Ride the Staff

Press G while holding the staff to hop on, press it again to get off (rebindable under Options → Controls). Look where you want to go and move — the staff carries you, leaning into climbs and dives, with fireworks trailing off the tip. Offset, spread, count and direction are all tunable, and in first person the trail streams out behind you instead of covering the screen.

Your head looks around normally, like F5 third person, rather than being welded to the flight pose.

Hit the ground at speed and you get thrown off — the staff pops out of your hand, and everything it was doing stops with it: billboards, beam grip, the hold animation. You can turn crash-landing off if you'd rather not, and you won't take a pile of fall damage after a long flight either. Other players can see you riding.

GeckoLib is optional. It only supplies the animated model — the flying itself is ordinary movement and works fine without it. See Installation for the 1.21.1 catch.