Google has some prominent Engineers in Flight simulator development, so it’s not surprising that a recent discovery by a blogger named Marco Gallotta has exposed that a working (albeit first version) flight simulator is included in the just-released Google Earth 4.2. To launch the Flight simulator for the first time, you have to press CTRL+ALT+A. This will launch the Flight Simulator dialog which allows you to set some basic flight preferences such as aircraft type (currently it offers only two), starting position and if present, and a checkbox to enable Joystick support for controlling your aircraft. Subsequent launches of the flight simulator can be done by the same keyboard shortcut or through the main menu. Just go to Tools – Enter Flight Simulator.

The flight simulator dialog, shown below is your starting point when you start the fligh simulator. For the aircraft type, you can choose between an F16 or an SR22.

For your destination, the simulator is set to a default airport location in Kathmandu, although there are other options. You can choose from a list of other popular airports by showing the combo box, start based on your current view or from the last position of a previous flight simulator session. When you’ve setup your startup preferences, click on Start Flight button to start flying.

If you chose one of the airports as your starting position, you will be starting in a stationary position, and has to manually start moving, and then going up. If you opted to start from your current view in Google earth, you will start with your aircraft already flying.

You can use keyboard to control your aircraft’s movements, and Google has put up an excellent help page with a comprehensive list of the keyboard controls. I also found out that you can use your mouse to move around. Just click on the simulator view, and then cursor will turn into a cross-hair, signifying that you can now use your mouse to control your flight. No mouse wheel support, you just have to move your mouse around. Take note that the controls are reversed, which is really the intuitive control setting for flight simulators.

The Google earth flight simulator looks to be a promising first version. Although it’s a little hard to control, it eases up the learning curve by not putting up too much in the interface. This is an excellent way to explore more of the world through Google earth.