Flying over San Francisco

Google Earth Flight Simulator (and Sky)

The virtual globe program, Google Earth, recently unveiled Sky, which allows users to view the night skies. Using Google Earth, Sky lets you fly around and zoom in, exposing increasingly detailed imagery of millions and millions of stars and galaxies. You can get Sky by downloading the latest (free) edition of Google Earth. However the buzz this past week was about the secret Flight Simulator hidden inside the latest version of Google Earth. To access the hidden feature, open Google Earth and hit Command+Option+A (note it must be capital A) or Ctrl+Alt+A (for Windows). Once you have entered flight simulator mode for the first time, you can re-enter the mode by choosing Tools > Enter Flight Simulator. There's a link to the control instructions below. Reportedly the visuals are as good as the paid Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Google Earth

Flight Simulator Keyboard Controls