Flying a virtual plane on your phone usually feels like steering a brick through wet cement. That is exactly why Flight Pilot Simulator 3D is such a breath of fresh air. It actually captures the raw adrenaline rush of jumping into a cockpit, hooking you immediately with incredibly intuitive controls that just make sense the second you touch the screen.

COMMAND EVERYTHING FROM TINY PROPS TO SCREAMING SUPERSONIC JETS

The hangar in this game is completely stacked. You aren’t just stuck slowly flying a boring commercial airliner in a straight line for hours.

The 3D graphics and animations look wildly realistic as you cycle through the massive roster of real world aircraft. You can easily grab a little single engine prop plane for a relaxing scenic cruise, or strap into a heavy military jet and completely break the sound barrier. If you don’t feel like running structured objectives, you can just boot up the free flight mode. It drops you into a massive, gorgeous open world map packed with hidden surprises, letting you just explore the clouds at your own pace.

DITCH THE BORING FLIGHTS FOR BRUTAL EMERGENCIES

Forget those braindead simulators where you just hit the throttle, turn on the autopilot, and wait. The missions here are intentionally chaotic and will seriously test your nerves.

One minute you are racing the clock to drop water on a massive mountain wildfire, and the next you are sweating through a high stakes rescue op to pull stranded civilians out of a danger zone. The game constantly throws you curveballs. Trying to execute a horrifically rough landing on a tiny, sketchy dirt strip or worse, trying to nail a landing on a moving aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean pushes your reflexes to the absolute limit.

NO WI FI? LITERALLY NOT A PROBLEM

I absolutely hate downloading a massive mobile game only to find out it demands a constant, heavy internet connection just to reach the main menu.

You can play this one totally offline. Whether you are stuck deep underground on a subway, killing time in the passenger seat on a long road trip, or just hiding out in the bathroom, you have full access to the skies without burning a single drop of your monthly cell data. The developers actually put in the serious optimization work, too. It runs incredibly smoothly across basically any device you throw at it, so you never have to worry about a random lag spike crashing your jet into the side of a mountain.