Google Flight Simulator

bbookofjoe about 4 hours ago 36 commentsRead Article on developers.google.com

ES version is available. Content is displayed in original English for accuracy.

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Discussion Sentiment

85% Positive

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Discussion (36 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

ozaiworld•about 2 hours ago

Fun fact: you can also generate 3D buildings in Google Earth: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/earth/gener...

I worked on this but left a year ago. It was a product formerly by Sidewalk Labs and ported to work within Google Earth for over 2 years. Pretty sure it's abandoned now.

mrhottakes•about 1 hour ago

Google abandoned a product? That's strange.

modeless•about 2 hours ago

Unfortunately, whoever did the controls for this doesn't understand how airplanes work.

petee•about 1 hour ago

Controls work normally for me on a desktop

hinata08•21 minutes ago

The first part of OP's page indicates

> Simplified flight physics: The flight simulator is designed for casual exploration rather than high-fidelity aerodynamic training.

Google made flying possible with 6 controls only, and it's a feature!

It works normally, but they indeed have no busines helping you prepare for ATP license exam with beautiful maps in the browser

It'a an arcade game and it's fun

6stringmerc•about 1 hour ago

So much for hiring “smart creatives” and supporting their work I guess…source: Introduction section of 2014’s “How Google Works” (I returned it to the library after that, I’m not going to hate-read stuff even if it would give me some insight into Eric Schmidt’s career)

gacgacgac•about 3 hours ago

While this doesn't do anything to threaten MS flight simulator, it's still charming. Google Earth is a delight to experience in VR if you ever get the chance, and the flight sim mode is likewise.

sco1•about 3 hours ago

I'm pretty surprised they brought something fun and charming forward instead of sending it to the graveyard.

neilv•about 2 hours ago

This is fun, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone at Google did something like this a couple decades ago, as a 20% Project.

Outside of Google, around that time, I used Google Earth for a 3D visualization tool for real flight data recorders, integrated into a larger browser-based system.

(Stack: Google Earth Plugin did the heaviest lifting, especially before there were better ways to render 3D in a browser window. The frontend used JS, HTML for instruments, and some kludges to work around some limitations of off-label use of Plugin. The backend was in Scheme, and retrieving and serving up cached data for this was one of the simplest of the things that the Scheme did in that large system. Aircraft 3D models were off-the-shelf, which I tweaked lightly in (IIRC) Google SketchUp.)

boshalfoshal•about 1 hour ago

This _was_ done a couple of decades ago, it was available on the downloadable version of google earth (when it existed). I remember playing around with it in 2012.

ssteeper•25 minutes ago

Google Earth pro is still available for download with the flight simulator, which is much better than the new web version. I played around with it last night after being disappointed with the web version.

burnt_toast•about 1 hour ago

Can confirm, we used to play it in the high school I went to around 2012 because it was one of the few games that the network filters didn't block.

cactusplant7374•about 2 hours ago

A lot of vibe coders and software engineers have created similar projects using the Google Maps 3D tiles API.

blinky88•28 minutes ago

If only they took this seriously as a competitor to Microsoft Flight Simulator... Or licensed the photogrammetry to X-Plane. But I guess that’s asking too much of Google.

willguest•20 minutes ago

lovely, but needs sound and an altimeter. i went flying over NZ, the controls got really laggy, hence the chaotic experience...

https://filebin.net/jltba21fn87ea5pm

rivetfasten•about 2 hours ago

Cool, I'll have to try it in the next 18 months before they turn it down.

rafram•about 1 hour ago

It's been around since 2007.

danbruc•about 1 hour ago

This already existed ten years ago in the desktop version, not sure if it also was in the web version all the time.

MrCoffee7•about 1 hour ago

It doesn't seem to work very well - my plane is spinning around like crazy and I can't stop the spinning.

recursive•about 1 hour ago

Sounds realistic

simondanerd•about 3 hours ago

Fun fact: you can fly through the entirety of the Great Wall of China!

Spent a long time as a kid doing so. I still use Google Earth "Pro" today, so much better than the webapp.

thimabi•about 2 hours ago

I wonder why Google doesn’t bother competing with Microsoft in the flight simulation niche. All that Google Maps data would be pretty cool to use for that purpose, but instead we’ve got only this toy feature inside Google Earth.

kamil55555•about 2 hours ago

High development and/or maintenance cost, low profit.

mschuster91•about 2 hours ago

> I wonder why Google doesn’t bother competing with Microsoft in the flight simulation niche.

Because the competition is already fierce. There's MS Flight Simulator and X-Plane on the commercial side, Flightgear on the open source side and geo-fs.com on the free-to-play side.

There is not much Google can actually gain from making their own flight simulator.

tantalor•about 1 hour ago

What would be the point?

rvnx•about 1 hour ago

Training drone operators ? It's literally one of the hottest segment now in the flying sector. Google Maps has one of the best urban map and now a flight engine.

Grand Theft Auto is now doing it, but Google Earth would make more sense because it can bring a more realistic environment.

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1szcl5i/google_...

thimabi•about 1 hour ago

I hadn’t thought about that, it’s a valid use case and likely to have increasing demand as drone deliveries become commonplace in the next few years.

smashah•about 2 hours ago

Am I tripping or was this in Google Earth ages ago? I distinctly remember flying SU-27 on Google Earth map like a decade or more ago.

danbruc•about 1 hour ago

It was, tutorial video from 2015 [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnX8DLmjkCA

reaperducer•about 2 hours ago

I think it was also a feature of the commercial version of Keyhole, which IIRC, Google bought and turned into Google Earth.

The place where I worked had a Keyhole machine for pulling up satellite maps and doing animations back when this was considered borderline science fiction.

chombier•about 1 hour ago

Gimbal lock?

fragmede•27 minutes ago

Next up: Google driving simulator.

maxlin•about 3 hours ago

Took them long enough to add it to the web app too. Bit disappointing how lazy the implementation is though, you never fall out of the sky even with throttle at 0%. Making the most basic flight physics even ignoring aerodynamics really isn't that hard

wwizo•about 3 hours ago

Another nail to Xbox (MS game studios) coffin :)