FlightGear
Version: 2020.3.17 Web: www.flightgear.org
FlightGear isn’t your average game. It’s a trueblue flight simulator that’s sophisticated and hyper-realistic. The ‘game’, which had its first release back in 1997, is often used in the aerospace industry for research and training purposes. In fact, its flight dynamics engine has even been used by NASA. Using FlightGear, you can get in the pilot’s seat of over 400 aircraft of all shapes and sizes, from classic and vintage aircraft to single-engine propeller aircraft, large four-engine passenger liners and even experimental aircraft and helicopters. You can take them for a spin from any of the thousands of visually accurate airports from around the world, any time of the day, and through all kinds of weather.
FlightGear supports a plethora of flight control hardware, and works with multi-monitor setups. The game is available in the repos of most desktop distros, but you can also play it using the official AppImage. Just grab the file from the website, and give it executable permissions either using the file manager or with the chmod +x command.
Not to dampen your spirits, but before you jump in the pilot’s chair, remember how we said the game is a simulator? This means you can’t just press a key and take off. For first-timers, finding your way around the cockpit can be quite a challenge.
In fact, just turning on the engine can be daunting. Some aircraft do have an autostart entry in their custom menu, but it usually takes several steps to get the plane to taxi down the runway. Most aircraft come with their own tutorial that you must leaf through to learn not just how to operate the plane but also how to keep it airborne once it’s in the sky.