Most of you would have used Google Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, from galaxies in outer space to the canyons of the ocean; used it to explore rich geographical content, save your toured places, and share it with others. I wonder how many of you have heard of the “Flight Simulator“ feature of Google Earth.
Google Earth’s Flight Simulator feature allows you to navigate your plane around the different locations, mountains, oceans almost anywhere you want. Talk about flying through the sky. It kinds of remind me of the flight navigation games that I used to play when I was a teenager but this is one step better, this is like the real thing with real maps and real terrains. I always wanted to see how the world looks from up there and I am sure you would too.
To enter the flight simulator, simply go to Tools –> Enter Flight Simulator, or you can press the hotkeys (Ctrl + Alt + A). This will bring up a menu shown below:
The basic controls are very easy. You can get the full list of controls from here . You can control the plane using your keyboard or mouse but if you really want to feel the experience I suggest you grab a joystick. It’s more fun. Here’s a really nice tutorial by the Google Earth blog that explains the basics of getting in the air
There are plenty of add-ons as well that you can use to make your experience more entertaining. You can use the cock-pit feature. You can find it here. Another more useful add-on is a GPS arrow developed by Nearby. Simply go to the website, enter the coordinates of your destination, download the link, and it will open up in Google Earth:
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Usman loves blogging and social networking
O very nice, i can fly right over my home, cooool