Approach: Landing Simulator
Version 1.0 · iPhone and iPad · iOS 16 and later
Every flight starts forty seconds from the runway, and the only thing you have to do is put the aeroplane down well. Thirty-two flights, four aircraft, and ten real approaches built to their true runway lengths.
Hold the device in landscape, in two hands, like a small control column.
Tap the artificial horizon dial — the round instrument at the bottom centre of the screen. That re-zeros the tilt neutral to however you happen to be holding the device at that moment.
This is the answer to almost every "the tilt feels wrong" problem. Your grip drifts as you play, you shift on the sofa, you cross your legs — tap the dial and the aeroplane is level again where your hands are now. You can do it at any time, including on short final.
If the tilt feels twitchy or heavy in general rather than off-centre, that is a different fix: on the home screen tap Settings → Tilt sensitivity and try Gentle (the least movement needed) or Sharp (the most responsive). Standard is the default and asks for about 30° of lean for full bank.
If you have bought "Unlock All Levels" and reinstalled the app, changed device, or the levels look locked again:
The same button is also on the purchase sheet itself. Restoring is free and can be done as often as you like. If it says no purchase was found, check which Apple ID the device is signed in to — that is the cause nine times out of ten. If it still will not restore, email me and I will sort it out.
On the home screen tap Settings → Graphics and choose Balanced or Smooth. Detailed is the default and is what the game is meant to look like; Smooth turns off the most expensive effects and is there for older hardware.
No, and it is not trying to be. It is an arcade game about the last forty seconds of a flight. There is no flight planning, no cockpit to cold-start, no air traffic control, no systems to manage. The physics is tuned to feel right in your hands rather than to match a certified aircraft, and it will not teach you to fly a real aeroplane.
Ten of them are. Paro, Lukla, Courchevel, Saba, St Barthélemy, Toncontín, Madeira, Gibraltar, Princess Juliana and Barra are built from published runway dimensions and approach geometry — every length, width and gradient is the real one, converted and not rounded to make anything easier. Kai Tak is recreated too. The aircraft, by contrast, are invented: four fictional classes, not modelled on or named after any manufacturer's product.
Fifteen of the thirty-two flights are free: the whole first chapter — which includes five of the ten real airports — plus the first two flights of each of the other three chapters. One purchase opens the remaining seventeen and the other three aircraft. It is a single one-off purchase. There is no subscription, no in-game currency, no advertising and no energy timer.
No. There is no networking code in the app at all — no account, no analytics, no tracking, nothing sent anywhere. Your progress lives on your device. See the privacy policy.
Usually one of three things. You are arriving fast — pull the throttle to idle before the threshold and let the speed come off. You are not flaring — at the "10" callout, tilt the top of the device toward you briefly, then ease back and let it settle; don't hold the pull, or you will float the whole runway. Or the gear is still up: you start clean on every flight, so lowering it is your job.
Yes. iPhone and iPad, landscape, iOS 16 and later. It is the same game on both.
Only to make the one purchase. Everything else — all thirty-two flights — works with the device in aeroplane mode, which is the state a game about landing aeroplanes ought to work in.
Please tell me. This is my first game and I read every message. Say which level, which aircraft, and what happened — rakwim@gmail.com.
rakwim@gmail.com — I answer everything, usually the same day.