Aeroplane Chess
Roll a six, launch your planes and race around the board in this free online Aeroplane Chess game. Jump on your color, take the dashed flight and send rivals back to the hangar.
Frequently Asked Questions
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How do I play Aeroplane Chess online?
Pick a mode first: play solo against 1-3 AI opponents, or choose pass-and-play for 2-4 people sharing one device. On your turn press Roll. A 6 launches a plane from your hangar onto your start cell and earns a bonus roll; any plane in the air moves forward by the number rolled. Tap the highlighted plane you want to move, watch the jump, flight and crash animations resolve, and be the first to bring all four planes to the central terminal.
What are the rules of Aeroplane Chess?
Four colors race clockwise around a 52-cell outer ring, each player flying 4 planes from a corner hangar. A 6 is required to launch and grants a bonus roll. Landing on a cell of your own color jumps you 4 cells to the next cell of that color; reaching your dashed flight cell flies you 12 cells across the board. Ending a move on an enemy plane crashes it back to its hangar. After a full lap a plane enters its private 6-cell runway, where it needs exact rolls to reach the center — overshooting bounces it back by the extra pips. Rolling three 6s in one turn sends your last-moved plane home.
How do you win at Aeroplane Chess?
The first player to fly all four of their planes around the ring, down their terminal runway and onto the exact center cell wins immediately. The runway demands precise counts: a plane five cells from home needs exactly a 5, and rolling more bounces it backward by the difference, so the final stretch rewards counting as much as luck.
Can planes stack in Aeroplane Chess?
Yes — two or more of your own planes may occupy the same cell, shown as a small formation. In this implementation stacking is purely visual: stacked planes still move one at a time, offer no mutual protection, and every plane on a cell is crashed back to the hangar if an enemy lands there. Classic house rules that make stacks move together or block attacks vary from table to table, so agree on them before playing offline.
How do the jump and the flight line work?
Whenever your plane finishes a move on a ring cell of its own color, it immediately jumps to the next cell of that color — always exactly 4 cells ahead, since your color repeats every 4 cells. If that landing spot — or a direct landing — is your special dashed cell, the plane instead takes the flight line across the board, advancing a full 12 cells to a spot just before your runway entrance. Both shortcuts are free and can combine in one move: move, jump, then fly. Only the final cell triggers crashes, and planes inside runways never jump or fly.
How is Aeroplane Chess different from Ludo?
Both descend from the ancient Pachisi family, but Aeroplane Chess adds three signature rules: the color jump of 4 cells on your own squares, the dashed flight line worth 12 cells, and the absence of safe squares — only your hangar and runway are protected, whereas Ludo marks star safety cells. Aeroplane Chess also uses a 52-cell square ring with a 6-cell runway per player, while Ludo uses a cross-shaped board, and its exact-count finish bounces overshooting planes backward rather than waiting for the right roll.
Is Aeroplane Chess good with 2 players?
Yes. Two-player games are the fastest and most combative: with only one rival there are fewer cells in play, so jump and flight landings collide more often and crashes decide the race. You can play 2, 3 or 4 sides both against the AI and in pass-and-play on one screen, and the AI difficulty — easy, normal or hard — lets you tune how aggressive the opposition is.
Is Aeroplane Chess a good family game for kids?
It is one of the classic entry board games for young children: a single die, four planes and one sentence of rules teach rolling, counting cells and taking turns. The exact-count terminal naturally practices subtraction and looking ahead, while the luck-heavy design keeps losing players within striking distance — a run of sixes can reopen any race. A full game takes roughly twenty to forty minutes, and the animated board helps pre-readers follow every jump, flight and crash.
Explore Game Details
How to Play Aeroplane Chess
Goal: Be the first player to fly all four of your planes around the board and into the central terminal. On the way you will hop over your own color cells, ride a long dashed flight across the board, and crash rival planes back to their hangars.
Setup
- The square board has a 52-cell outer ring colored in a repeating red, yellow, blue and green pattern, so your own color appears every 4 cells.
- Each player owns one color with 4 planes waiting in the corner hangar, plus a private 6-cell terminal runway leading to the shared center finish.
- Play 2 to 4 sides: one human against 1-3 AI opponents, or several people passing the same device.
Launching and Moving
- Roll one die on your turn. Only a 6 lets a plane take off from the hangar onto your colored start cell — launching uses up that roll.
- Rolling a 6 also earns a bonus roll after your action completes, and consecutive sixes keep the bonus alive.
- Any plane already in the air moves forward exactly the number rolled, clockwise around the ring. If you have several planes aloft, you choose which one to move.
- A roll with no possible move (all planes still grounded and no 6) simply passes the turn.
Jumping and Flying
- Color jump: when a plane stops on a ring cell of its own color, it immediately hops forward to the next cell of that color — always a free 4-cell jump.
- Dashed flight: if the plane reaches the special dashed cell of its own color — directly or by a jump — it flies along the dotted line across the board, leaping 12 cells ahead and dropping off near the entrance of its terminal runway.
- Jump and flight resolve instantly as part of the same move, and only the final stopping cell triggers effects.
Crashing and Stacking
- Finish a move — including after a jump or flight — on a cell held by an enemy plane and you crash it back to its hangar, where it must wait for another 6. Every enemy on that cell is sent back.
- Your own planes may share a cell (a stack), but in this version a stack has no special power: each plane still moves separately and can be crashed like any other.
- Planes in a hangar or inside a terminal runway can never be attacked.
The Terminal Runway
- After circling the ring, a plane turns into its own 6-cell runway and may only be moved forward by exact rolls toward the center.
- Reaching the terminal requires an exact count. If you roll more than the remaining cells, the plane moves in and bounces back by the extra steps.
Three Sixes and Winning
- Rolling three 6s in one turn is too greedy: the plane you moved last is sent back to the hangar and your turn ends immediately.
- The first player to land all four planes on the central terminal wins the game.
Strategy Tips
Choosing which plane to move:
- Scan for crash landings first: any roll that ends on an enemy — even after a jump or flight — is usually the best move, because a crashed plane loses everything it had earned.
- When nothing can be crashed, weigh risk: a landing cell that sits 1-6 cells behind an enemy plane is an invitation to be crashed next turn. Prefer advancing a different plane or staying put on a safer cell.
- Get planes out of the hangar early. Every grounded plane is worth nothing, and a 6 spent on launching still earns your bonus roll.
Using the shortcuts:
- Memorize where your dashed flight cell sits. Landing two jumps before it chains into jump plus flight — the fastest single turn in the game.
- Your own color cells are mini-shortcuts everywhere: four cells of free progress each time. Factor them in when counting whether a rival can reach you.
The endgame:
- Count carefully near the terminal: an exact roll finishes a plane, while an overshoot bounces you backward and wastes turns. Sometimes moving a different plane is better than bouncing.
- Spread your planes across the board instead of clustering far behind — four planes moving together in a convoy are easy to crash and slow to recover.
- Behind on the scoreboard? Aeroplane Chess is luck-heavy by design: keep launching planes and wait for the chain of bonus sixes that swings a race back around.
About Aeroplane Chess
Aeroplane Chess (also called Flying Chess) is a classic Chinese family board game that became a staple of twentieth-century households, sitting alongside Chinese chess, checkers and animal chess among the country's best-loved table games. It belongs to the ancient Pachisi-Ludo family of cross-and-circle race games, but its airplane theme — hangars, flight lines and a central airport terminal — is a distinctly local reinvention of the genre.
Compared with Indian Ludo, its signature twists are the color jump (land on your own color and hop 4 cells) and the dashed flight line that carries a plane 12 cells across the board. Combined with the exact-count finish that bounces overshooting planes backward, these rules make every roll slightly dramatic while keeping the game simple enough for young children learning to count and take turns.
This page is an unofficial, fan-made browser version with a self-drawn board, animated dice and plane movement, local play for two to four people, and three AI difficulty levels. No download or sign-up is needed — just roll a six and take off.
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Aeroplane Chess is a traditional game and its names are used descriptively. This page is an unofficial, fan-made implementation and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any trademark owner of similar game versions.
