Google Earth Flight Simulator Tutorial

Google’s latest release of the amazing Google Earth contains probably the best (and most involved) easter egg I have ever seen. So here is a quick tutorial on how to get access to it.

An easter egg (for those of you who don’t already know) is a bit of program that is hidden away in from the user some way. This means that you have to enter a keyboard combination or click the mouse in a special sequence to gain access to it. I have seen a few different easter eggs in the past. One of the easiest to use is the Microsoft Word “rand” egg. Open up your copy of word and type in the following:

=rand(1,1)

And press the enter key. You will see a line of text on the screen in place of what you just typed in. You can alter the two numbers to any value up to 140 in the latest version, but this will give you over 500 pages worth, so don’t go crazy.

Anyway, to get the flight simulator working on Google Earth you will need to download the most recent version from earth.google.com. Once you installed it, open it up and press Ctrl + Alt + a to open up the flight simulator dialog, which looks like this.

You can select from two different planes (an F16 or a SR22) and from a variety of different locations, including where the camera is currently pointed. Once you click Ok you will be launched into the simulator. Make sure you familiarise yourself with the controls first!

Once you have entered the flight simulator for the first time you can access it again from the menu bar by selecting Tools > Enter Flight Simulator. Have fun!

The latest version of Google Earth also contains a "Switch To Sky" mode. This is an interesting addition that allows you to look at the night sky view from anywhere on Earth, and even zoom in to have a closer look at some of the more interesting stars and nebulars.

Here are some random screen shots of me flying about.

One thing you might notice after a few minutes of flying about is that it all looks a bit flat. To change this go into Tools > Options and look for the Terrain Quality control. Just underneath that is a little text box labelled "Elevation Exaggeration". Increasing this value to the maximum value of 3 will give you a more interesting landscape. You can now fly through a spectacular Grand Canyon.

Have fun!

Phil
Programmer, Research and Development