Elytra

"Elytra! Soar through The End on your freshly-minted insectoid glider, or, if you’d rather practice first, why not put your aerobatic skills to the test by generating a world with the new Amplified Terrain option?"

- Marsh Davies

The elytra ( or /ɛl ˈaɪ trə/ el-ᴇʏᴇ-trah) is a rare cape-like item which is used to fly through the air. The word elytra is Greek for “wings”.

Natural generation
The elytra can only be found in end cities, in an item frame in the treasure room of the end ship. The elytra is guarded by a shulker, but always generates in the ship.

Gliding
The elytra is equipped in the chestplate slot. They can either be placed directly in the slot, or be equipped using a dispenser or by pressing while in the hotbar. It is gray in color unless you are wearing a cape, in which case your elytra will adopt the cape's design. When placed on your back, the elytra will always have the same texture, even if it is broken or enchanted.

To initiate gliding, you must press the jump key while falling. From there, direction is controlled by looking left or right, and the gliding speed and rate of descent is controlled by looking up or down. Looking upwards while gliding temporarily increases your altitude, however doing this for too long will cause you to descend fairly fast (indicated by your Y-coordinates). In Creative mode, you can also fly up by holding the jump key.

The elytra's optimal glide ratio is 10/1 @ 0°; traveling 10 blocks horizontally for each block fallen when flying at a constant 0° pitch, not including the initial fall.
 * The most efficient flight is at 5.9° down; trading a slightly less-than-optimal glide ratio for a bit more speed.
 * Maximum groundspeed is at 52° down (69.5 blocks/sec).
 * Maximum airspeed is 90° down or up (the player falls normally, at 80 blocks/sec).
 * Maximum flight time is 14° up.

Durability decreases by one point each second when gliding. The elytra has 431 durability, resulting in 7 minutes and 11 seconds of gliding time without enchantments. It is possible to apply Unbreaking using an anvil and an enchanted book, which affects the elytra in the same way that enchantment affects tools, increasing glide time to about four seconds of use per point of durability for an Unbreaking III elytra. Mending can also be applied to the elytra, and when combined with Unbreaking III, the elytra will become indestructible, because it will lose durability and self-repair at the same rate.

You will not take fall damage while gliding unless you hit the ground or a wall at an excessive velocity, which can be caused by nose-diving or stalling. Fall damage will then be a result of the height fallen during the nose-dive or stall.

If you are flying with the elytra, you will have a shorter hitbox than usual: 0.6 blocks in height rather than 1.8 blocks.

If you are affected by Slow Falling while flying, flight speed is not affected.

Flying
When the player holds a firework rocket in their hand and are gliding with the elytra, the firework rocket will boost the gliding speed, allowing the player to fly. If the rocket is equipped with a firework star of any kind, damage will be dealt to the player. The duration or strength of the speed boost depends on the flight duration of the firework rocket.

If the player has a trident with the Riptide enchantment, they can use the weapon to lunge themselves forward and propel their elytra using the weapon, however they must be either standing/submerged in water or in a rain/thunderstorm for the Riptide enchantment to work, so they cannot get a boost from the weapon if they are on dry land or in clear weather.

The player can also shoot themselves with a Punch enchanted bow in midair, however this causes a lot of damage and can be difficult to properly time.

Repair
When durability reaches 1, the elytra will no longer work until they are repaired, and cannot lose more durability. The “broken” elytra have a tattered texture, though they do not appear differently on the player. They may be repaired either by crafting two together, by applying the Mending enchantment to the elytra, or by combining the elytra with phantom membranes in an anvil. Each piece of material will repair the elytra by 108 durability, therefore requiring 4 pieces to fully repair it.

Enchantments
The elytra can receive the following enchantments, but only through an anvil:

Note: Thorns also works as normal on the elytra, but can only be put on using commands.
 * Unbreaking
 * Mending
 * Curse of Vanishing
 * Curse of Binding

Trivia

 * In reality, elytra are the tough forewings of beetles and earwigs that cover the wings they actually use for flight. Elytra are not actually used for flight in real life.
 * It is possible to glide while on a ladder. The player can do this by pressing followed by . This will cause the player to fall, with a speed decided by their vertical rotation. This means that the player can descend very fast on a ladder, but if their speed is too fast when hitting the ground, they can take fatal fall damage. Using a firework rocket can also speed up the player's descent.
 * If the player glides into deep water with elytra equipped, the animation will not stop, making it look as if there's better swimming animations. Once the player touches ground, though, the animation will stop.
 * Additionally, firework rockets can be used underwater but it will give lesser boost duration due to the water's effect, this is useful for underwater swimming.
 * Elytra can be equipped onto mobs using commands, although for some it doesn't work. Most mobs will follow one of three different flight paths (which they cannot control) before landing, at which they will regain their AI.
 * Exceptions to this are squid and chickens, as the squid's AI will cause it to try and "swim" in midair, making it fall straight down because it conflicts with the elytra mechanics. Since chickens fall slowly, they will only move so far.
 * Endermen, tamed wolves and cats which are not sitting will not teleport until they hit the ground.
 * 4J Studios created an elytra-centered tutorial map for console edition when elytra were first introduced to this platform, this map is themed as "ruins of an ancient civilization of Minecraft worshippers" and showcases the new amplified terrain generation. This map can be seen behind the scenes here.
 * On 28 March 2017, 4J Studios added an elytra themed Mini Games for console edition called "Glide"; it consists of Time Attack and Score Attack mode.