What is the best flight simulator for Mac? Update Cancel. What is the best flight simulator? What features should I look for? As a rule of thumb, the Mac is NOT the place to look for games, or gaming. However, over the last decade, that has changed a bit as the iPod/iphone/ipad halo effect has taken Apple from 1% market.

Last Updated: October 4, 2018 If you want to take to the skies without leaving your Mac, we’ve taken a look at the most realistic flight simulators for Mac in 2018. Although the popular Microsoft Flight Simulator for Mac has never been released and the choice on macOS is limited, there are some incredibly good flight sims available nowadays on Mac.

Nowadays you can make them feel even more realistic on Mac with real such as yoke controllers, rudder pedals and even flight switches too. In these reviews, we’ve focused on the most realistic pro level simulators for armchair pilots – not arcade games. You May Also Like. • • • Here is our selection of the top flight sims for Mac in order of ranking. Is designed by an ex-professional pilot is and is easily the most realistic flight sim available for both Mac and PC.

X-Plane is an incredible piece of work with highly detailed graphics, cockpits, airports, plane handling and weather conditions. In fact, X-Plane is so realistic that it’s used by pilot training schools, aerospace engineers and even NASA to design, simulate and test aircraft. Even professional pilots use it on down time to keep their skills sharp. X-Plane allows you to do everything from shoot VFR and IFR approaches to preparing for emergencies or improving your navigation and landing skills.

Not only that but the choice of planes you can fly in X-Plane is incredible ranging from the Cirrus Vision SF 50 to a Lockheed Blackbird and even a Space Shuttle Orbiter. There are but you can with add-ons created by fans and plane enthusiasts. The impressive thing is that X-Plane models the flight handling of each different aircraft so that no two planes ever feel the same. Avi video player mac. And if that’s not enough, there’s an in-game plane designer to design your own plane with. The choice of landing pads and airports is equally impressive with over 30,000 locations ranging from oil rigs and frigates (which pitch and roll in stormy weather) to commercial airports and helipads. The level of detail is unbelievable including real world weather conditions, system failures and downloadable scenery.

X-Plane is also the only flight sim for Mac that’s compatible with flight yokes, rudder pedals and cockpit flight switch panels. Check out our guide the as to really get the best out of X-Plane and enjoy a more authentic flying experience, they really add another dimension to the simulator.

You can also enjoy which have been scaled to work perfectly on both and are very similar to the desktop version. The mobile apps are free but you have to make in-app purchases to add aircraft such as Airbus A320, Boeing 777, F-4 Phantom etc. The regions are far more limited on the mobile version than on Mac but it does support multiplayer mode and other challenges and tutorials. The obvious downside with such a massive game is it takes a lot of getting used to.

The feels longer than a Boeing 747 manual. X-Plane is also incredibly RAM hungry – you’ll need at least 8GB of RAM to use it such is the detail of both the graphics and movement of the planes. As long as you have this, X-Plane works extremely well on Mac because although it is available on Windows and Linux, X-Plane was developed using a Mac. One useful tip: If you use Time Machine to backup your Mac to an, don’t forget to exclude the X-Plane directory as it will take-up unnecessary space on your backup device. Overall, X-Plane really is the ultimate sim for flying on Mac – it’s the closest thing you’ll get to stepping into a cockpit on Mac. You can download a to judge for yourself. If the price tag or complexity of of X-Plane scares you off, then is a very good compromise.

Like X-Plane, Aerofly FS has incredibly realistic graphics and handling but with a considerably easier user interface that’s less intimidating. It’s not quite as professional as X-Plane but for those with little flying experience, it’s definitely more accessible. Like X-Plane, you can use either keyboard, joystick, gamepad or mouse to control the plane. The controls, aerodynamics and graphics of the planes are very close to those in X-Plane and the flying environment is incredibly detailed.