Google Flight Simulator

https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/earth/flight-simulator

by bookofjoe • 1 month ago

150 48 1 month ago

developers.google.com

simondanerd• 1 month 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.

wwizo• 1 month ago

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

gacgacgac• 1 month 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• 1 month ago

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

maxlin• 1 month 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

ozaiworld• 1 month 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• 1 month ago

Google abandoned a product? That's strange.

vanc_cefepime• 1 month ago

https://killedbygoogle.com/

smashah• 1 month 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.

reaperducer• 1 month 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.

danbruc2• 1 month ago

It was, tutorial video from 2015 [1].

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

zymhan• 1 month ago

Yes it was. And probably still is.

circuit10• 1 month ago

It’s only new for the web version (but this seems way worse than the one in the desktop version, sadly)

modeless• 1 month ago

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

6stringmerc• 1 month 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)

petee2• 1 month ago

Controls work normally for me on a desktop

hinata08• 1 month 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

thimabi2• 1 month 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.

mschuster91• 1 month 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.

butlike2• 1 month ago

"If you land correctly at Kai Tak you get emailed a job offer from a major airline" could work.

kamil55555• 1 month ago

High development and/or maintenance cost, low profit.

tantalor2• 1 month ago

What would be the point?

rvnx2• 1 month 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_...

neilv• 1 month 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.)

cactusplant7374• 1 month ago

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

boshalfoshal• 1 month 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.

burnt_toast• 1 month 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.

ssteeper• 1 month 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.

rivetfasten• 1 month ago

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

danbruc2• 1 month ago

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

rafram• 1 month ago

It's been around since 2007.

MrCoffee7• 1 month ago

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

recursive• 1 month ago

Sounds realistic

chombier• 1 month ago

Gimbal lock?

blinky88• 1 month 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.

lysace• 1 month ago

I tried to get into MSFS 2020/2024 but couldn't stand the constant jank/missed frames. It's rated 55% on Steam, so I guess it still has issues :/

fragmede• 1 month ago

Next up: Google driving simulator.

willguest• 1 month 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

satvikpendem• 1 month ago

Do people in the comments not realize this is a very old feature from desktop Google Earth that's just now being brought to the web version? I see so many joke comments or those simply out of the loop thinking this is something new, it's not.

exadeci• 1 month ago

Some people weren't born when it was released and now are 20 years old it was released in 2007

We old haha

butlike2• 1 month ago

This is wonderful. It would be cool if I could take off from an airport. Maybe I search an airport, and with that one "selected in search results", choose "Tools > Flight Simulator" and it starts me from the ground.

simplesocieties• 1 month ago

It's a fun toy program but calling this a flight simulator is doing a disservice to the communities and efforts putting in an immense amount of work to make actual flight simulators.

Google Flight Simulator

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