SAJAforum: WEB: Google Earth's Hidden Flight Simulator

WEB: Google Earth's Hidden Flight Simulator

That's a picture of runway 02 at Tribhuvan Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal (elevation is more than 4,000 feet, as you can see via the green numbers on the right, with the snow-capped Himalayas in the distance), taken from the flight simulator in Google Earth. If you reaction is "what flight simulator in Google Earth?" - not to worry. It's what engineers call an Easter egg (a feature hidden within a piece of software). It only works on the latest version of Google Earth, 4.2, which you can download free at earth.google.com (there are other new features, including a cool view of the night sky). Once you have Google Earth running, you can launch the secret game by hitting Ctrl+Alt+A on a PC or Apple+Opt+A on a Mac.

G.E. is already one of the biggest wasters-of-your-time and a heck of a lot of fun, but this flight simulator takes the time wasting and fun quotients to entirely new levels - to Himalayan heights, if you will. Once you get the hang of it (left and right arrow keys to turn right and left; but the down arrow key to go up and the up arrow key to go down, just like a real plane), you won't even know that hours have gone by as you fly around different corners of the world. I spent time touring the Himalayas; my parents' hometown of Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala; Agra, the city of the Taj; and Manhattan (some screengrabs below).

You can choose to fly one of two planes. The F16 is almost impossible to control for novices, so the SR22 propeller plane is the way to go (and offers better sightseeing). You can choose to start from your current position on G.E., or you can choose from several airports around the world, including the Kathmandu one.

Here are some links/resources to help you with the program:

Do take a look and post some comments and tips below. More South Asia photos below.

If you'd like to share a screengrab, e-mail it to saja[at]columbia.edu - or just post your comments below.

Flying through the Himalayas, right near Mt. Everest.

Approaching the Taj Mahal.

The India-Pakistan border near Amritsar and Lahore.

Near the beach in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Near the beach at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.

Flying over Dhaka, Bangladesh.

If you'd like to share a screengrab, e-mail it to saja[at]columbia.edu - or just post your comments below.

This is my screencast demo of the flight sim... take a look:

[Speaking of Google, SAJAer Rocky Agrawal writes about new features within Google News that have big implications for the news business; see Jeff Jarvis on the same topic.]

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