![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"Flight sim" in Google Earth
Sep. 5th, 2020 12:25 pmI've been interested in the generally positive reaction to the new Microsoft Flight Simulator, though I don't actually own a computer that can run it--I'd probably have to bogart my daughter's souped-up Windows rig. Apparently some kind of XBox version is coming, though I can only imagine it'd be very stripped-down.
But the YouTube reactions to it are interesting: a lot of people just seem wowed by the idea of a flight simulator that can stream a whole world's worth of scenery over the net, in Google Maps fashion (it's actually based on Bing Maps, with a heavy overlay of procedural-generation trickery to fill in gaps in coverage).
The funny thing is that a much simpler version of that has existed for 13 years, for free!
You may have forgotten about it, but Google Earth used to be a standalone app (acquired from an outside company called Keyhole), and that actually still exists. It's called Google Earth Pro, but despite what that might seem to imply, it's a free download. The app seems kind of janky and archaic these days, but it uses the same data as Google Maps. And it has a flight-simulator mode, added in 2007. Originally, it was an Easter egg only accessible through a key combo (command-option-A on the Mac), but now there's a menu item for it.
No pilot or serious "simmer" (like the person who made the video below) would take it as more than a silly toy. There's no cockpit panel, just a simple HUD inspired by fighter planes; it seems to lack such luxuries as brakes of any kind or the ability to steer the plane on the ground (there must be some way to do the latter because they do it in the video, but I can't figure out how), your fuel tank is infinite, and it happily lets you taxi on water and fly through buildings. Sometimes you clip through the landscape and get a peculiar sliced-up view of the underside of the ground. You have two planes, a Cirrus SR22 or an F-16.
(edit: Shift + arrow keys seem to be the rudder pedals. There may not be any auto-coordination. Don't know if there's a way to control them with the mouse. I also found an ancient Google Earth Blog post that explains that comma and period are the left and right wheel brakes, which you can use to control or stop your motion on the ground--the documentation the app actually links to won't tell you that at all. They recommend using the brakes to steer, I guess because it's easier than explaining to their readers how to deal with the rudder.)
But on the basic "I can see my house from here" level, it's a terrific toy. I hadn't played with it much until recently, inspired by the hype for FS2020. I really like buzzing around my town and environs--it makes me realize that eastern Massachusetts is really kind of a lovely place, seen with fresh eyes. I'd always wondered what it would be like to take off from the little general-aviation airport down the street from here, and you can (in the SR22, at least).
Looking at Google's 3D scenery with the usual Maps interface, it feels like you're interacting with a very detailed miniature, like a model-train setup. Somehow, looking at the same scenery at the same level of detail with the flight sim gives you a much more visceral feel of moving through a full-sized world. It's fun to zoom around at Mach 2 in the F-16 at treetop level, presumably destroying the eardrums of anyone in the vicinity (the game itself is silent), though that will usually over-fly the streaming of the scenery so you only see low-resolution versions of the stuff; the slower plane is better for sightseeing.
You can take off from any level place you can click on in the map, but there are a bunch of presets. One of them, doubtless put there for old flight-sim fans, is Meigs Field in Chicago, the original starting location for Microsoft Flight Simulator and Flight Simulator II. But Meigs was abruptly ripped out years ago and the area converted to a park and sculpture garden. So the program will just let you take off right through the sculpture garden, which is surreal.
But the YouTube reactions to it are interesting: a lot of people just seem wowed by the idea of a flight simulator that can stream a whole world's worth of scenery over the net, in Google Maps fashion (it's actually based on Bing Maps, with a heavy overlay of procedural-generation trickery to fill in gaps in coverage).
The funny thing is that a much simpler version of that has existed for 13 years, for free!
You may have forgotten about it, but Google Earth used to be a standalone app (acquired from an outside company called Keyhole), and that actually still exists. It's called Google Earth Pro, but despite what that might seem to imply, it's a free download. The app seems kind of janky and archaic these days, but it uses the same data as Google Maps. And it has a flight-simulator mode, added in 2007. Originally, it was an Easter egg only accessible through a key combo (command-option-A on the Mac), but now there's a menu item for it.
No pilot or serious "simmer" (like the person who made the video below) would take it as more than a silly toy. There's no cockpit panel, just a simple HUD inspired by fighter planes; it seems to lack such luxuries as brakes of any kind or the ability to steer the plane on the ground (there must be some way to do the latter because they do it in the video, but I can't figure out how), your fuel tank is infinite, and it happily lets you taxi on water and fly through buildings. Sometimes you clip through the landscape and get a peculiar sliced-up view of the underside of the ground. You have two planes, a Cirrus SR22 or an F-16.
(edit: Shift + arrow keys seem to be the rudder pedals. There may not be any auto-coordination. Don't know if there's a way to control them with the mouse. I also found an ancient Google Earth Blog post that explains that comma and period are the left and right wheel brakes, which you can use to control or stop your motion on the ground--the documentation the app actually links to won't tell you that at all. They recommend using the brakes to steer, I guess because it's easier than explaining to their readers how to deal with the rudder.)
But on the basic "I can see my house from here" level, it's a terrific toy. I hadn't played with it much until recently, inspired by the hype for FS2020. I really like buzzing around my town and environs--it makes me realize that eastern Massachusetts is really kind of a lovely place, seen with fresh eyes. I'd always wondered what it would be like to take off from the little general-aviation airport down the street from here, and you can (in the SR22, at least).
Looking at Google's 3D scenery with the usual Maps interface, it feels like you're interacting with a very detailed miniature, like a model-train setup. Somehow, looking at the same scenery at the same level of detail with the flight sim gives you a much more visceral feel of moving through a full-sized world. It's fun to zoom around at Mach 2 in the F-16 at treetop level, presumably destroying the eardrums of anyone in the vicinity (the game itself is silent), though that will usually over-fly the streaming of the scenery so you only see low-resolution versions of the stuff; the slower plane is better for sightseeing.
You can take off from any level place you can click on in the map, but there are a bunch of presets. One of them, doubtless put there for old flight-sim fans, is Meigs Field in Chicago, the original starting location for Microsoft Flight Simulator and Flight Simulator II. But Meigs was abruptly ripped out years ago and the area converted to a park and sculpture garden. So the program will just let you take off right through the sculpture garden, which is surreal.