Most people know about Google Earth and how nice it is to explore different regions of the world and around the world, see the landscape and see some areas that are not known to us. I enjoy using Google Earth to look up where I live, to drive past routes to a trip I’m planning, and I spend a lot of time using Google Earth just to explore. For example, if you want to have something fun, explore Black Canyon in Colorado.
Now Google Earth has a new feature, it’s a flight simulator. The flight simulator comes with two airplanes, the F16 Viper and the SR22 for the passenger 310 power airplane. The F16 with its afterburner can generate more than 24,000 pounds of thrust at a speed of more than Mach 2, and the SR22 cruises at 156 knots.
After playing the Google Earth flight simulator for about 10 or 15 minutes, I found that I could navigate some mountain canyons in the F-16 using my mouse pad. . A joystick would obviously be better, but only using a mouse pad cable.
Google Earth Flight Simulator supports joystick, mouse and keyboard controls, and as you learn multiple keyboard controls, you can pause the flight while searching for a keyboard shortcut until you learn all the controls.
To access the simulator you must first have the latest version of Google Earth, version 4.2, once you start the program and the earth becomes static, click on the earth then hit CTRL+Alt+A. This will bring up a menu for you to select the airplane you want to fly in the air you want to take off from. There are about 25 or 30 choices from airports such as a.
Once you’ve selected your plane and airport, you’ll press the help button to learn which keys you need to press to get started. For example, the page up and page keys control the setting or choke, the letter G will raise and lower your gear. You can clip the ailerons and shakes.
The best part of playing with this simulator for me was the terrain. With the same precision that Google Earth offers, you can pretend to fly through canyons, near the ground, and even track places. Want to fly a small plane through the center of the Grand Canyon? You can, and unlike Microsofts Simulator, Googles Flight Sim is free, and it is rumored that more features may be offered in future versions. Go Google!!
