Check this out: a flight simulator using Google maps!
You can even trick it into starting at your house, or anyplace where you have the latitude and longitude. The Little Astronomer and I flew a plane from our house to the Golden Gate Bridge. Top speed is like 40 mph, so it takes a while to actually get anywhere. But it’s fun, and I can see this being able to be expanded to do lots of other fun things, too.
Tip o’ the aviator goggles to Angela Gunn, who is "endlessly fond" of me.
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The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking, movie reviews, and all that) can be found here.
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August 28th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
That’s cool!
I also play with Google Earth as an improvised flight & orbital sim. I just tilt the globe over so I’m flying horizontally. With the ‘terrian’ function turned on, I even get to negotiate real mountain peaks.
I can also use it as an orbit sim. I just put myself at a typical satellite altitude, give Earth a shove with my mouse, and I just glide inertially about the globe.
August 28th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
Great! I just crashed a plane on Mars.
It would’ve been even better with sound.
August 28th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Yeah, I tried to land on the Sea of Tranquillity, but just crashed. Oh well, I suppose someday my bones will be discovered by astronauts traipsing around up there.
August 28th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
That. Is. Awesome!!
August 28th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
I crashed into the White House front lawn
August 28th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
Great, now the CIA/NSA/HLS will be monitoring this blog.
August 28th, 2006 at 11:11 pm
i couldn’t do a barrol roll.
August 29th, 2006 at 1:07 am
Now that is pretty cool! They could have made the airplane look more realistic… but overall, that was FUN!
August 29th, 2006 at 1:55 am
ToSeeked in the [url=http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=45464]forum[/url] attached to this blog
August 29th, 2006 at 4:43 am
Well, I crashed on the moon, now all I need is to elicit some major sympathy and get rescued by a mass retrival effort. Please hurry. I’m running low on air,,,
GAry 7
September 1st, 2006 at 10:52 am
I’m having trouble trying to stop this thing. I can’t even get it to stall. And landing is a big problem. I’ve only crashed once and that was into the sea. Fortunately the water-wings worked and the sharks were otherwise engaged. I love the way it levels off at a certain maximum height, and at slow speed it turns in its own length.
The only other trouble is when I fly to the outskirts of the city, it runs out of terrain, or is that dense fog? Or low cloud? Or snow?
Nevertheless it’s a great little diversion, so maybe another aircraft for friendly combat, or dogfights or even races. On line would be even better. Thanks in anticipation.
Ivan.