Its Fascinating what AIRCRAFT are Available in FLIGHT Simulators?
What Aircraft are available to FLY in Flight Simulators? Flight simulators today are truly incredible in what they can deliver to a budding pilot or passionate aviation enthusiast. Let’s look at the aircraft available! Aircraft available are as broad as the sky is blue with small ultralight aircraft that get the wind blowing through your virtual hair. These will remind you how vulnerable you are and how it must have been at Kittyhawk with the Wright Brothers.
Modern General Aviation Aircraft (GA)
Stepping up and keeping with modern aircraft you could fly today are a range of Cessna 172‘s, 150s as well as Piper P-28s and Bonanza models giving you an awesome taste of GA flying.
Looking at something more modern you can pick up a Cirrus SR22 at your local hanger for a trip. Flying well up into the teens in altitude and very quick the Cirrus Sr22 is an awesome choice. Performance and Safety personified.
Let’s Fly Faster – Twins Aircraft
Oh you say not fast enough! Oh sorry, OK let’s look at the Diamond DA-62 for your next flight. A powerful and super modern twin engine beast that is as sleek and fast as it is beautiful just to stand and look at.
A real pleasure to fly with its Garmin glass cockpit, leather trim and space for 3 more virtual friends or family. A great one for the metaverse travel of the future. This is just one of the many twins available to discover and fly.
Business Jets Aircraft.
Still not fast enough? What about your own business jet? Yep there are a myriad of aircraft like the Honda or Lear jet models to cruise at 40,000ft while sipping on a drink and jet-setting to your next conference.
Fun in the Sky Aerobatics.
Looking for a bit of extreme fun, why not take a walk to your virtual hanger and jump into your Extra 300 aerobatics aircraft and pull some serious Gs. Get airborne doing loops, rolls, spins and more as a fun loving virtual pilot.
There is also the Edge 540, one of the latest and best aerobatic aircraft. You can win championships with this one!
Airline Aircraft for you Captain.
Looking for a career in the airlines then you can do your flight training on your Cessna, step up to a twin and the maybe a Turboprop like the Cessna Caravan before stepping into the venerable Boeing 737 to start your career.
Want something more modern then climb aboard the latest Airbus A320/330/350 and beyond to start your career before heading to the BOEING 777.
Experimental & Home Built.
Really the variety is endless and so far I have barely scratched the surface on aircraft you can fly in a Flight Simulators. I love home built aircraft personally and would love to own one. You can find fun aircraft like the RV 4,6,12 and more as well as as a Lancair models I clouding a turbo prop home built.
Something more exotic then one of my personal favorites it the Long Eze, designed by Burt Rutan its a futuristic design. Built with a canard offers amazing strength and incredible performance. This home built Is capable of fighter level aerobatics & capable of pulling 9Gs! Small and compact in VR you feel like your wearing it. It’s good!
Fighters The Need for Speed!
WW1 Aircraft.
OK I hear you say, but I want to fly Fighters! I have you covered in any era you wish to put your scarf and goggles on and join the “Twenty Minuters”.
From WW1 Sopwith Camels and Fokker Dr1 triplanes and more, we have it all. These windy underpowered beasts will test your skills right from taxi to landing with lots of stick and rudder work necessary.
WW2 Fighters Global Struggle!
More modern you say! OK WW2 has an incredible list available in flight simulators from the Spitfire, P-51 Mustang as well as the much lived Hurricane. In competition you can fine the BF-109 & FW-190 and more. There are a few bombers also available depending on flight simulator your flying. I’ll talk about the sims in a second.
Far East Conflicts.
Getting more modern again and hitting the Vietnam and Korean conflicts there are a range of Migs from the 15, 17 and 21 to compete with the Sabres of the West.
Modern Jets Maverick.
Getting even newer we have aircraft from many countries to offer virtual pilots with F-15, F-16, F-18, F22, F- 35 as well as Mig-23, 29, 25 and 31. These are supported by a wide range of Sukhoi aircraft with Flankers to attain air superiority. Ground attack with both the best ground attack aircraft in the world.
The Su-25 and A-10 are available plus with some ground troop addons in some sims you can have a JTAC on the ground in theatre guiding your attacks saving troops in contact.
Free, Paid or Included!
It’s probably as easy as saying no matter what you want to fly in one of today’s incredible flight simulators you will find it included in the simulator, available to buy from a 3rd party developer. As well as a lot of freeware aircraft. The freeware aircraft can be super high quality but then others you wonder why they bothered even building it. It’s free so we can’t complain about mods can we?
Flight Simulator Options.
MSFS 2020
Lastly let’s look at the Flight simulator offerings available. There are very new sims as well as so surprisingly good older ones! Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is an incredibly graphically amazing flight sim but it’s development has been slow and so far I have said several times it’s more an advanced Beta and not a full release offering.
X Plane
X Plane is about to release it latest version in X-Plane 12. This for me is the best sim series with the most accurate flight model of all the GA flight simulators. Unfortunately even with a new world weather program, 3D volumetric clouds, full 3d forests and environments, icing and more it graphically is not as pleasing to the eye candy in MSFS.
Military
Military sims have a great choice aircraft available in flight simulators such as Falcon BMS which has been developed by the community to an incredibly big following. Graphics are good but not great but it’s the ONLY sim to have a real DYNAMIC CAMPAIGN. The campaign reacts to your wins and failures to determine what happens next. Many companies have tried and failed to create the same high quality campaign mode and failed. You need a copy of the original FALCON 4 installed which can be found cheaply online then download the FREE latest version of FALCON BMS. I recommend it. It’s getting VR I understand soon so I’ll be getting it then.
DCS World – The King of Combat!
Eagle Dynamics have created a number of fantastic multiplayer online capable sims with the latest being DCS World. The collections of aircraft as well as maps is growing very fast. So realistic you will think your actually in combat. Single player and multiplayer are amazing.
They have some older sims that really stand up with separate time periods from WW1 & WW2 the IL-2 Sturmovik series. These graphically are great and you can fly with friends online in Virtual squadrons and so much more.
Wrap up.
The aircraft available in flight simulators is a massive range of included, freeware and payware aircraft available should satisfy your passion for flight simulator flying and have quality aircraft to enjoy. The wide range of flight simulators also will not leave you wanting from Free downloads like BMS ( Needs Falcon 4 Installed) to DCS World which can be downloaded and played for free with limited aircraft. This is where you need to decide on your path because it can get expensive buying all the maps and aircraft.
Author.
Brendon McAliece spent 23 years on jet fighters in The RAAF and BAE Systems in the Middle East. He has worked on Mirage IIIO, F-111, F-18A as well as Tornado IDS/ADV.
He has flown in Jet fighter and Jet trainer aircraft and has a Sport Pilot License. Flight simulation has been a passion since the mid 1980’s.
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