How this Aviator aileron shortlist was cut

We are a small desk. This guide records the cuts behind three Aviator cards on Grafocentar — not a claim that every flight game on Play belongs here.

What problem were we solving?

Readers land with the word Aviator and a pile of lookalike action flight titles. We wanted a short aileron board: live passports first, honesty about gaps second, no invented scores.

What did we require from a live listing?

A resolvable Play URL, a developer string, a price model, a content rating, and a checked date we could stamp. Ratings and download bands only when Play still prints them. Warplanes Inc WW2, Warplane Inc Dogfight, and 1945 Air Force: Plane Shooter cleared that bar on 22 October 2026.

What happened when Air Battle died?

Air Battle (sometimes surfaced historically as Aviator Game in locales) failed the live URL test. Trackers date a removal to 19 August 2026; our GET returned 404 on the check day. Dropping the slot silently would leave the aileron short one arcade card. We replaced rank three with the live 1945 Air Force arcade WW2 shooter instead of inventing stars for a dead package.

How did rank order fall out?

WW2 takes rank one for the clearest live flight-sim passport (10M+, 327K review headline). Dogfight takes rank two as the PvP specialist with a newer update stamp among the Nuclear Games pair. 1945 Air Force stays third as the live arcade card — high stars and a 100M+ band do not automatically leapfrog editorial fit on this desk.

What did we refuse to weigh?

Paid placements, sideload mirrors, and “best of 2026” phrasing. We also refused to merge the two Nuclear Games packages into one card — different ids, different review pools.

Where does this method show up on the site?

Homepage method timeline, editorial policy, the listing-check note, and the per-app Q&A reviews. Filter chips only hide cards; they do not rewrite facts. Back to the ranking or the library.