Flyover Country vs SkyDot: which offline flight app suits you?

What the two apps share

Both are offline flight apps in the real sense. Neither needs wifi in the air, because both read the GPS receiver in your phone rather than fetching positions from a server. Both show your position, altitude, speed and heading with Airplane Mode on and Location left on.

Both also depend on preparation. You download maps on the ground before takeoff, and whatever you did not download is not there at cruise. Both are on iOS and Android.

Neither shows other aircraft, delays or gates. For those you still want a network tracker before you board.

What Flyover Country is best at

Flyover Country started at the University of Minnesota with National Science Foundation funding, and it shows. It is built to explain the landscape. Geological maps from Macrostrat, fossil sites, Wikipedia articles about places along your route and ocean-floor depth when you are over water all come with you offline.

Version 3.0, a full rebuild released on 30 August 2026, added a 3D globe and augmented reality landmark labels. You download maps and stories along your route before you fly.

It is completely free. If you look out of the window and want to know why the ground looks the way it does, it is the best app for the job, and SkyDot does not try to compete with it there.

What SkyDot is best at

SkyDot is built around the flight itself. The instrument panel shows altitude in feet or metres, ground speed, heading as degrees and a compass point, distance flown and remaining, time remaining and an approximate local arrival time. That arrival time comes from distance left along your route divided by current ground speed.

A currently over line names the nearest town, country and continent from an offline list of 69,305 towns and 4,045 airports. Far from land it names the sea, as in Over the Arabian Sea, 420 km from Mumbai. It does not show landmarks, mountains or geology.

You start tracking with one tap. After that SkyDot detects landing and saves the flight on its own, recording distance actually flown, duration, maximum altitude, top speed and the countries crossed. Your totals build into a world map of countries flown over, and a Year in Flights card sums up the year as an image you can share.

In the 45 minutes before sunrise or sunset it tells you which side of the aircraft to look, using your live heading.

Side by side

Checked in September 2026 against each app’s own description. A dash means we could not confirm it either way.

Maps and preparation

Flyover Country has you download maps and content along the route you are about to fly. SkyDot uses offline vector map packs instead: a world basemap of around 60 MB that is free, plus detailed regional packs such as Europe, North Atlantic or South Asia of roughly 90 to 140 MB each. Regional packs come with Premium, or you can unlock one region by watching an ad.

SkyDot still tracks you with no map downloaded, drawing your position and route on a plain background. Either way, do the downloading on wifi before you head to the airport.

Getting a good GPS fix with either app

Because both apps rely on the same receiver, the same habits help both. Switch on Airplane Mode as the crew asks and check that Location is still on. Most phones leave it on; a few need it switched back on once.

Without mobile data your phone cannot use assisted GPS, so the first fix is slower than you are used to on the ground and can take a couple of minutes. Holding the phone near the window helps, because the fuselage weakens the signal. A middle seat in the centre section can struggle, and that affects Flyover Country and SkyDot equally.

In SkyDot, if the signal is lost for 15 minutes tracking pauses and offers to resume or save what it has. Progress is saved about every 15 seconds, so closing the app or a phone restart does not lose the flight. On Android SkyDot runs as a foreground service with a silent notification showing time remaining and the place below, which keeps it tracking in the background.

Which one to install

Choose Flyover Country if you are curious about the landscape, you want something to read on a long flight, or you want an app that costs nothing at all.

Choose SkyDot if you want quick answers to where am I and how long is left, and a record of every flight without logging anything by hand.

They do not get in each other’s way. Plenty of people will enjoy running SkyDot for the numbers and switching to Flyover Country when something interesting appears below.

If you are only going to install one before a long-haul flight tomorrow, think about what you will do with it afterwards. Flyover Country is about the flight while it is happening. SkyDot keeps a lasting record: countries crossed, distance flown, the longest flight of the year.

Neither is a replacement for a network tracker. If you need delays, gate changes or other aircraft, check Flighty, FlightAware or Flightradar24 before you board.