Some genres of game transcend computing platforms, persisting from generation to generation. ‘Flight Simulator’ was one of the very first PC games and similar ways to get up in the virtual air have existed on every computing platform, desktop or mobile, ever since. IOS offers a wide range of possible titles (over 100 in all) in the Store – but where should you start? What, after extensive testing, are the top 5 flight simulation games on the platform? Of course, personal preferences will play a part here, but I’ve selected a top 5 (after trying over 20 candidates) that includes something for all tastes – pure simulations, arcade-ish action and even radio control. I should also add a practical note that flight simulation games can get relatively expensive.

There is no realistic flight simulator that can be bought from the mac app. For those who know flight simulator on PC, i can say that Xplane 11 is the flight simulator for Mac. Probably not the best choice but a very interesting one nonetheless Google Earth actually has a built in flight simulator. I think that its very interesting to see google doing something like this. They even allow joystick control. Like i said, probably not the best choice, but a very interesting one indeed.

If you get ‘into’ any of the titles below then you will want to buy some more planes and scenarios using the in-app purchases, so expect to end up paying up to £10 or $20 in kitting the game out as you like it. But then we’re talking about immersive games that you’ll spend dozens (if not hundreds) of hours in, so I doubt the extra purchases needed will come as a huge burden to anyone.

Having said that, pick your favourite from numbers 1-4 below and stick with it – it’s probably best not to spread your in-app purchases across four different games/systems! In reverse order then: 5: Perhaps not quite what you were expecting in this list, but the demographics for smartphone enthusiasts and lovers of gadgets, especially radio controlled gadgets, have a lot of overlap. In this case you’re flying – by (virtual) wire, taking off, swooping and attempting to land without too much damage. RC PLANE 2 can be flown as a traditional radio control simulation, i.e. From one vantage point, but the scenery is too extensive for this to be very practical and in any case, most of the fun here is riding ‘with’ the plane, swooping around cliffs and structures, controlling it all with standard power/aileron/rudder RC joysticks, using your iPhone touchscreen.

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There’s a choice of ‘3 channel’ or ‘4 channel’ control, for the real RC purists, with the latter coming into its own with some of the more complex models. And, as the screenshot below shows, there’s even modelling of having to ‘calibrate’ each stick, adjusting it so that level is level and centre is centre, and so forth (in a real plane, imperfections in each model make these necessary.) In addition to the ‘Flight School’ (training missions and scenarios being something of a common theme when looking at flying games/sims here!), there’s now a multi-player option, pairing you up with a RC enthusiast somewhere else in the world, each armed with a model with basic gun and the theory then is that you go dog-fighting. Alas, whenever I tried this, the auto-match system failed to find me an opponent. But, you know what, I don’t care – RC PLANE 2 is all about the care-free flying experience. And don’t worry about the in-app purchases – even RC planes are insanely expensive once you get ‘into’ the hobby, so a virtual plane that can be crashed and back up and running in a millisecond works out much, much cheaper! However, assuming that you’d rather fly as ‘yourself’, by imagining yourself in the cockpit and using your smartphone as the main joystick, then read on for four other top options. 4: Starting life as a humble F/18 carrier landing simulation, this has grown and grown over the last few years, with a full set of ground and carrier-based missions, involving ground attack, air defence and evasion manoeuvres.