X-Plane 9.61 RC1  Claiming to be the world’s “most comprehensive, powerful simulator” it’s so accurate that the US and Canadian aviation authorities have given it official approval to train pilots towards their commercial licence.

Firstly, be warned. Once you’ve installed that, a very swanky download dialogue opens to download the other 1.3 gigabytes of the game. All those scenarios, vectored graphics and flight controls take up a lot of hardrive space. It also offers subsonic and supersonic flight dynamics, sporting aircraft from the Bell 206 Jet-Ranger helicopter and Cessna 172 light plane to the supersonic Concorde and Mach-3 XB-70 Valkyrie.

There’s even a plane builder option which allows you to build your own model. You can even test your mettle on aircraft carriers, helipads, frigates that pitch and roll in the waves, and oil rigs. The controls are incredibly complex to mirror a real commercial airliner.