Watching Minecraft’s transportation evolve is fascinating. Back in the day you only had rails and minecarts—now you can swim with dolphins or ride horses. But one method stands above the rest! The elytra gives your character wings so you can glide through the skies. You can’t fly outright, but you can get pretty close. For new players it can feel out of reach, and even once you have it, the mechanics can be confusing. You might slam into the ground instead of soaring gracefully. This guide will change that!
Find the Minecraft Elytra: Locate an End City with an End Ship
First, you’ll need to find an elytra. Since it’s an endgame item, you can’t craft it or grab it early. Elytra only appear in End Cities, and you’ll need to have defeated the Ender Dragon first. Only then does an End Gateway portal open, which can teleport you from the main End island to the outer islands.
Next, you still have to find an End City—and not just any city. The elytra only appears in cities that also have a floating End Ship. These are a bit rarer than cities without a ship, which can make the search harder. In general, each side of a city tower has a 50% chance to generate a bridge, and that bridge then has a 12.5% chance to generate a ship. Each city has only one ship.
You’ll find the elytra inside the ship’s interior—but watch out for the shulker guarding it! Defeat it, loot the two chests, and take the elytra from the item frame.
Equip the Elytra in Minecraft: Swap Out Your Chestplate
So you’ve got an elytra—now what? To use it, you’ll have to sacrifice part of your armor. The elytra is worn in your chest slot, where you’d normally equip your chestplate. That means you’ll miss that protection whenever you want to glide. We recommend always carrying your chestplate so you can swap it in when needed. In combat, the chestplate is obviously more important!
A small fun detail: The elytra usually has a silvery texture, even when worn as wings. But if you have a cape equipped, it changes color to match! For example, we wore the Copper Cape, and the wings matched it.
Fly the Minecraft Elytra: Tips for Takeoff, Gliding, and Landing
While wearing an elytra, press Jump during a fall to start gliding. Doing this from flat ground won’t help; for your first flights, try jumping from a tree or a hill—ideally with water below so you can catch yourself if something goes wrong.
Elytra don’t provide true flight—they let you glide. You’ll slowly drift downward, but you can steer. You gain speed by looking down and lose it the more you look up. Without help you won’t travel too far, but you can “wave fly” to regain speed periodically. A 45-degree angle is a good rule of thumb.
Watch for obstacles—crashing into blocks at high speed deals damage. Reduce it with Feather Falling boots. Slowing down and landing can be tricky at first, but there’s one key idea: the more abruptly you change direction, the more speed you shed. A quick 180-degree turn will nearly kill your speed and set you up for a gentle landing. Aim for your landing zone and spiral in for a perfect touchdown!
Minecraft Elytra Enchantments: Durability and Repair
You may lose your chest protection, but you can still enchant your elytra—these enchants focus on durability. An elytra has 432 durability, and each point corresponds to one second of flight. If it breaks mid-air, you’ll fall. The item doesn’t disappear, though, and you can repair it using Phantom Membranes dropped by phantoms or occasionally gifted by cats.
Even better with the right enchantments:
- Unbreaking: Sometimes prevents durability loss. With Unbreaking III, you can reach up to about 28 minutes of total glide time.
- Mending: Uses collected experience orbs to repair your elytra automatically.
Elytra with Fireworks and a Trident: Cover Long Distances Fast
Elytra get far better with tools that boost your flight. First up: Firework Rockets, which give you forward thrust. You can craft three variants using one, two, or three gunpowder—each increases the rocket’s flight duration. Level 1 rockets are great for short hops and easier control; Level 3 is best for long-distance travel. Rockets are practically essential and pair perfectly with elytra. We recommend building a paper farm (Minecraft Sugarcane Farm Guide: How to Build an Automatic Sugarcane Farm for Unlimited Paper and Sugar) and a gunpowder farm (Building a Minecraft Creeper Farm: Infinite Gunpowder Supplies for TNT and Rockets) .
Want even more fun? Find a trident and enchant it with Riptide! When it’s raining (or while you’re in water), you can launch yourself into the air and keep gaining speed without using rockets. With Firework Rockets, you can reach up to about 33 blocks per second. With a trident, Riptide, and rain, you can exceed 500 blocks per second—the fastest speed you can achieve in Minecraft. Just make sure your PC can keep up.
Conclusion: Reach New Heights with the Elytra in Minecraft
For veteran players and large servers, the elytra is one of the most important ways to travel. It lets you cover huge distances and see your world from above. Paired with Firework Rockets, you can practically fly and outpace any other method. It gets even cooler in the rain when you use a Riptide trident. Just remember to repair it regularly so you don’t drop out of the sky unexpectedly!
Rent your own Minecraft server from us and team up with friends to defeat the Ender Dragon—then go hunt for elytra. On a server, wings are incredibly useful for crossing long distances and exploring together.
