After more than 200 hours in this sim, and more than 100 in X-Plane, I think I can give an honest and fair assessment of Aerofly FS2, and compare it to X-Plane 11.

The good:

First, I fly only in VR. I have zero interest in 2D flight simulation. For the VR flying experience, simulating the *sensation* of flight, Aerofly is MILES ahead of X-Plane for one primary reason: AeroFly runs GREAT and with butter smooth fluidity. X-Plane, even with the latest 11.30b6, runs like total crap in VR, to be blunt.

Also, the visuals in AeroFly are very good. The planes are very detailed and well-modeled, and the areas of the map that actually have detailed scenery like the add-on DLC's and free regions look great. If you build your own custom orthoscenery into AeroFly, it looks even better. Try flying the F-18 through the Grand Canyon in VR. It's awesome.

Its interface is fairly simple, but it just works. I think I've spent nearly as much time screwing around with X-Plane mods and optimizations trying to get better VR performance than I've actually spent just enjoying flying in it. The opposite is true with AeroFly. I put all the sliders to max and never look at the graphics settings again. That was true even with my old 3GB GTX1060, which ran AeroFly just as well as my current 1080Ti.

AeroFly has been coded with a look toward the future, and has already implemented Vulkan with an advanced anti-aliasing option that makes VR look even more crisp than it already did. X-Plane releases update after update, beta after beta, and yet even with an oc'd 8700K and oc'd 1080Ti, with every setting at minimum, and the visuals looking terrible, X-Plane STILL can't hit 90FPS in VR.

The flight phsyics in AeroFly, at least for the smaller aircraft (I don't care about the airliners) are quite good and on-par with X-Plane too. In particular, the aerobatic Pitts and Extra in AeroFly are very well modeled, and their flight dynamics are better than anything I've found for aerobatics in X-Plane, even after spending another 40 dollars on a Pitts and Extra for X-Plane that fly nicely but do not have realistic spin behavior at all. I frequently see AeroFly's flight models criticized, but I don't know where that's coming from unless it's the airliners, which I admit I never bother with.

You get a decent and varied selection of aircraft with the purchase too, all of which look GREAT. Compared to the selection of free aircraft you get with X-Plane, AeroFly wins, hands-down. When I purchased X-Plane I was actually shocked at how poor some of the default aircraft looked! Example: the only jet you get with X-Plane is an F-4 Phantom , and visually it looks like something out of a sim from 10 years ago. Yuck.

AeroFly works great with a HOTAS, but also has a VR hands implementation that works very well with the Oculus Touch controllers that I use (I haven't tried it with a Vive or WMR HMD so can't speak for those controllers). I fly both with the HOTAS and the Rift and find both control methods to be equally capable, except for all the buttons and knobs I can map functions to on the HOTAS. However, this is partly offset by the fact that a lot of these things you can use the VR hands to manipulate in the cockpits instead of relying on hardware buttons and knobs.

And lastly, the new R-22 helicopter that was just added to AeroFly is a gem that X-Plane can't compete with. X-Plane does have some nice helis for sure--even a truly excellent freeware one--but no rotorcraft I've flown in X-Plane match this new R-22 for realistic flight dynamics. Aerofly has been working on this for about a year, and even worked with a renowned heli pilot to fine-tune the flight model for maximum realism. If you want the most accurate R-22 in a sim, I don't think anything can touch this right now.

The bad:

If you are a flight simmer who finds joy in all the technicalities of flight planning, and really only care about what you see on the screen as a pictorial reference to your pretend flight scenarios and operations, then you will definitely prefer X-Plane over AeroFly. AeroFly lacks any ATC functionality, has no other air traffic, and has empty worlds devoid of cars or other animated things you might see in X-Plane. That said, if you are a VR user who wants a sim that gives the *sensation* of flying in the most immersive and fluid fashion, AeroFly is going to make you much happier.

AeroFly has no 3D modeled water, just static orthophoto images. It doesn't look great, but I don't find X-Plane's water implementation to be particularly realistic in appearance either.

AeroFly's cockpits, though very detailed with knobs and switches, are not fully functional in most aircraft. The basics work, like radio frequencies, autopilot, flaps, gear, etc., but some things related to more specific aircraft functions like all the buttons and switches in the fighter cockpits mostly don't do anything. Again, if you're a simmer who wants study-level aircraft functionality, you won't find it here, yet.

Aerofly currently only has certain portions of the world modeled. You can't just fly to any airport anywhere and expect to find something there. However, there is a decent selection of free and add-on coverage available, and if you're the type that likes to get their hands dirty you can use their SDK to build your own airports too. The high-res areas that are available look quite good visually and are based on orthoimagery.

Lastly, AeroFly lacks sophisticated weather modeling. No rain, but there are clouds which look decent but not amazing. Wind can only be adjusted from 'calm' to 'strong' and given a static direction, plus adjustable thermals and turbulence. It doesn't come close to X-Plane's built-in weather modeling, but it's enough to simulate a crosswind landing fairly well.

Summary -- If you want a technical simulation of flying, meaning planning, ATC, and all the procedural complexities of flying, AeroFly won't make you happy. If you want to be able to fly anywhere in the world and land at any airport, AeroFly won't make you happy. If you want real-time weather modeling that varies with altitude, AeroFly won't make you happy.

BUT -- If you want the best VR simulation of the *sensation* of flight in a variety of beautifully-modeled aircraft, with butter-smooth performance that you set once and never have to touch again, that lets you just get in and enjoy the experience -- you'll love AeroFly. If you want to jump into an aerobatic Pitts or Extra and fly spins and rolls and lomcevaks with realistic physics, AND a smooth stutter-free 90FPS framerate in VR, AeroFly beats the pants off X-Plane. Also, if you want the best R-22 helicopter simulation available in any sim, AeroFly has that now too.

I hope to one day change this review to a thumbs up, but for now, nope.

This sim has great potential, but it is lacking in execution in some key areas. First, the graphics engine and performance is great, blows the competition out of the water. I get consistently high framerates in this game (144+) at 2560x1440.

But, maybe the reason for the high performance is just the lack of depth in the simulation. The world is lifeless. It is an image on top of a terrain map, and a few key areas of the world have some detailed buildings. Noting moves, it is all a static display. There is no dynamic weather, no ATC, no AI, no multiplayer. The aircraft have nice 3d modeled cockpits and look great externally, but the systems simulation is almost non-existent. In these areas, it is severely lacking compared to their competition.

The developers have claimed for 2 years these things are going to be added to AFS2. At this point, I no longer believe them. The developers occasionally put out small patches with various fixes, but nothing big that it needs as noted. We are told the reason is because they have a very small dev team. I don't doubt that, but as a paying customer, who cares what the excuse is? The fact is, we have a good looking, but bare-minimum featured flight simulator and no word about actual progress on major features except for very vague promises that they are working hard. It's not good enough for me anymore.

There is one more thing that actually finally motivated me to write this review. The dev team's censorship. If you criticize the lack of progress on major features in either the steam discussions, or on their official AFS2 forums, you will be censored. Very anti-consumer practice, and makes me think that I may be right, that the major features aren't coming.

Just not ready yet. At least not for the price.

If you want to fly daytime VFR in the southwest USA in uncontrolled airspace without following any procedures then this might appeal to you. Just about anything else sim wise is off the table in Aerofly FS 2 right now.

Pros:

• Beautiful textures
  
• Cool landmarks
  
• Smooth performance
  
• Good looking aircraft and cockpits
  
• Flight models feel good

Meh:

• UI makes it obvious that this is based on a mobile game

Cons:

• No ATC
  
• No weather (no precipitation or real weather data)
  
• No AI traffic
  
• Everything is static and flat. No cars, no other aircraft, nothing at all moves except for you. Outside of major landmarks and airports there are no buildings or roads, just flat textures of buildings and roads.
  
• No multiplayer
  
• No airframe stress
  
• No engine management (mixture, fuel, or even on and off)
  
• No aircraft systems or procedures at all
  
• No FMC for airliners (although this is said to be in development)
  
• Cloud draw distance is very low
  
• No lights at night, everything is dark except for airports and small sections of metro areas
  
• No roadmap for the future (yet)

Aerofly FS 2 seems like it cannot decide whether it wants to be a simulator or a game. In its current state it feels more like game than simulator. The fact that it is an adaptation of a mobile game shows in its UI and its lack of depth. Maybe that will change in the future, but the developers so far have not made their intentions clear.

So, I have been flying around in this new flight simulator for a while now and I think it is time for an early review. I will start by writing about the pros and cons at the moment from my point of view.


First the pros:

Virtual Reality

The biggest pro of this sim must be its support for VR. I dare to say that this title has a place in the top 10, maybe even 5, of best VR experiences around at the moment. You have to see it to believe it, the scale is top notch, the lighting is breathtaking and control of the virtual cockpit is well thought out and just works. From the first second you are in the cockpit you really feel like you are there.


Lighting

The lighting engine of this flightsim is really the best you can get right now. Metals are shiny and reflective, the sunlight on the cockpit and instruments just feels real, the asphalt of the runways and taxiways and the markings on them feel real. The landscape is wonderfully rendered with the use of atmospheric scattering and somehow buildings all seem so real. Then when it gets dark you can be amazed by the cockpit lighting of the various aircraft included. You can control the levels of the background lighting, map lights, individual displays, etc.


Variety

There are lots of airports which are all wonderfully rendered wether they are small local airfields or large airports like San Francisco Intl. You will find well known airliners around the airports and all different aircraft types are at the right location of the airport. So you will actually see the large passenger aircraft at the double jetway gates and the cargo aircraft at the cargo section for example.

The scenery is also very varying as the developers have chosen a part of the westcoast of the United States as the first area. You can visit the Grand Canyon and the dry lands surrounding it, fly over Las Vegas and see the strip wonderfully lit up at night, go to San Francisco and see the bay... Oh and if you get tired of the US, you can always download the Switzerland DLC and visit Europe.

Then the aircraft, you will get 16 of them and they are all very high quality. They are extremely detailed and there are many different types like a 747-400, an A320, a Cessna C172, a Baron 58, two gliders, some stunt airplanes, two military fighters and some historical aircraft. Graphically they belong in the high grade payware section.


Support

The developers are responsive and actually listen to the community. Some feature requests are implemented within days. Great work guys!


Ease of use / loading times

The sim is really easy to use, you can select an airport from the map, choose a starting location (runway, final approach, platform) and choose an aircraft and you can go. Want to plot a route, just a matter of a few clicks with the mouse. And the best of all? Very short loading times, just a matter of seconds.



Then the cons:

Night lighting

While the aircraft cockpits and building lights excel at night a lot of night lighting is still missing. For example the planes all have working taxi/landing lights, but they do not light up the ground or other objects. There are no taxiway lights and no lights on the platforms. The roads have no lights on them and cities without buildings do not have any night lighting. The lighting that is there is beautiful and rendered very realistic, so the potential is there, but it really needs to be filled in. As an avid X-Plane user this really is the biggest omission right now and I think it should be handled with priority at least partially.


The world is still too flat in many areas

The larger cities are wonderfully detailed and absolutely not flat, but other regions are very flat. In X-Plane this is solved by using Open Street Map data to render roads and buildings. It would be great if at least some level of automatically placed buildings could be implemented so the world gets some more depth.

Airports are great at the moment, but they still lack windsocks, taxiway signs and lighting armaments making them flat in many places too.


Still lifeless

Everything around you is still very static. From the water to the roads to the airports. More effort should be taken by the developers somewhere down the road to breathe life into the world. This can start by introducing some animated scenery objects like windmills, windsocks or maybe a rotating ferrywheel in Vegas.

The waters right now are just a satellite image which has both its ups and its downs. The upside is that the water looks very realistic from high up, the colors can differ and streams are visible from the sky. The downside is that there is no reflection of the sun and no movement when you get lower. Another downside is that waterplanes are not possible at the moment. A semi transparent overlay with waves and reflection may do wonders here, bringing the best from both worlds.

When you look at the roads you see nice roads from higher up. But these roads are also just static images and the cars are stuck on them. A road system like in X-Plane would be awesome here, with lights and moving cars, at least for the highways and main roads.

The airports are also still very lifeless, there are a lot of planes though which is awesome. But they are all static and there is nothing else happening at the airports.



Conclusion:

If you are into flight simulations, you should definitely buy this one, if only to support the development team to make this sim into the flight simulator we've all been waiting for (it really has the potential). This is a must buy if you are into VR as this is one of the best looking VR applications available. There are lessons, so if you don't know how to fly an aircraft, this is a great opportunity to learn the basics.

The sim has a long way to go, but I have the confidence that this one will become a big contender as the main simulator for lots of people. It already is a lot of fun though, there is a lot to see and the airports and aircraft are beautiful. I think you get some great value for a very small price and it will only get better from here.

I bought the game very soon after release onto Early Access.

There was only one area modelled, no AI planes, no ATC etc
Of course, this can be forgiven, it's Early Access after all and at £30 they clearly have plans to add a lot of content.
Vive support? Hell yes! Flying around in VR is simply beautiful.

Fast forward and there are still no AI planes, still no ATC etc.
There are two new areas modelled though, hurray.
Oh, you want to see them?
Buy the DLC!

Yeah, Early Access game where you have to pay extra on top for the new bits of map they create.
By the time the map is finished, you'll have spent hundreds to get the game you were promised.
With just 3 areas modelled you are already paying AAA prices.
These "DLCs" should be standard updates covered by the initial, far-too-expensive purchase price.

Utterly disgusting business model that will prevent me from ever supporting this company again.

OK...let's see...I've been playing MS Flight Simulator for...err....25 years? I'm also a real pilot - a former airline pilot who currently owns an aerobatic biplane. I'm also a former triple-A videogame developer who now works for a big software company doing a bunch of 3D and VR design work. I also (briefly) worked on the Microsoft Flight Simulator team a few years ago (before it was shut down for good by the bumbling MS Game Studio management team). It killed me that MS Flight Sim was put out to pasture. It has a reliable audience who spend money on add-ons. Anyhow, I'm so excited that someone is making a modern flight simulator. Aerofly 2 looks FANTASTIC...it blows FSX out of the water, even with all of FSX's upgrades and add-ons. Aerofly also performs much better that FSX. The aircraft look amazing. The flying dynamics are FAR more believable than FSX (I fly aerobatics for real all the time...I know what I'm talking about here). The VR implementation is amazing in Aerofly (HTC Vive). The only complaint I have so far is that the avionics/aircraft systems part of the sim is lagging far, far behind FSX. I understand Aerofly is still in development, but I hope the developers realize that some of us use PC flight sims as practice for doing instrument procedures. I'd love to see a Garmin G1000 or G2000 in here with a functional database of navaids, airports, approaches, SIDs and STARs. Every airplane doesn't have to have fully functioning avionics, but a few of them should. If one of each: airliner, a corporate jet and a light GA aircraft had deep avionics simulations, that would be a great start. Also, this begs the question - will Aerofly be open to external development teams? That is the thing that has kept FSX going for so long. All the super realistic aircraft add-ons were created by third part developers. This seems to be essential to a GA flight simulation. If this stuff happens, this will be the gold standard for modern, non-combat flight simulation. Oh yeah - also, what is the build-out plan for more regions of the world? Flying between airports is something that a lot of people like to do in a non-combat simulator. Anyhow, keep up the great work with Aerofly 2, I highly recommend it.

Hi all - this sim is perfect for my kind of people. Who is "your kind of people" you ask. Well, the guy with multiple children and multiple jobs, not having time to install and configure new add-ons every week, troubleshooting for hours, struggling with getting smooth FPS and hammering a 12-years old core engine to "pretend" that it's up-to-date. Sure, it's a "lightweight"sim when it comes to some features, no doubt. But I jsut sit down, I fire it up (10 seconds), I set my parameters (10 seconds) and I load it (another 10 seconds) and ready to fly in a beautiful high-resolution scenery (in DLC areas). 30 seconds from sitting down to flying??? Are you kidding me? Try that with any "expert" Sim on the market. No 3rd party stuff needed, works straight out of the box, 64-bit, supports VR (and TrackIR, and EDTracker). As mentioned before, some features are lacking (more complex weather engine, sounds, ATC, traffic, etc) - but you know what (and this goes to the developers)? If any of those features bring in more "overhead" time for starting a flight or will degrade performance than please just don't touch it, leave it like this. Great work guys, I like your angle on this, and I truly recommend this experience to anyone interested in flying.

Dan

Owned this title over a year now, and everything negative that I reported about the game still stands 100% as it was written last year.
Zero autogen, Zero additions to scenery unless you want to pay $30 per airport or parts of 2 citiies. Zero textures outside of fractional US scenery supplied or via purchase. Nothing outside of tiny fraction of USA scenery except large globby-blank textures. They advertise global terrain & mesh, this is an outright, boldfaced lie. There is zero outseide of West coat and a fraction of East coast of USA. Zilch!
If you pay more than $5 for this E-M-P-T-Y game then you are being worse than ripped off my friends. Want more details? Then read on, my year old negative review still stands 100% to this day. What's changed since then? They added a plane that they had already been working on the year before, and one other overpriced airport. That's it!
Previous review below:
Yes, SOME beautiful graphics.
No, there is NOT Global Mesh, NOT ANY Autogen and ZERO terrain texturing as craftily worded around, outside of a few key areas.
NO, you cannot fly the world, and you barely get only less than a handfull of fractions of only a few states. This "sim" is a featurless blank outside of a few key areas, period! What they have been advertising is not true at all.

For far less than the price of ~AeroFly2, not even counting some of the overpriced DLC; you could easily afford permanant ownership of Prepar3D V.4 which is 64 Bit, and gives you ALL of Planet Earth to freely fly, chock full of hi-resoultion textures and Autogen. Any airport anywhere, day or night, and any weather! Plus many thousands of freely downloadable aircraft and sceneries to boot! Or you can pay $60 for AeroFly 2 and tack on $30+ per micro-transactional airport; airport by airport for this Aerofly 2 ripoff. Don't just run away from this, FLY away from it!!☺

Be very suspect pf Aerofly FS2 and do due diligence before you purchase. Scenery starvation alert. They do not provide what they advertise, nor what they string along their customers on in their heavily censored forums,There are precious few detailed areas to fly around period.

Once again 'There are precious few detailed areas to fly around period.'

And their forums even on the most busiest of weekends are nearly just as devoid of life.
Exactly just like their abanonware title Areofly FS-1.
My wallet still hurts from that expensive precursor to this sim attempt btw. I was an idiot to
again re-reinvest into these Devs after they already wallet-raped the flight-sim community when abondoning AeroFly FS1.

To date developer promises of modding software have been late in delivery & barely met with such a poor quality release that many find the scenery software far too difficult to invest their lives into the insanly steep learning curves. I found 3DS Max easier to learn!

Each update continues tp break sections of the sim such as flyable aircraft that remain so until the next few-and-far-between update. Any experience Steam Simmer can hear the deep breath being taken for taps about to be sounded. Should NOT be allowed on Steam period.

Do your research and this is what you will learn from others that invested in high hopes like I did.
I am out almost $100 for the game plus some DLC. This title has been going NOWHERE all year.
They do not deliver on their craftily worded advertising.
They do not deliver on their craftily worded advertising.
Patches and updates continue to leave swaths of the game ever more bugged.

Let the reader judge and decide for themselves before they purchase. Read the other reviews.

It looks nice. There is some fun stuff to do, such as fly IN the Grand Canyon, around the Swiss Alps, or around San Francisco. Unfortunately, it is a bit arcady, although the developers are definitely improving the product and I believe in the future it will be a great sim.
Good:
-Good graphics that look great in VR
-Silky smooth framerates in VR
-Clouds look great and don't take much of a performance hit
-Good night lighting
-Areas that are covered look great, including the gradient of runways

Bad:
-Flight model is a bit simplistic but getting much better with every update.
-Limited coverage, once you leave the scenario areas there is NOTHING, not even a generic airport to land on. You can download airports as mods, but don't expect more than a runway and few taxiways.
-Empty world (no traffic, no vehicles, nothing to interact with whatsoever)

Things that would make this a great purchase:
-Perhaps add a multiplayer function (would help with the feeling of emptiness in the game)
-Add some generic airports, even if just basic and lower resolution
-Add some effects like water/weather

Verdict:
If on sale, it is worth it, but don't expect an FSX, Prepar3d, X-plane, DCS level. It's more like a sophisticated Mobile device level flight sim. I got it on sale, but unfortunately I cannot recommend it at full price yet. Having said that, it is improving with every update and it's SO close to getting it right!

DO NOT BUY! They never delivered what they promised just scrapped the original roadmap and started a censorship worst that in China. Every negative comment gets deleted. There is not even basic fuel mechanics, no decent weather options, nothing you could expect even from a simple flight sim. You get MSFS2020 for same price so get that and don't waste your money on this.