard geometry of the world itself. Be careful up there.