Mobile Flight Simulation

By Dan Linton

Introduction

Twenty years ago I was sitting in a restaurant with a guy that had just sold his newspaper for 200 million dollars. He was giving me advice on selling my own company which was a dial up bulletin board system (BBS) that had 80,000 members, 200 phone lines and voted the #1 BBS in the world two years straight. He said that for years owners of companies have missed the next big trend because they were too focused on the one that made them successful. They believed so strongly in what they knew, they thought anything else was a joke and wouldn't ever become anything. End result was they hung on too long and rode their companies into the ground. They fought the new trends as they lost out to better technology. That meeting made me stay open minded to new technology and trends of any kind no matter how silly or ridiculous I thought they were. My team went on to create our award winning WebBBS which successfully embraced the Internet and web browsers that were putting the top BBS systems in the world out of business while it helped us earn a lot of success in the face of a changing technology. Later it lead to a very successful sale of the company. It was that WebBBS that Nels and I used to start FlightSim.Com.

Remember when Flight Simulator looked like this? Everything has to start somewhere...

The other day I heard someone laugh about Flight Simulation on mobile devices. They went on to say, what a joke, those are nothing more than a game and will never replace the PC versions. I think they should have stayed quiet and let people think they were an idiot rather than open their mouth and remove all doubt. But were they right or really being an idiot? Either way I'm old enough to remember playing Bruce Artwick's first flight simulator on the Apple ][. That old wire frame grid moving under my imaginary plane with the pixelated instrument panel. I also remember in my excitement showing my friends and having them say something like "that's the best they can do? Nothing will ever become of that!" Look where flight simulation on computers has come since then. I don't think mobile devices are going away anytime soon, and contrary to what some doom-sayers in our community say, neither is flight simulation.

Mobile Device

It would be suicide for me to try and classify a mobile device. If I say, devices like Apple iPhone and Android based phones and tablets then someone is going to hit me with, what about notebooks and laptops because those are mobile too? If I redefine it to devices that don't run Windows and Unix then I'll choke on OS X thinking oh yeah, iPhone and Mac grrrr. Besides someone will inform me that Android runs on Unix and Surface Pro tablets (and others) run Windows. At this point I'm going to kept quiet rather than remove all doubt that I'm an idiot for trying to define it.

For the sake of the article and time, I decided to think in terms of Apple iPhones/iPads and Google Android based phones/tablets. I justed wanted to learn what was going on out there with mobile devices and flight simulation if anything.

Market

I had to start somewhere so from a 2014 report by Kantar World Panel, despite all the iPhone 6 hype, Android owns 61.9% of the U.S. market and Apple owns 32.5%. Across Europe (UK, France, Germany, Spain & Italy), Android remains the number one OS with 73.3% share, Apple with 16.6% and and Windows at 8.1%. It gets worse for Apple in China where Android owns 82.7% market share. I own one of each so I'm not picking sides just stating facts. I like Apple devices, but to get an idea of what's going on in flight simulation on mobile devices I decided to click on over to the Google Play Store and see if anybody cared about Flight Simulation.

X-Plane

Mobile Flight Simulators

When searching the Google Play App Store for flight simulators, thousands of programs showed up. Everything from goat, bus, cat, elephant, wildlife, dragon, griffin and crazy flying squirrel simulators oh and yes, flight simulators. It was obvious I needed to narrow the search so I selected only Flight Simulators that rated 4 stars+. There were several hundred responses including instrument and panel based application, Flight Gauges, Helicopters, Jets, Airliners, Fighters, Combat, Vintage, and Civilian of all sizes. I later found that even some of the 3+ rating searches gave me some impressive programs.

With that many simulators I decided to look at ones that had a high download count, large number of user ratings, high overall rating, product description and the actual comments people left about the simulator. Keep in mind though the release date has a lot to with download count, feedback and social media "likes" and recommendations. Some products are extremely good but only been out for a short time.

To my surprise, I found download counts of these programs running from a few hundred thousand to over 5 million for some simulators. Tens of thousands of responses from people rating and commenting on what they liked or didn't like about them. There is clearly no shortage of activity in the world of Mobile Flight Simulation. People do use them, enjoy them and from the comments love them.

Features

Once I had download a few titles and started using them I was impressed by the excellent graphics and smooth play. Many of the top titles had detailed scenery and aircraft, supported multi-player over the Internet, 3-D cockpits you can pan, and a great selection of add-on planes and missions. Regions from all over the world are covered in these systems with all major airports and precise runway and taxiway layouts. Complete weather systems that let you control time and weather conditions like day, night, dusk & dawn, fog, rain, wind and overcast conditions. Other features include flight planning, log books, detailed cockpit instrumentation with ILS approaches, advanced autopilots, replay recording, weight balance configurators, flight lessons and tutorials.

I found combat based simulators by RORTOS Simulation whose new flight engine software gives you complete simulated control of an F-18 to do Carrier landings, ground attack missions that require you avoid SAM missiles and radar while using your favorite weapons to destroy warships and choppers. Their Extreme Landings product tests your skills at managing some of the most critical flight conditions in history. Over 5000 possible situations to solve while you try to achieve the highest pilot level. You must resolve emergencies that include incidents inspired by real ones. Navigation options include over 8000 waypoints (VOR, NDB, TACAN, DME, GPS and FIX).

Infinite Flight Simulator

You can see a few of the simulators I tried in the list below, but doing a search on your own will result in a lot more you may find interesting to you.

X-Plane 9 & 10 by Laminar Research
5 Million+ downloads, 43,505 feedback, 4.0 user rating, 35,211 Google+ likes
Description | Videos

Air Navy Fighters Lite by RORTOS Simulation
5 Million+ downloads, 94,115 feedbacks, 45,089 Google+ likes
Description | Videos

F18 Carrier Landing II by RORTOS Simulation
1 Million+ downloads, 65,116 feedbacks, 4.1 rating, 4,179 Google+ likes
Description | Video

Airplane Fly Hawaii by Tri One Games
1 Million+ downloads, 46,549 feedbacks, 4.1 rating, 5,2745 Google+ likes
Description | Videos

Airplane! By Quantum Design Group
1 Million+ downloads, 144,145 feedbacks, 4.4 rating, 30,449 Google+ likes
Description | Video

Historical Landings by RORTOS Simulations
1 Million+ downloads, 25,003 feedbacks, 4.0 rating, 13,127 Google+ likes
Description | Video

Extreme Landings by RORTOS Simulations
10,000+ downloads, 1,697 feedbacks, 4.6 rating,
Description | Video

Infinite Flight Simulator by Flying Development Studio LLC
100,000+ downloads, 20,010 feedback, 4.4 rating, 27,762 Google+ likes
Description | Videos

Fox One by Skyfox
10,000+ downloads, 961 feedbacks, 4.0 rating, 90 Google+ likes
Description | Videos

PicaSim: Free Flight Simulator
500,000+ downloads, 8,480 feedback, 4.1 rating, 6,721 Google+ likes
Description | Videos

Leo's RC Simulator
3.5 Million+ downloads, 29,793 feedback, 4.1 rating, 8,685 Google+ likes
Description | Videos

Air Navy Fighters

Add-ons

Mobile applications already support add-ons but with most of them offered as another revenue source to help support the development of the programs.

Aircraft are the most popular add-on and can be purchased and installed right within the application. For instance X-Plane's most popular aircraft add-on purchases are the Airbus A320, Piper SuperCub, Sikorsky S76, F-22 Raptor, A-10 Thunderbolt II, F-4 Phantom, Piaggio Avanti P180, Baron B58 and King Air C90. Other companies are doing the same; Flying Development Studios offers 35 aircraft with 18 of them available for purchase.

Aircraft are also offered, with some products, as incentives for using the program. The more you successfully complete missions the more aircraft you get as rewards for unlocking the free add-on.

RORTOS Simulations offers 168 scenery challenges in Extreme Landings with 18 included and 150 available for purchase. This was a key indication to me the add-on scenery is already possible in these products.

End users of the program are starting to get involved in the creation of missions. RORTOS new flight engine offers their scenario builder with terrain engine along with comprehensive tutorials, with more user based content in the works.

I can clearly envision the day that the developers start releasing the tools to create add-ons with an open API/SDK to the product to invite third party add-ons in these products.

Emulators

Your mobile device isn't your only option for running your Android applications. You have options for running them on your PC with even more options in the works by Intel and AMD.

First thing you should know is you don't want to use the Google Android Studio to run your Google Apps. It's too slow and you don't need all those development tools on your PC just run an application.

BlueStacks is an application player that runs on XP, Vista, and Win 7/8. It allows you to run Android apps on your PC. They have even created a service called Game Pop that allows you to play your favorite mobile games on mobile, tablet or TV. Since their inception in 2009 the BlueStacks network now serves tens of millions of users in over 100 countries thanks to their partnerships with Lenovo, Asus, Intel, AMD, MSI and the Fonelink service. Software companies like Ubisoft (and several hundred others they are working with) are quickly converting gaming content in support of Game Pop.

Fox One

AMD is working with BlueStacks to create a new Dual-OS Android Solution for the Windows PC using AMD's Fourth Generation APUs. This will enable users to enjoy full Android experience on Windows-based tablets, 2-in-1s, notebooks and desktops.

Intel has also announced it is creating a new architecture for the latest Intel Computers that let you run all Android apps on a Windows 8 Machine. It's also a dual OS machine and gives you Android performance right to the hardware level. Search the net and watch the fun as Google and Microsoft battle with the hardware companies like Intel and Asus about whose OS gets to dominate the device. BlueStacks and AMD don't seem to be having these problems.

You will read headlines like "Microsoft and Google kill off Intel-Asus dual OS tablet effort", "Microsoft and Google ruin Intel's plane for dual-OS tablets", "Google stabs Intel in the Back over New Dual OS Platform..", "Reports: Say goodbye to Android + Windows dual OS Devices" .. It was all the buzz at CES 2014. Come kids, play good. Then Asus, later in the year unveils the Five-Mode, Three-In-One Dual-OS Device. The Transformer Book V is a Windows-Android device with Intel core processor. Pass me more popcorn please, this is a riot!

In the way of software emulators other than BlueStack's App Player, you have AndY, Winroy, and YouWave to name a few. Some of them let you run your apps on the PC as well as your TV and you get to use your smart phone as the controller or remote. AndY works on Win/Mac PC's and always provides you with the latest Android OS.

These software emulators are not without their problems however. You'll find all kinds of articles about the BlueStacks player getting graphics errors on some PC's and trouble shooting guides to get around them. AndY can't run on PC's using ARM processors and the list goes on. I personally had great luck with BlueStacks on my machine.

It appears obvious some big names and large investor dollars believe in mobile applications and want you to be able to run them anywhere at anytime. Is this the next big trend in Flight Simulation or isn't it?

Mobile Game Repositories

A lot of people don't realize that Apple and Google's App Stores aren't the only game in town (pun intended). According to Statista.com as of July 2014 Google's app store leads with 1.3 million apps and the Apple Store remains second at 1.2 million. Windows phone store currently supplies 300,000 with Amazon Appstore at 240,000. Blackberry World even sneaks in at 130,000 apps.

There are a lot of third-party repositories showing up as well and some have very creative ideas on how to help you keep costs down, earn the developer more money and have enough left over to help various charities.

Historical Landings

Humble Bundles create a series of collections of software (including Android bundles) for distribution online at a price that is determined by the buyer. This creates large discounts on popular apps, but provides huge volume for developer sales. Every couple weeks they offer a new bundle so you have a limited time to get in on the deal. Every bundle features multi-platform games and are provided without DRM. The revenue is split between developers and creators resulting in over $50 million going to 50 different charities and developers grossing over $100 million since their start in 2010.

Other repositories include sites like GetJar that give developers higher commission and cross promote their products to more than 200 million users free. For the users they offer a huge number of apps for various platforms including Android.

Slide ME is another Android App store offering many of the premium apps free. They have a global reach and developers set their own prices and benefit from the large Slide ME ad network.

When it comes to open source you want to look at F-Droid which is dedicated to Free and Open source Software applications for the Android platform. F-Droid is operated by F-Droid Limited, a non-profit, organization registered in England. It was founded in 2010 by Ciaran Gultnieks and is a volunteer based project.

The list continues with Samsung getting into the mix with the Samsung Galaxy Apps site. The AppsLib created by Archos with more than 40,000 apps that couldn't get Google Certification. Expect to find apps here you can't find on Google Play.

Leo's RC Simulator

If you want to sit back and have some A.I. find apps that appeal to you, try Mobogenie. Their large collection of curated apps uses an intelligent recommendation engine that will analyze your preferences and make suggestions.

Typically the main stream stores offer the developers 70 percent of the revenue keeping 30 percent, called the 70/30 split. Some repositories like GetJar, ApplsLib and Mobogenie offer developers 80/20 splits and higher. So when you support a site like these you actually help give back more of the income to the developer.

Other advantages for using alternative download sites is the curated content that has been hand selected/tested for a particular age, type of software, or quality. Getting recommendations that are not just Google Plays top ten list. Saving money with promotions, deals and bundles. Downloading from a repository in your own country.

Keep in mind though, if you want to download from outside the Google Play Store you going to need to configure your phone to do it. It's called "sideloading" and this is how you do it.

If you know of still other responsibilities, let us know about them by leaving a comment below.

Summary

I feel there are a handful of companies that are serious about creating flight simulators for mobile devices. In the 3+ rating category I found a lot of up and coming developers/companies that could be the rising stars of products that reach the 4+ ratings with later revisions.

With the growth of mobile devices, and hardware developers getting ready to support Android apps in the next generation of computers I think it's worth keeping an eye on these products. Developers of the Mobile Flight Simulators can already provide add-ons. As they release more tools to the users of those programs we just might find an explosion in possibilities just like the desktop versions of flight simulators.

PicaSim

So tell us what you think.

Do you run a flight simulator on your mobile device? Or what about your PC? What have you learned and where do you think it's all going? Where do you want it to go? Are mobile flight simulators for real pilots or even student pilots? Can they learn something from them or are they just a game? We would love to hear from those of you that are using them and have constructive thoughts on the subject.

Dan Linton