A Patient Thread game for iPhone
Earn your place in a fictional naval squadron. Learn to fly a carrier jump jet, hover, launch off the ski-jump, intercept threats and bring the aircraft home to HMS Resolute, with a crew who would very much like it back in one piece.
What you fly
Kestrel is a flight game with a real flight model underneath: nozzle angle, hover, ski-jump departures, carrier recovery, weapons and fuel all behave the way the sortie demands.
Rotate the nozzles for a vertical landing, angle them for a short take-off, or go clean for the intercept. Gear, brakes and airbrake are yours to manage.
Ski-jump launches, deck recoveries, night circuits and runway diversions. Return guidance helps while you learn; take control when you are ready.
Radar, lock tone, missiles with a cannon fallback, bombs and rockets. Identify before you fire; the squadron remembers who you shot.
Fly with the on-screen stick or tilt the phone. Cockpit, chase, overhead and side views, with wings-level assistance for new pilots.
Fourteen training qualifications earn your wings. Sorties build rank, decorations and a squadron log. Failed sorties keep what you earned.
Recorded radio and mission films from a crew chief, a wingmate and a controller who talk you through briefings, launches and the long way home.
Free to fly
Every training lesson is free, from your first flight and the hover through deck qualification, night flying, gunnery, bombing, rockets, emergency recovery and navigation. So is free flight, and so is Southern Reach: an eight-sortie island deployment with reconnaissance, interception, ground support and fleet defence.
In a hurry? Skip training opens the free deployment straight away, without awarding the qualifications.
Optional campaign packs
Each pack opens all of its sorties immediately. Neither needs the other, neither needs Southern Reach finished, and every sortie can be replayed. Prices are set by the App Store for your country and shown in the app.
One-time in-app purchase
One-time in-app purchase
Spanner's Locker
Preview aircraft paints, pilot helmets, nose markings, cockpit badges, a lucky fox and a brass nameplate before you buy. Each is a one-time purchase, with two collections that bundle five items each. Your call sign is always free to set and change.
Cosmetics change how the aircraft and pilot look. They never change aircraft performance, weapon strength or what the sortie asks of you.
Kestrel runs on iPhone with iOS 18 or later, in landscape. Everything plays offline: the flight model, the mission films and the recorded voices are all in the app.
Screens
Genuine captures from version 0.12.0 running on an iPhone simulator with sample career progress.
Kestrel is fiction: a made-up squadron, a fictional carrier, simplified flight and weapons systems and original aircraft designs inspired by the jump-jet era. It depicts military aviation and simulated weapons, which is reflected in its App Store age rating.
It is not a simulation of any real aircraft, operation or unit, it is not endorsed by any armed service, and nothing in it is flight training. Purchases never change aircraft performance or weapon strength.
Support and privacy
Questions about controls, a sortie, a campaign pack or restoring purchases on a new phone? We answer directly.
Email chris@patientthread.com. We never ask for Apple passwords or card details.
Kestrel: Naval Air Ops is published by Patient Thread Ltd, registered in England and Wales (17167409). Apple, iPhone and App Store are trademarks of Apple Inc.