Tux Love : Google's flight sim takes off

I've just been flying round central Wellington and accidentally crashed into the Caketin -- oops, I mean the Westpac Stadium. This courtesy of Google's latest time-waster, the flight simulator in Google Earth.

Seems this was, till very recently, a secret addition. But the secret's out now. Download the latest version and you'll find it in the menu under Tools, or just hit Ctrl+Alt+A to get started. The keyboard controls are here, though it works even better with a joystick.

Posted by Geoff Palmer on September 26, 2007 10:09 AM | Permalink

Comments

Fly over Switzerland - the whole country is in high res and the scenery is amazing!

Posted by: rod sutherland | October 15, 2007 2:44 PM

I'm using the Windows version of Google Earth (free), and the flight simulator works very well.

Posted by: Aex | September 30, 2007 11:31 AM

There was a fixit in the marco-za blog.
echo 1 > .googleearth/Registry/google/googleearthplus/User/flightsim/isenabled

all go now :)

Posted by: chris | September 26, 2007 11:54 AM

Exactly the same:
Google Earth4.2.0198.2451(beta)
Build Date Sep 12 2007
Build Time 15:27:15
Renderer OpenGL
Operating System Linux (2.6.20.0)
Video Driver NVIDIA Corporation
Max Texture Size 4096x4096
Server kh.google.com

But only 3 things in the tools menu.

Weird

Posted by: chris | September 26, 2007 11:26 AM

Hi Chris,

I'm running it in Linux -- Kubuntu Feisty, to be precise. Here's my About data:

Google Earth 4.2.0198.2451 (beta)
Build Date Sep 12 2007
Build Time 15:27:15
Renderer OpenGL
Operating System Linux (2.6.20.0)
Video Driver NVIDIA Corporation
Max Texture Size 4096x4096
Server kh.google.com

What do you get?

Posted by: Geoff | September 26, 2007 11:16 AM

Geoff, I assume you are using the linux version?
I just downloaded and installed 4.2.0198.2451 (beta) and there are only 3 things in the tools menu.
Ruler, Play Tour, Options. Pressing "Ctrl Alt A" does nothing on my Ubuntu64 machine - and I was so looking forward to crashing into the caketin....
Is this feature only in the Pro version of GE?

Posted by: chris | September 26, 2007 11:06 AM