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

Elytra are rare wings that are the only source of flight in survival mode.

Natural generation
The elytra can only be found in end cities, in an item frame in the treasure room of the end ship. A shulker guards the elytra wings and the ship's two loot chests.

Repairing
The elytra can also be repaired in the player crafting grid, by combining two damaged elytras together. It can also be repaired at an anvil using phantom membranes, which has the advantage that it preserves enchantments on the elytra. Each phantom membrane restores 108 durability points, exactly 25% of the elytra's total durability. Since most players enchant their elytra wings, phantom membranes or an experience farm (if the elytra is enchanted with Mending) are the preferred repair method.

Usage
Elytra are equipped in the chestplate slot, either by placing the item directly in the slot, by pressing while held in hand, or by firing a point-blank dispenser at a target. The elytra wings are gray in color by default, but in Java edition they adopt the design of any cape the player is wearing. They maintain their in-world texture design even when they're broken or enchanted.

Flying
To fly, the player must press the key while falling, and the elytra wings spread apart similar to a bird's wings. The elytra diver can aim their view around to turn or adjust their pitch. Losing altitude increases speed, and gaining altitude decreases speed. Additionally, speed is quickly lost from sharp changes in direction (See "Speed & Altitude" below for more on this).

Directly hitting any surface while gliding too fast causes damage proportional to flight speed (although this may be calculated from another factor). The player does not take fall damage from colliding at a shallow angle or a low enough speed. The critical, damaging angle is about 50&deg; with the collision surface, and the calculation for damage seems to be as if the player had fallen from their maximum potential glide height to the height of the struck surface.

A safe and simple cruise with the highest travel distance can be achieved by aiming directly at the horizon while at the glide's altitude limit. The player's speed is slow enough to allow them time to do other things during a long flight, like sort out their inventory.

In Creative mode, the player can alternatively hold the key to fly, or double press the jump key to move around freely.

Speed and altitude
The mechanics do not allow a player to use the speed gained from gliding downward to regain a previous altitude. The player's altitude at the start of the glide is the highest altitude of the glide. Speed increases with downward distance from this initial altitude. Even though the player can gain intense speeds by losing altitude, this ceiling (almost) never increases without powered flight, and it in fact decreases at a rate proportional to the diver's speed. It can also be brought down by making turns.

The elytra have a minimum speed of about 7.2 m/s, (obtained by gliding at the altitude cap with a strong upwards pitch of 30&deg;.) If the diver drops to 0 speed, they quickly get accelerated back up to at least this minimum. The diver can increase speed by choosing to descend faster, but afterwards they won't regain nearly as much altitude as they'd like. In the real world, drag increases with speed, and drag in turn slows the aircraft; Minecraft mimics this. To glide from cliff to cliff, a player's best bet is to aim slightly above the horizon.

Sharp turns are a fast way to lose speed. Quicker turns cause greater losses, while gentle movements have small effects. Making a hair-pin turn can actually be used for making high-speed landings safe as well as for precise landings on small targets like rooftops. The player aims to glide just above the target, then as they're right over it they immediately reverse directions, then they make readjustments as necessary.

The lowest rate of altitude loss is about 1.5 m/sec, obtained by gliding at the altitude cap with a slight upwards pitch (12&deg; or 15&deg;).

To get the best possible glide ratio (and thus the furthest distance out of their altitude), the diver pilot should aim directly at the horizon. This ratio is about 9.47 to 1.

Speed is affected by Slow Falling.

Stalling
Trying for too high a pitch reduces the player's lift. At a pitch of 30&deg; above the horizon, the player has the lowest possible air speed of 7.2 m/sec. Above that, the player might be considered to be in a stall. Increasing pitch gets closer to a free-fall, and stalled flight at 60&deg; is enough to cause fall damage. Stalling at 90&deg; is a true free-fall.

Recovering from a stall is done by readjusting to any safe pitch as quick as the player likes. This can be just changing to look at the horizon.

Powered flight
Firework rockets can be used for propulsion during flight by placing it in hand and pressing. Using a firework rocket while gliding quickly maximizes the player's speed for a time similar to the rocket's flight duration.

If the rocket is equipped with a firework star of any kind, it explodes at the end of the flight, inflicting damage.

A trident enchanted with Riptide can be used for propulsion as well, but only in water, rain, or a thunderstorm.

A bow can also be shot while in mid-air to have a similar powering effect, although the Punch enchantment makes the boost greater.

Repair
Durability decreases by one point each second when gliding. A pair of elytra has 431 durability, allowing 7 minutes and 11 seconds of gliding time without enchantments. It is possible to apply the Unbreaking enchantment using an anvil and an enchanted book, which affects the elytra in the same way it does tools. Unbreaking III increases an elytra's flight time to about four seconds per durability point, a total of 28 minutes and 44 seconds.

When the durability reaches 1, the elytra wings stop working until they are repaired, adopting a tattered texture in the inventory. The damage ends at durability 1, so they can never fully break. A pair may be repaired by either using the Mending enchantment, combining two pairs in a grindstone, or combining it in an anvil with phantom membranes. In an anvil, each piece of membrane repairs the elytra by 108 durability points, requiring 4 pieces to fully repair them.

Enchantments
The elytra can receive the following enchantments, but only through an anvil: Note: Thorns also works as normal on the elytra wings, but can be applied only using commands in Java Edition, or with an anvil on Legacy Console Edition.

Trivia

 * In reality, elytra are not used for flight. They are the tough forewings of beetles and earwigs that cover the wings they actually use for flight.
 * A flying player has a shorter hitbox than usual: A 0.6 block cube centered on the player's feet.
 * A single pair of elytra can transport a player more than 10,000 blocks without being repaired.
 * It is possible to glide while on a ladder, by pressing followed by, causing the player to fall with a speed determined by the player's vertical rotation. This means that the player can descend fast on a ladder, but if the 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 does not stop, giving it the appearance of a swimming animation. The animation stops once the player touches ground. Additionally, firework rockets can be used with elytra underwater with a short boost duration.
 * Elytra can be equipped onto some mobs using commands. Mobs so equipped follow one of three different flight paths (which they cannot control) before landing, at which time they regain their AI.
 * Exceptions to this are squid and chickens, as the squid's AI causes it to attempt swimming in midair, making it fall straight down because it conflicts with the elytra mechanics. Because chickens fall slowly, they move only a short distance.
 * Endermen, tamed wolves and tamed cats that are not sitting cannot 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 worshipers" 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.
 * A player who jumps with both the elytra and the slow falling effect travels slightly upward, which is a cheap but time-consuming alternative to fireworks and Riptide tridents.
 * On May 5, 2019, Mojang tweeted 'The End never yields enough adequate resources, sadly.' along with a sad emoji. The first letter of each word spells 'T E n y e a r s' (Ten Years). Attached was a picture of Steve and Alex wearing both a Chestplate and an Elytra. The next day, they tweeted, "Have you noticed something suspic10us here lately?"