Android Flying Games

Absolute RC Plane Sim by Happy Bytes LLC (free) - A realistic radio-controlled flight simulator. The free version allows you to fly one plane and one helicopter, plus it lets you drive a speedboat. The paid version has many more models and locations to choose from.

Air Combat OL: Team Match by VOLV Interactive (free) - Fly dogfighting missions in modern combat aircraft. So far I've enjoyed flying against the basic levels of AI opponents, but I haven't tried the online dogfighting or the weapons upgrades or other features, and I'm not sure what all of the controls do.

Air Navy Fighters Lite by RORTOS (free) - Fly missions in an F/A-18 Super Hornet, such as taking off from a carrier, bombing some targets, then landing on the carrier. The flight controls and combat controls are easy to use.

Alpha Squadron 2 (AKA Edge Of Oblivion: Alpha Squadron 2) by Martian Monkey Games (free) - Fly dogfighting and bombing missions in space. Nice graphics, and the controls are easy to use.

Denny's Atari Remix by Denny's (free) - This app (from Denny's Restaurant) contains food-oriented versions of three Atari games: Asteroids, Break-Out, and Centipede. After testing every Asteroids clone I can find in the apps store, the Denny's version (called "Hashteroids") is the only one which closely simulates the feel of the original Asteroids game. Use the left and right arrows to rotate your ship, and use the "spaceship" button for thrusting, and use the "gunsight" button (to the right of the "spaceship" button) to shoot, and use the button above the "gunsight" button for jumping to a random location. Your high score is stored in the leaderboard. Also see Meteor (below).

Dogfight by Echoboom Apps (free) - Fly WWI combat missions. Tilt the phone to pitch up/down and bank left/right (there's no rudder control). The fire button is at the bottom on the left side of the screen, and the bombs button is at the bottom on the right side of the screen, and the throttle is at the far right side of the screen. At the top of the screen, the first icon allows you to exit to the menu, and the second icon toggles between cockpit view and chase plane view. Slide your thumb around the screen to look around you.

Grav by 2DM Games (not free) - Tap and hold the screen to make the spaceship thrust in the direction that it's pointing. When you remove your finger, the ship will begin to turn based on the gravity of the nearest planet. The object is to avoid the obstacles and get the ship to the goal (a small sphere) in the shortest amount of time, using the planets' gravity to steer the ship. Some levels have a white semi-circular object which will reverse the ship's direction. This can be useful because it reverses the ship's orbit around a planet, allowing you to steer in a different direction.

Grav Retro by dean36963 (free) - A Gravitar type of game. Use the "Left," "Right," and "Thrust" buttons to fly the ship, and use the "Shoot" button to shoot at the turrets which are shooting at you. After you destroy all of the turrets then you move on to the next level. There's nothing to collect, and you have infinite fuel and infinite bullets, but you only have one life. There are no scores and no leaderboard, it's just you trying to destroy all of the bad guys. The graphics are very minimal and retro, and the bullets don't always go in the direction you expected, but it's still a fun (and very challenging) version of the Gravitar arcade game. Also see xorf (below).

GravitreX by Martin Hjerne (free) - A Lunar Lander type of game, but with obstacles to deal with. There are two ships, and each ship has a left and right thruster. Tap the left side of the screen to activate one thruster (the right thruster by default, which can be changed in the menu), and tap the right side of the screen to activate the other thruster. Tap the center of the screen to activate both thrusters. Tap the top right side of the screen to switch ships. When a ship's thrusters or belly touches something such as a box or a lever, tap the top left side of the screen to grab the object so you can lift it. For example, on level 9 you need to land ship #1 onto the top of the vertical stick and grab the stick in the center of the ship's belly, then fly straight up to pull the stick out of the ground. If a ship is damaged, you can long-press the top left side of the screen to blow it up and get a new ship, or go to the menu and reset the level. Since there's no friction in space, it's easy to get the ship into an uncontrollable spin, which is frustrating at first. I almost gave up on this game, but then I learned to gently finesse the thrusters and keep the ship under control. Now it's a lot of fun. In the menu there's a "Beginner Assistance" option which prevents you from falling toward the ground too fast. When you first play the game you'll be prompted to login to Swarm, which stores your high scores in the cloud. If you don't want to create a Swarm account then you can play as a guest, but your high scores won't be displayed. To see the high scores for every level, go to the Settings menu and tap "Swarm Dashboard," then tap "Leaderboards." The leaderboards default to the Week view, so tap the "Week" button at the top right corner to see the All Time scores.

GUNSHIP BATTLE : Helicopter 3D by JOYCITY Corp. (free) - Fly missions in a helicopter gunship. I haven't gotten very far in this game, but it seems pretty fun.

Helidroid 3 : 3D RC Helicopter by MH Production (free) - Use the two thumb controllers to maneuver a helicopter inside of a house and around the backyard. On each level you must accomplish the specified mission, such as flying through rings or using a magnet to pick up Coke cans or shooting certain objects, then you must land on the flashing red pad.

Leo's RC Simulator by Leopoldo Bueno Castillo (free) - A realistic radio-controlled flight simulator. The free version allows you to fly two planes and a helicopter and a glider. The paid version has many more models and locations to choose from. When you press the left side of the screen, a joystick will appear for the throttle (up/down) and the rudder (left/right). When you press the right side of the screen, a joystick will appear for pitching up/down and banking left/right.

Lunar Caver (Free) by Kasper Höglund (free) - Fly your spaceship through the lunar caves to reach the end in the shortest amount of time. The "left arrow" and "right arrow" keys turn your ship, and the "up arrow" key is the thruster. The green rectangle on the left side of the screen is your fuel gauge. Each time you tap the thruster, you use some of your fuel, and if you hit the sides of the cave you lose some fuel. The top right corner of the screen contains a mini map which shows an overview of the cave you're in, plus it has colored icons for various things you should hit or avoid. If you hit a green circle with a red heart in it, this will increase your fuel level (when your fuel tank is full then there's no need to hit more green circles). If you hit a yellow circle with a masked bandit in it, you'll lose some fuel. If you hit a red circle with a skull and crossbones in it, you lose. If you hit a blue circle with "<<" in it then you'll be thrown to the left at high speed. If you hit a blue circle with "||" in it then you'll suddenly stop. Your goal is to hit the green circle with a checkmark in it as quickly as possible.

Meteor by BitDimensions (free) - A nice Asteroids game, which is more fun than all of the other Asteroids clones that I've tried (although the gameplay in Denny's Atari Remix (above) is closer to the original Asteroids). Tap the left and right arrows to turn the ship, and tap the up arrow to thrust, and tap the circle to shoot.

PewPew by Jean-François Geyelin (free) - This game is similar to Geometry Wars. The thumb controller on the left side of the screen controls your ship's speed and allows you to turn the ship, and the thumb controller on the right side of the screen allows you to shoot in a full circle around your ship. In "Pandemonium" mode, shoot everything that moves and try to get the boxes (the arrows next to your ship point to the boxes). In "Dodge this" mode, avoid everything that moves and try to get the boxes as quickly as you can (the arrows next to your ship point to the boxes). In "Assault" mode, shoot everything that moves and try to get the boxes (the arrows next to your ship point to the boxes). In "Asteroids" mode, shoot everything that moves and try to get the boxes (the arrows next to your ship point to the boxes). In "Chromatic Conflict" mode, shoot everything that's the same color as your ship (go into a colored circle to change your ship's color). In every mode, tap the "Go online" button to see the worldwide scores, or tap the "Upload" button to upload your high scores, or scroll the list to see your scores, or tap a box next to a score to see a replay of that game. You can also earn gold, silver, or bronze medals by achieving high scores in each mode, and these medals allow you to unlock better ships. Also see RayWar (below).

PicaSim: Free flight simulator by The Rowlhouse (free) - A realistic radio-controlled glider simulator. The free version allows you to fly a number of different gliders. Catch hot-air thermals and updrafts off of mountain slopes to keep the glider in the air.

Powered Descent Free by Digitoimi (free) - A challenging Lunar Lander type of game. Your lander starts at the top left corner and falls toward the right. Tilt your phone to tilt the lander, and long-press anywhere on the screen to burn the engines to slow down the lander. The goal is to land as close as possible (and as slowly as possible) to the blinking green beacon before your fuel runs out, and without hitting anything. The blue arrow at the top left corner of the screen shows the direction to the beacon. Collecting the small blue canisters will increase your fuel.

RayWar by InfiniteAngle (free) - This game is similar to Geometry Wars. The thumb controller on the left side of the screen allows you to move and turn your ship, and the thumb controller on the right side of the screen allows you to shoot in a full circle around your ship. In "Chaos" mode, shoot everything that moves and use the powerups which are attached to your ship by a tether (the white ones will send out a force field which kill everything around you, and the red ones seem to give you a short-term shield). "Mine field" mode is just like "Chaos" mode, but you can't shoot. "Waves" mode is like "Chaos" mode, but with waves of bad guys. "Giants" mode is like "Chaos" mode, but the bad guys are harder to kill (they eventually break up into smaller bad guys). "Bubbles" mode is like "Chaos" mode, but the white powerups put a defensive bubble around your ship (the closer you are to the powerup, the bigger your bubble). In "Death line" mode, you're essentially a snake with a line from your head to your tail, and this line is the only thing which kills the bad guys (you can't shoot). Also see PewPew (above).

Rocket Crane by Nooleus (free) - Use the rocket crane to move various items into the designated positions, as quickly as you can. Drag your finger to scroll the screen if you want to see more of the landscape. Tap the red button on the left side of the screen to launch the rocket. The gauge at the top left side of the screen shows your thrusting percentage (i.e. your up and down speed), and the gauge at the top right side of the screen shows your remaining fuel percentage. To the left of the fuel gauge is an altimeter which shows how high you are (and how fast you're rising or falling). Use the arrow buttons to fly the rocket (the left and right buttons need to be held down, but the up and down buttons don't). When you land on something, the light on the magnet hanging below the rocket will turn green, which means that the magnet is attached to the object. Now you can fly upward to lift the object, then fly the object to its destination. To detach the object from the magnet, tap the button which is just below the fuel gauge. When you've placed an object into the proper position, the red brackets around the position will turn green. Detach the magnet to complete the level. If you're low on fuel, fly to the refueling station (where you originally took off from), and touch the magnet to the yellow-striped floor. When the fuel gauge reaches 100% then you can continue your mission. On the main screen, tap the "Sandbox" button to play around with building your own structures (tap the "plus sign" button to select objects to build with). Tap the "Tallest Challenge" button to build the tallest construction that you can. Tap the "Garage" button to purchase better rockets using gold coins that you receive while playing the game.

Sky Aces Free by Game Dev Team (free) - A retro two-dimensional WWI flying game. You control your plane using the "up" and "down" buttons on the left side of the screen, and you fire your guns and drop bombs using the two buttons on the right side of the screen. On each level there's a mission you must perform, such as destroying the enemy's base (your side has green buildings and green-clothed soldiers, and the enemy has red buildings and red-clothed soldiers). To replenish your health and receive more bombs, fly back to your base and fly into the green hot-air balloon. While you're flying toward the left side of the screen you'll be upside down, so your controls will be reversed. It's a simple concept but tricky and fun to play. The free version allows you to play ten missions. Also see Sopwith Barons (below).

Sky Baron: War of Planes FREE by PBL DEVELOPMENT SP Z O O (free) - Fly WWI combat missions. By default it's in Arcade mode, so the only controls are the throttle (on the left side of the screen) and the guns (tap anywhere on the right side of the screen to shoot). Tilt the phone to pitch up/down and bank left/right. In Simulator mode with joystick controls, a thumb control will appear wherever you place your thumb on the left side of the screen. This is the pitch and roll/yaw control. Tap the lower right part of the screen to fire the guns. The red circles are the enemy, and the green circles are your allies. The plane's health is shown as a green plane in the top left corner of the screen, which will change color as you take damage. You start with 60 bullets, and the remaining number is displayed next to the health indicator. When you run out of bullets, you won't be able to shoot for a few moments while your guns are being reloaded. You can manually reload at any time by long-pressing the left side of the screen (in Arcade mode) or long-pressing the upper right side of the screen (in Simulator mode). The small blue-ish circle at the top right corner of the screen will slightly change your point-of-view. The tan colored notebook at the top right corner of the screen will pause the game. The graphics are very detailed, and the plane is easy to fly, so it's a fun game for casual flyers. After trying numerous WWI and WWII combat flight simulators, this is one of my two favorites. Also see Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders (below).

Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders by Atypical Games (free) - Fly WWII combat missions, either offline or online against other players. Using the default Casual Accelerometer mode, tilt the phone to pitch up/down and bank left/right (there's no rudder control). The two arrow buttons at the bottom left side of the screen are the throttle. Using the Simulator mode, tilt the phone to pitch up/down and bank left/right. When you press the left side of the screen, a circular control will appear under your thumb. This is the rudder control if you move your thumb left or right, and it's the throttle if you move your thumb up or down. In either mode, drag a finger around the screen to pan the view all around. The two small circular icons on the right side of the screen are the guns (one shoots heavier bullets than the other). The icon between the two guns allows you to link the guns so they both shoot together (according to their own fire rate and cool-down rate). At the top of the screen, the speed indicator is at the far left, and next to it is the altimeter. Below this is the number of remaining marked targets to destroy (in red) and the number of remaining marked targets to defend (in green), and below this is a circular button which kicks in turbo speed. In the top center of the screen, the first circular icon is the autopilot, which can evade enemy attacks but can't shoot. Next to it is an icon which changes the point of view. Next is an outline of a plane, which is the health indicator. Next to this is the pause button. In the top right corner of the screen is the radar, and below the radar is the Squadron Command button. When this button shows 3 planes, it tells your wingmen to stay in formation with you (they'll only attack nearby targets). When it shows a plane with a shield over it, this tells your wingmen to break formation and attack any planes that are close to you. When it shows a plane with a plus-sign-inside-a-circle, this tells your wingmen to break formation and attack any targets they choose. High positive G-forces will cause the screen to turn black, and high negative G-forces will cause the screen to turn red. After trying numerous WWI and WWII combat flight simulators, this is one of my two favorites. Also see Sky Baron: War of Planes FREE (above).

Sopwith Barons by MaiZure (free) - A retro two-dimensional WWI flying game. Tap the left side of the screen to go up, and tap the right side of the screen to go down. Tap both sides of the screen to flip the plane over. To shoot, simply aim your plane at an enemy and your plane will shoot automatically. If you have bombs, tap the bottom of the screen to drop a bomb. The number of bombs remaining and bullets remaining are displayed at the top left corner of the screen. First go through the Training levels to get familiar with the controls. On each Battle level there's a mission you must perform, such as destroying all enemy buildings. To replenish your health and receive more bombs, fly back to your base and land on the runway. While you're flying toward the left side of the screen you'll be upside down, so your controls will be reversed. It's a simple concept but tricky and fun to play. Also see Sky Aces Free (above).

Space Rockets - Fun Adventure by Tapps - Top Apps and Games (free) - A Lunar Lander type of game, but with obstacles to deal with and stars, fuel, etc., to collect. The game has a cartoony feel, and the levels aren't terribly difficult, but the game turned out to be a fun diversion when I only have a few minutes to play something. To play, tap the "Start" button, then tap a world, then tap the "OK" button, then choose a rocket on the left side of the screen, then tap the "OK" button, then tap a level to play (or tap the "OK" button to play the current level). Use the red "up arrow" button for thrusting upward, and use the yellow "left arrow" and "right arrow" buttons to thrust sideways. On higher levels, sometimes you'll need to avoid things which fall from the sky (watch the rocket's eyeballs, because they'll look upward when something is falling), and sometimes there will be wind to deal with, and so on. Sometimes you'll need to land on a platform to turn off a laser beam. The blue bar at the top left corner of the screen is your fuel gauge, and the yellow bar below it is your health gauge. To add more challenge to the game, go to the Settings menu (the yellow button on the main screen, to the right of the red "Start" button), and change the control type. Control type #2 is similar to control type #1, except that you must press the "left arrow" and "right arrow" buttons at the same time in order to thrust upwards. With control type #3, the red "up arrow" button is the only button which thrusts, and you use the yellow "left arrow" and "right arrow" buttons to control the rocket's angle.

Wings! Emulated Amiga Edition by Cinemaware (free) - This is an accurate emulation of the Wings game for the Amiga, in which you're a WWI pilot, progressing through missions as you advance in your career. The graphics are from the original 1990 game and the gameplay is challenging. First tap the "Manual" button and read the manual to learn how to play. Then tap "Play" to play the game. While the opening credits are scrolling, tap the screen to see a joystick on the left and a "B" button on the right. Tap "B" to start the game. Use the joystick to move the arrow to "Add Pilot," then tap "B." Enter a name for your pilot, then tap the Enter key on the on-screen keyboard. Use the joystick to move the arrow over some of the abilities (i.e. the bar graph) and tap "B" to increase some of your abilities. Then move the arrow to "Done" and tap "B." Move the arrow to "Earn Wings" and tap "B," then move the arrow to your pilot's name and tap "B." Now you'll need to accomplish one or more tasks to earn your wings and be allowed to fly missions.

X-Plane 9 by Laminar Research (free) - A realistic flight simulator. The free version allows you to fly various light planes and commercial jets and fighter jets. See the X-Plane Manual to learn about the controls and the Heads Up Display and so on.

xorf (Thrust remake) by Sensemagic Ltd (free) - A re-imagining of the Thrust game, with nicely-textured 3D caverns. The goal is to fly your ship through underground caverns in order to rescue an orb and fly it back out into open space (when you're far enough out into space then the level will end). Flying the ship feels more like Lunar Lander than Asteroids because you can't zip around the screen like you can in Asteroids. After playing a few levels I realized that zippiness isn't a good thing when you're trying to get through cramped underground tunnels, so the Lunar Lander flight characteristics work well in this game. On the initial screen, the "question mark" icon turns on a Help feature which uses arrows to guide you through the caverns in order to retrieve the orb. I prefer playing without this Help feature because it's a fun challenge trying to find my way around in the underground caverns. Tap the "graduation hat" icon to run the tutorial. Tap the triangular "play" icon to get to the level selection screen. There are 20 levels, plus there are 6 gravity modes, for a total of 120 levels. The "V" button at the bottom of this screen indicates that all 20 levels will experience normal downward gravity. After you finish the first 5 levels of normal downward gravity, the "0G" button will become enabled. Tapping this button gives you 20 levels which experience no gravity. After you finish the first 5 levels of no gravity, the "^" button will become enabled. Tapping this button gives you 20 levels which experience normal anti-gravity (i.e. the ship will be pushed upward instead of downward). The next two buttons are for double gravity (downwards or upwards), and the last button uses normal gravity which changes clockwise every few moments (it starts off pulling you downwards, then it's pulling you toward the left, then upward, then to the right, etc.). After tapping the icon for the level you want to play, the thrust button is at the bottom right corner of the screen, and next to it is the fire button, and in the center is your shooting score (which will remain 0 if there's nothing to shoot at on the level you're playing). At the bottom left corner are the buttons for rotating left and right. At the top left corner is the pause button, and beneath it is the fuel indicator, and beneath this are the number of remaining lives. When the bottom of your ship is near the orb, a cable will automatically lock onto the orb so you can tow it out of the underground caverns. When you're back out into open space, you can shoot at the reactor if you choose to. When it has been hit enough times, a countdown timer will start. Then you need to fly into space before the reactor blows up. If you don't shoot at the reactor then simply fly out into space to end the level. On some levels you'll encounter turrets which shoot bullets. Shooting a turret will disable it for a moment, but then it will start firing again. If you shoot it enough times then it will be destroyed and turn black. Sometimes there are forcefields which need to be disabled by shooting a button, and sometimes there are refueling stations (hover within the light to refuel). One nice feature is that if your ship is destroyed, you don't have to start the level over. Instead, a new ship appears near where you crashed. After you finish a level, the scoring screen shows your shooting score (i.e. the points you received for shooting turrets and the reactor), plus a fuel bonus and a life bonus, plus a time penalty, plus your high score for this level. The nice thing about these bonuses and penalties is that you can re-play levels to try to beat your high score. At the bottom of the scoring screen (and also on the level selection screen) is the number of "stars" (shown as blue circles) that you received for this level based on your total score. You can get two stars by destroying the reactor, but I don't know what it takes to get three stars. Also see Grav Retro (above).

• February 09, 2016 - Added Meteor.
• January 14, 2015 - Added Air Combat, Air Navy Fighters, Alpha Squadron 2, Denny's Atari Remix, Grav, Grav Retro, GUNSHIP BATTLE, Helidroid 3, Sky Baron, Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders, and Wings.
• June 29, 2014 - Added PewPew, RayWar, Rocket Crane, and Space Rockets.
• March 27, 2014 - Added Powered Descent.
• April 30, 2013 - Added Lunar Caver, Sky Aces, and Sopwith Barons.
• January 07, 2013 - New page.