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 is a cape-like item that allows the player to glide, and fly with the use of fireworks. It is considered end-game content, because it can only be accessed after defeating the ender dragon.

Natural generation
The elytra can only be found in the end ship, which generates along most end cities. The elytra is located in an item frame, and it is guarded by a shulker.

Repairing
The elytra may also be repaired on an anvil by applying phantom membranes.

Usage
The elytra is equipped in the chestplate slot. It can either be placed directly in the slot, or be equipped using a dispenser or by pressing while in the hotbar.

The elytra appears feathery when placed on your back, similarly to the wings of an eagle. By default, it is gray in color. If you are wearing a cape, 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.

Gliding
To initiate gliding, the player must press the 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 the player's altitude, however doing this for too long stalls the player, causing it to descend at a faster rate (indicated by the player moving their limbs). In Creative mode, the player 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 m/s).
 * Maximum airspeed is 90° down or up (the player falls normally, at 80 m/s).
 * Maximum flight time is 14° up.

Durability decreases by one point each second when gliding. Elytra have 431 durability, resulting in 7 minutes and 11 seconds of gliding time. It is possible to apply the Unbreaking enchantment 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 Unbreaking III elytra. Low server tick will also increase this if the chunks are being created too fast for the computer to keep up.

The player will not take fall damage while gliding unless hitting 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.

A player gliding with the elytra has a shorter hitbox than usual: 0.6 blocks in height rather than 1.8 blocks.

If a player has the Slow Falling status effect while gliding with an elytra, they will glide very slowly, but also lose height much more slowly.

Flying
When you hold a firework rocket in you hand and are gliding with the elytra, the rocket will boost the gliding speed, allowing you to fly. You can fly up if you have enough speed. If the rocket is equipped with a firework star of any kind, it will inflict damage when used. The duration or strength of the speed boost depends on the flight duration of the rocket. Flight duration can be increased using different amounts of gunpowder when making the rockets.

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

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
You can enchant the elytra, but only using enchanted books and an anvil:


 * 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.
 * It is possible to scale 1.5 vertical blocks while wearing elytra. If the player sprints at the wall and rapidly presses jump, the player activates the elytra, and swoops up to land on top of the wall, even though the player cannot normally jump it.
 * With a proper heading (~-5 in the menu), a player can scale a wall that is 3.125 blocks.
 * 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.