Google Earth Flight Simulator

insidedesign writes "Blogger Marco has recently discovered that the newest version of Google Earth includes a flight simulator. Though simple in comparison to full-blown simulators, Google Earth's is fun and addictive. To get started, press Ctrl+Alt+A for the initial dialog (on OS X, Command+Option+A). Then choose your plane (F16 or SR22) and initial airport. Joysticks are supported; it has even been reported that force feedback works. The game's controls are sensitive so it takes some getting used to. Here are all the available controls. For a quick overview, check out this YouTube video."

Might I be the first to say...

[thatskinnyguy (1129515)]

That is freaking AWESOME!

Re:

[jcr (53032)]

Not yet, it's not. Google Earth has a long way to go to become a good citizen on the Mac.

-jcr

Re:

[bigstrat2003 (1058574)]

That doesn't make it not awesome, just not as awesome as it could be.

Re:

[IngramJames (205147)]

I'm reply to THIS parent so that this post floats to the top.

Call me a karma-whore if you will, but this may save y'all some time.

The shortcut that worked for ME was CTRL-WINDOWS_BUTTON-A, not ALT.

Re:Might I be the first to say...

[Bluesman (104513)]

It's Google's Earth, so the Mac actually has a long way to go to be a good citizen on it.

Re:

[jcr (53032)]

When Google released Desktop Search for Mac, all I could read on Mac forums was "meh, nothing new compared to Spotlight"

That was because it was nothing new compared to Spotlight.

What's wrong with google earth, besides trying to muddle through with Qt instead of having a native UI, is that it has a nasty habit of buggering window server memory that it shouldn't be touching. It even has a preference for "safe 3d graphics mode", for heaven's sake, and it still manages to scribble all over the backing stores

That's what others can learn from Mac users!

[LKM (227954)]

As a user of all three major OSes, I would argue that it would do Windows and Linux users a lot of good to be a bit more critical. Looking at the apps available, there's a reason Mac apps are generally more polished: Mac users complain about stuff like that and will ignore (and thus eventually kill) crappy apps.

Please, people, learn something from Mac users. Don't accept crap just because it's free.

Terrorism?

[German_Dupree (1099089)]

I can just see the U.S. government attacking Google as a "terrorist training ground".

Everyone knows that if it teaches you to fly an airplane, it's an Islam extremist hotbed.

This would be a great post for April 1

[saskboy (600063)]

I'd expect this from Slashdot on April First, or Google even, because so many people would think it is a hoax.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Except that it's not exactly an easter egg. It's under the Tools menu. Verifying that it exists is easy: open up Google Earth, use Help/Check for Updates to make sure you have the latest version, and pull open the Tools menu. There it is.

Also, here are the keyboard controls off Google's website [google.com].

Saying that it was "discovered" makes it sound like it was hidden. It wasn't.

Re:This would be a great post for April 1

[Goaway (82658)]

Quoting the very page you linked to:

Once you have entered flight simulator mode for the first time, you can re-enter the mode by choosing Tools > Enter Flight Simulator.

So no, it's not in the Tools menu by default, and yes, it's an easter egg.

Re:This would be a great post for April 1

[Purity Of Essence (1007601)]

You might try tinkering with one of these files, I'd start with this first:

%PROGRAMFILES%\Google\Google Earth\res\flightsim\controller\generic.ini

These others in the same directory seem to be for specific brands of controller:

genius_maxfighter_f16u.ini
speed_link_black_hawk.ini
speed_link_cougar_flightstick.ini

From generic.ini

axes = [
    A1 set(DE, 1.0, 0.0)
    A0 set(DA, 1.0, 0.0)
    A3 set(DP_0, -0.5, 0.5)
    A2 set(DR, 1.0, 0.0)
]

povs = [
    P0 set(HAngle, 1.0, 0.0)
]

It looks like:
A0..3 = the four axes
P0 = hat switch
DE = elevators
DA = ailerons
DP_0 = power
DR = rudder
HAngle = head angle

I swapped A2 and A3 and everything was hunky-dory!

Check out the other *.ini files and see the there are also button press and release events that can be programmed:
B0..n = buttons

Proceed at your own peril. And don't be a dummy like me, backup your files first!

If you want to get really adventurous here are the flight characteristics of the available aircraft (these are also plain text files):
%PROGRAMFILES%\Google\Google Earth\res\flightsim\aircraft\*.acf

It's like Christmas!

Re:This would be a great post for April 1

[Purity Of Essence (1007601)]

I guess I was a little too excited and posted before checking everything out. There are more files in the controller director for various sticks. And the files are pretty well documented. You can also create a custom HUD and keyboard setups. Damn! You can even change the gravity and atmosphere. And apparently you don't have to modify existing configs, you can add new ones and reference them in the flightsim.ini file (where you can also setup addition airports). Haven't tested that part yet. Fun-fun-fun!

Re:

[Purity Of Essence (1007601)]

Bah! You can't add new planes without rebuilding the dialog box resource and compiling it into flightsim.dll. Weak, Google. But thanks for making everything else so easy to monkey with.

Doom in Microsoft Office

[Tom9729 (1134127)]

This is kind of like the Doom "game" hidden in one of the old Microsoft office programs. If I remember right, one version of Excel also had a flight simulator.

I love easter eggs.

Re:Doom in Microsoft Office

[brteag00 (987351)]

> If I remember right, one version of Excel also had a flight simulator.

Yep, Excel '97 had a flight sim.
  - Hit 'F5'
  - Jump to cell X97:L97
  - Press 'TAB'
  - Hold down and
  - Press the "Chart Wizard" button on the toolbar.

I bet the graphics in this one are a little better, though.

Re:

[Bongo Bill (853669)]

Plus there was that one puzzle/maze/trivia game in one of the releases of Encarta. Good times.

Wise Guys!

[stox (131684)]

The only airport they list for Chicago is Meigs. The only airport that no longer exists in Chicago.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Yes and it SUCKS it no longer exists. I used to be able to fly into Chicago for lunch, get out of the plane and WALK to several decent resturants. But no, they decided it was much more important to have it available for Rich assholes to live on waterfront $1,000,000 condos are far more important.

Destruction of Meigs Airport is solid proof that nobody cares about general aviation anymore.

Re:Wise Guys!

[hottoh (540941)]

We can all thank Mayor Daily for the airport distruction (I think I spelled the Mayor's name wrong, but correcting it is not worth the effort).

Paraphrasing the reason for the destruction, "the people of Chicago live in fear of terrorist attacks, and I need to do what I can to keep Chicago safe."

Secretly planning to destroy the airport in the early morning hours acheives that end?

Re:

[Nimey (114278)]

Chicago's dead people seem to think so; they re-elected him a few months ago.

Re:Wise Guys!

[stox (131684)]

Yes, you did spell the mayor's name wrong, the correct spelling is "Emperor Daley." Mein Führer and All Hail the King would also be acceptable.

Re:

[Tribbin (565963)]

Google took the airport for the game so it's no longer there.

Re:Wise Guys!

[Purity Of Essence (1007601)]

Maybe that's a nod to subLOGIC's FS2, the first home flight sim to feature real locations and airports. Chicago's Meigs Field was the player's default starting point.

So does it work...

[dbolger (161340)]

...with Google Sky?

Start thrusters, take off, aim nose towards Andromeda, sit back and wait for two million years, find an airport, land.

Sweet! :D

Sweet

[John Frink (919768)]

Just tried a flight, shows hills and everything. Way more than I expected from an easter egg. Kudos to the guy who dreamed this up.

Re:

[cathector (972646)]

of course it shows hills and everything. have you used google earth ?
imnsfho (keepin it retro) GE is one of the most significant application of computers since internet searching,
and layering a flight-simulator on top of it is [just] a great extension of an awesome core technology.

Re:

[shird (566377)]

Its nice and all.. but I don't think it would have been terribly hard to implement. You can already pan the view around in the same manner.. it would have been just a matter of adding some controls and basic physics to pan the view around. The 'hills and everything' are already part of Google earth. It shows the 3D buildings too in some places.

Look out, Flight Simulator!

[mcrbids (148650)]

I'm a private pilot, and the other simulators disappoint. They are good for practicing Instrument procedure, and to a certain extent, airplane maneuvers, but for just plane fun (pun intended) they are weak.

Most of the joy of flying General Aviation (small) planes is the view - nothing like it anywhere else, including that commercial jet. (which rockets up to 45,000 feet in 10 minutes where you can't see jack) Flight simulators have typically given depictions of the landscape - patterns that are rough analogies of what you'd actually find out the window.

But this is the real McCoy! Resolution is still weak, and the plane handling characteristics are lousy, but when I'm flying 5,500 VFR over the East Bay, it actually IS the East Bay. I noticed that once you've started the Easter Egg, you can re-launch from any view, which let me spin a few circles above local Oroville, CA.

I recognized everything and had no trouble finding the local airport, and successfully landed the very first try in the SR-22. Since I've never flown an SR22, I had to stall it first in the air to figure out what my approach speed should be - about 70 knots seemed about right.

Really, if they put some spit and polish on this, it could give FS X a real run for its money - for just plane fun, it already rivals FS X!

Re:Look out, Flight Simulator!

[4D6963 (933028)]

I'm a private pilot, and the other simulators disappoint.

Even X-Plane [x-plane.com]?

Re:Look out, Flight Simulator!

[mikeboone (163222)]

Apparently, someone else did it for them with an addon called TileProxy...I have not tried it, but there's a video here [live.com].

Re:Look out, Flight Simulator!

[HAKdragon (193605)]

Now if only somebody could port this as a plug-in for X-Plane.

get out of the plane and visit people's houses?

[bariswheel (854806)]

It would be nice if we could get out of the airplane and visit people's virtual homes. I got tons of cool stuff to show my virtual guests, I don't know about you guys. Another interesting way to meet people and establish relationships, what can I say?

Meigs the long time default airport in M$ flight..

[Joe The Dragon (967727)]

Meigs the long time default airport in M$ flight sim is in hear.

Time to update the old corollary?

[Ant P. (974313)]

All programs expand indefinitely until they include a flight simulator. And email.

Yeah, it's all fun at first

[jollyreaper (513215)]

But I for one am going to be shitting my pants when they update the ground textures to account for the bombing missions I flew in the flight simulator. I will be shitting my pants once again when I leave my house and notice the houses I targeted in my neighborhood are no longer there.

Google "20% time" at work?

[cashman73 (855518)]

I wonder if this is one of those projects that came out of Google's "20% time" policy, where engineers are given 20% of their time (one day per week) to work on a project of "personal interest"? It's plausible, since this isn't exactly a main feature of google earth. Then again, Google Sky might have been a 20% time project, too?

Bill Gates is probably going to be real pissed if this starts eating into his M$ Flight Sim profits, especially if (a) this remains free and (b) Google expands it to include more aircraft and options.

On another note, I wonder if they could make this a network thing, so perhaps we could have dog fights with other users in the air? But the feds would probably put a stop to that, since that would also require Google to install live missiles and bombs in the simulator, allowing people to start bombing various structures in google earth,...

Re:

[fm6 (162816)]

It pretty much has to be. I can't picture anybody getting an Easter egg like this as an assignment.

I used to be blown away by the way impressive new features appear in Google products with little or no fanfare. Contrast this with the way most companies treat every little achievement as if it were the Second Coming. But now it seems obvious that these things are released so quietly because nobody knows about them, except the people working on them. And that much uncoordinated work in not a good

Thank you Google

[halo8 (445515)]

Thanks to everyone at google, this is so amazing.

THIS
THIS is the flight sim i have wanted to fly all my life!

Crash

[plams (744927)]

Shit. I just accidently crashed my SR22 into the Google Campus. I hope they don't log these kind of things..

Thanks for the youtube video

[tyrant (36775)]

I've never wanted to die so much after listening to the narrative. Talk about taking a long time to explain nothing.
"Us computer people" and did you really need to read out the URLs?

Re:Pentagon?

[Cervantes (612861)]

Is it possible to fly the plane into the Pentagon while hitting light poles along the way?

It's hard to tell, as soon as you approach the Pentagon things get really fuzzy and 8-bit.

Re:

[Tribbin (565963)]

Oh no! They are completed their scrambler.

Team 3 to position gamma!

Re:Pentagon?

[Brian Gordon (987471)]

Flying close to the ground is pretty crappy anyway. Apparently there are 1500 foot rolling hills in central Arkansas. But flying from the whole-earth view in space down to little houses is awesome.

Re:

[nyekulturniy (413420)]

Good heavens, you can't wait until January 2009?

Re:

[istartedi (132515)]

It handled the load just fine when I updated. Now, I know at least one person that I'm reluctant to tell about this, because he's already adicted to GE. We've talked about the possibility of them putting a flight sim in there before--it seemed like a natural idea, since we had both done really lame "flights" just with the momentum of the existing controls.

FWIW, the F-16 is actually quite forgiving. You just have to gain altitude. I managed to get it up to 50000 ft. I think they cripped the thing, bec

Re:Now maybe I should wait until tomorrow to try i

[iluvcapra (782887)]

There isn't a lot of air at FL500, so your IAS is gonna be pretty low.

Quickie: IAS or Indicated Airspeed is a flight dynamic that measures the unidirectional force of air along an aircraft's angle of attack and presents this data as a speed; it is measured with a "pitot tube," a metal tube on the wing or nose of a plane that collects air and measures the amount of force being applied down the tube. At standard temp and pressure, with no wind, and with the aircraft's angle of attack parallel to the surface, this number will theoretically give you the speed at which you are traveling along the ground. As ambient pressure goes down (say with altitude), IAS for a given ground speed goes down; as wind picks up, depending on the wind's bearing to the aircraft's orientation, IAS can go up or down (A plane flying a 100 kts headwind and 100 kts IAS will, all other things being equal, in fact have a ground speed of zero). As angle of attack increases, ground speed goes down. You might be flying at Mach 2, but if you're pointed straight up, your ground speed will be zero.

Re:

[Bob Gelumph (715872)]

I could have summed it up in 30 seconds

But you didn't.

Re:Doesn't work for me

[Bob Gelumph (715872)]

Zoom to San Francisco airport and try it from there.
It is weird, but it works.
Also, use fn-up and fn-down in place of page up and page down on a powerbook.

Re:

[notanatheist (581086)]

It may depend on your window manager. On Fluxbox I just used Ctrl+Alt+A to get into it. One thing for sure though, my crappy joystick works better with X-Plane which happens to run beautifully on linux as well.