Flight Sim Games With Real Military Aircraft

Military aviation games have gotten deep enough that real pilots use some of them for procedure review. As someone who has spent time in both real cockpits and virtual ones, I know which simulators are worth your time and which ones are just selling you a pretty screensaver. Today, I will share it all with you.

The range goes from hyper-realistic combat simulators to pure arcade dogfighters, and the right choice depends entirely on what you’re looking for. Here’s the honest breakdown.

Digital Combat Simulator (DCS World)

DCS World is the gold standard for military aviation realism. The base game is free and you add aircraft modules as DLC — each one modeled with enough fidelity that real military pilots have used them for procedure review. The cockpits are accurate, the systems behavior is accurate, and the learning curve is steep enough to feel like work.

Notable aircraft available: F/A-18C Hornet, F-16C Viper, A-10C Warthog II, F-14 Tomcat (Heatblur module), AV-8B Harrier II, Ka-50 Black Shark, Mi-24P Hind, UH-1H Huey. The A-10C module in particular is legendary — the jet’s avionics, weapons systems, and ground attack procedures are modeled with extraordinary depth.

No C-17 module currently exists in DCS, which is a gap the community has noted for years.

Best for: Serious sim enthusiasts willing to invest real learning time

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 With Military Add-ons

The base MSFS 2020 doesn’t include military aircraft, but the third-party ecosystem fills that gap. Several payware and freeware military aircraft are available through the official marketplace and community sites like flightsim.to.

Available options include various F/A-18 Super Hornet freeware versions, A-10 Warthog builds, and WWII warbirds including the P-51, Spitfire, and B-17. A community C-17 Globemaster III project has appeared in MSFS at various points, though fidelity varies significantly by version. The sim’s terrain and weather engine make low-level tactical approaches and short-field operations visually spectacular even if the systems depth doesn’t match DCS.

Best for: Visual fidelity and worldwide scenery with military hardware

Ace Combat 7 — Skies Unknown

Ace Combat 7 is an arcade dogfighting game with a legitimate roster of real aircraft and a surprisingly good story. It doesn’t pretend to be a simulator. It’s fast, fun, and built around supersonic dogfights and surface attacks.

Real aircraft in the game include the F-22 Raptor, Su-57, F-15C Eagle, F/A-18F Super Hornet, A-10A Thunderbolt II, and MiG-31B Foxhound. The physics are arcade — you can pull maneuvers that would disintegrate any real aircraft. If you want realistic procedures, look elsewhere. If you want to shoot down fifty fighters while barely breaking a sweat, Ace Combat 7 is genuinely fun.

Best for: Action-oriented players who don’t want to read manuals

IL-2 Sturmovik Series

IL-2 Sturmovik is the definitive World War II air combat simulation. The modern entries — Battle of Stalingrad, Battle of Normandy, Flying Circus — cover period-accurate aircraft with serious attention to flight modeling and damage. The damage system is excellent; you can lose a control surface and realistically fight to keep the aircraft flying.

Available aircraft include Bf 109 and Fw 190 variants, Spitfire variants, P-51D Mustang, and the Il-2 Sturmovik ground attack aircraft. If your interest in military aviation skews toward the propeller era, this is the definitive simulation for it.

Best for: WWII aviation fans who want serious simulation

War Thunder

War Thunder is a free-to-play combined arms game covering aircraft, ground vehicles, and naval vessels from WWII through the modern era. The vehicle roster is enormous and the flight model is simplified compared to DCS, but it’s accessible and completely free.

Military aircraft highlights include the F-86 Sabre, MiG-15, F-4 Phantom II, Su-25 Frogfoot, A-10A at high tier, and F-16A Fighting Falcon at the top tier. The grind is notorious, but casual players who want to fly something recognizable without deep systems knowledge will find it approachable.

Best for: Free-to-play casual military aviation

What About the C-17 Specifically

No major game simulates the C-17 at a systems level currently. The closest options are community projects in MSFS with varying fidelity, and Lockheed Martin’s Prepar3D has been used in actual C-17 aircrew training — but those aren’t consumer products.

The C-17’s mission profile — low-level tactical approach, maximum-effort landing, LAPES, formation flying — isn’t well-served by any consumer simulator on the market. That gap will eventually get filled, and DCS would be the right platform for it when it happens.

Bottom line: DCS for realism, MSFS with add-ons for visual fidelity, Ace Combat 7 for arcade fun, IL-2 for WWII depth, War Thunder for free play. Pick based on what kind of experience you want — and know that none of them will fully prepare you for an actual cockpit checkout.