Is this Google Earth Or What ?

[Toys_R_Us 0]

OK, admittedly I missed the boat on Google Earth until just this week. I rejected Google Earth some time back because I did not realize that Google Earth Plus changed to Google Earth in 2008, and the separate new product in effect was Google Earth Pro, not Plus. Google Earth Pro is mostly about selling demographic data.Now the free desktop version of Google Earth (not the free plug-in for your browser) is where all the goodies are. And there are lots of goodies. It is a seriously good program.Now, I was a beta tester of Flight, for about 1/2 hour after I got my CH Products Yoke up and working. That was it. It's a nice program, but simply not for me. So I did not want to waste my time on it beyond that 1/2 hour. I've not messed with the final release.So today, I fire up the desktop version on Google Earth, and punch in Unalakleet, Alaska. Woah ! This thing is seriously good. So I flip over to Nome. Woah Again ! I had better learn some hot keys, especially Ctrl + Center Mouse Scroll Wheel. Now I'm smokin'.So I head over to Honolulu, adjust my tilt angle, altitude, and sunlight angle a little bit and I'm flying all over the area with a couple of hot keys and my mouse. I'm not using their built in simulator, just my mouse. And I have a whole world of satellite imagery to play with and Google's 3-D buildings and street view to boot. And it is good, really good.Now with Google's Android out and taking a huge market share, and tablets & cell phone based products as the future, I have to ask if this is really Microsoft's immediate answer to that threat of "Flight" with the use of a mouse. With this established free stand alone version of Google Earth, it sure looks like it to me.For those that have not downloaded and learned the latest desktop version of Google Earth, (now 6.2), you are missing something special just as I was up until just this week. This is a very seriously good free program. And since they took the images when cars and trucks were actually on the highways, when you "fly" the angle changes make them appear to be moving.Microsoft gives you a just slightly better but very limited mouse driven free product for flying. Competitor Google gives you the free mouse driven experience of "flight", which is less but in it's own way very similar, but the entire world is in great and true detail.Is this really maybe the motives behind what is happening with the sudden change to a free download and a mouse driven thing called "Flight" ? If you want mainly eye candy, try Google Earth tilted, and then the arrow keys for a very nice......... Flight ! And you can fly self-made camera paths or record as a video.Bob - Las Cruces, NM.

Edited March 3, 2012 by Toys_R_Us

[HiFlyer 9,363]

I am just staring at the screen and thinking: "Wait...... What!??"

[Toys_R_Us 0]

And don't knock it until you try it. I am in total shock. I had no idea !!!! It all comes from the ability to tilt the view as far as you want. Even to horizontal. And then just "fly".It's the same as flying with an outside view but real satellite mapping. I've been flying all over southern Portugal today where I lived for about a year at Sesimbra, Hawaii, and I just discovered a new 22 million dollar GM automotive battery plant I helped get running in 1973 at Fitzgerald, Georgia has been torn down, when I flew over it and all I saw was a brown field with a stained dead weed patch outline on it. Probably from battery acid of all those years.Then I flew down the Vegas strip, out to boulder dam to see the new bridge for the first time, and over a golf course community I lived in at Lecanto, Florida. I could even see golf carts and people on the driving range !!!! I was pixxed when I saw all the black fungle grunge on the driveway of my old house that has not been water blasted off as per the POA code.When you stop and hold Ctrl while rolling your scroll wheel, you can do a 360 and catch that place from every angle. On a lot I own here in Las Cruces I can see a 6 foot board laying on the building pad that I left there a couple of years ago as I fly over it. And it is as clear as a bell. This is seriously good !!!!Microsoft could have seen a serious problem with their offerings and put a band aid on it ASAP.Bob - Las Cruces, NM.

Edited March 3, 2012 by Toys_R_Us

[HughesMDflyer4 470]

I'm lost. It seems as though you comparing a flight simulator to Google Earth. Not sure how that works.

Edited March 3, 2012 by HughesMDflyer4

[RichLP 32]

...Wait till he stumbles on to Street View... ; )Just kidding, Bob

[A380 0]

I've read it all now. Comparing MS Flight to Google Earth and flying over satellite images!You must have wasted more than half an hour posting this drivel.

[Toys_R_Us 0]

There is a flight simulator built into the free product. That's because the function from an "eye candy" prospective is the same. But you have the whole world of tile proxy without even messing with it. And you have a grid if you want it just like in MS Flight if you want to use the mouse only. But you can just fly with your mouse alone and some key commands if you want.Look at the handwriting on the wall. See what resources Google has and does not have, and what MS has and does not have. And the flock of kids going to Android. It's not rocket science in the world of marketing.Everybody say's Flight is not a flight simulator. Neither is Google Earth. But they both let you fly around with a mouse !!!!!Bob - LC, NM

[EagleSkinner 36]

Weeelll Flight does not match GE that well. The plantations tiles are repeated too often, the landclass polys are really sharp edged and the urban areas are standard FSX tiles. If you fly dusk and night, then I would also add that Flight is using dumbed down FSX tiles. Emperors New Clothes syndrome. Look closely. Fly with Flight and GE open on separate monitors. Better still, run Google on an iPad. Flight is pretty, yes, I wholeheartedly agree...BUT it is NOT up to GE over the whole scenery. FSX can match GE if you have mega scenery Oahu - and then you will see photo-scenery. At the moment even Flight is predominantly autogen textures. I am not trying to play your enthusiasm down, just trying to suggest a calmer look. For one thing - in the real world plantation fruit trees (macadamia nuts are popular on Hawaii) will be separated by 5 to 8 metres, which gives up to 16 to 40,000 trees per square kilometer - Not even Flight can manage that kind of tree density yet. What's more, in the forest areas it can be denser...Yes - Flight is pretty. I like it, but let us remain real please.

[Toys_R_Us 0]

A380Don't knock it until you try it. I'm an avid flight sim guy just like you. I'm in shock, and the more I think about it, the more I am seeing exactly why MS did what they did. They have serious market share issues, and Google took the lead in this flying by mouse arena. Further, they've got the images on line !!!Now if Google improves just their FS module, MS is sucking you know what really bad.When I went over to a friend of mine's house and he was flying around in this thing, I was in total shock. This one got by me. And he has no interest in FS just like the average kid.I know, I know.... You FS guys are all experts and you are not liking to face this reality. But FS and GE are not simulators, and right now I'm saying GE has the lead simply because a kid with a mouse is going to like seeing the whole world. I know I do.And yes you can land in GE but it gets a bit blurry down low. Each has serious downsides and serious upsides. But to see the world in eye candy from a few hundred feet above and more, it blows Flight completely off the map (pardon the pun).Frankly, like FS, I can't leave it alone. Too much real stuff to go check out. I'm flying over baseball fields and public swimming pools I played on and in when I was 10 years old. It's totally fascinating and totally addictive. The tennis courts I played high school tennis on have not changed a bit in over 40 years in Blue Island, Illinois.I repeat, this is just not a simple top down view. You can totally control your angle of view down. It even has real weather layers you can turn on, and adjustable sun angle and time of day controls.Bob

Edited March 3, 2012 by Toys_R_Us

[HiFlyer 9,363]

I'm out.Carry on, folks

Edited March 3, 2012 by HiFlyer'

[Guest Antlab]

I am still smiling, this is one of the best examples of Dante's Retaliation Law :-)Before explaining my view, I would like to starting by saying that Google Earth is really a wonderful program, I think it can have a moltitude of educative and recreative uses (in particular when used with layers and Wikipedia). Furthermore, also in flight simulation I already use its brother, Google Maps, because it is integrated in the wonderful freeware Plan-G. It is nice having the central monitor for FSX and a lateral monitor for Plan-G with the Google Earth map that carefully follows your aircraft path.But the funny thing is the (not so crazy) comparison between GE and with Flight. Actually, if you strip many of the real complexities from a flight sim, you can finish quite close to a simple (and maybe enjoying) experience of a displacement in a nice tridimensional map. It can be relaxing and refreshing, as many lovers of Flight describe the new program. Only hope that Google don't copy the DLC and aerochache ideas :-)A.

Edited March 3, 2012 by Antlab

[Guest BlueRidgeDx]

OT:I think it's cute how the Flight fanatics are poo-pooing the idea of enjoying something that doesn't meet their definition of a simulator.It's a little ironic coming from the same bunch who scold Flight's detractors for feeling the same way.

[HighFlyer82 0]

The awkward moment when Google Earth's flight simulator feature is better than Flight

[Toys_R_Us 0]

I think every single one of you "know it alls" are going to go into total shock if you bother to go to YouTube and watch the videos of the GE flight simulator with full blown jet models and on-screen instrument panels just like FSX.I am now researching joystick support which I understand it also has but I have not found that yet.Clearly, it is coming out that Microsoft got way behind the 8 ball here and is playing catch up once again.Clearly this is why they called it Flight, changed the people they were aiming at, made it free, and made it mouse driven. The GE has a very sophisticated mouse support specifically aimed at FS.I really don't know how this got past so many fairly sophisticated FS people, including myself.They clearly intend to be game players and knock MS off with their Android system.I have a choice today to fly GE or Flight. I choose to spend my time in the reality of GE as of right now. Yes, there are some trade off's, but this thing is a serious game player. Download it and see for yourself. As of this moment and state of development, they are at a very minimum tied in the race for the mouse driven fan. Given that GE is totally free for the whole world, they have a serious uphill battle in my opinion.Disclaimer - This is not an anti-Flight thread on my part. That program has it's features and merits all it's own. My purpose is to inform the community that another serious game player of the same type exists. And with it's own set of similar and different merits. This really hit me as both a fluke and a surprise. I went over to install a program for a friend on his computer, and this 70 year old man with no interest in FS what-so-ever, was flying around in GE with a mouse when I arrived and Mr. FS Know-It-All (me) didn't have any knowledge of this free offering and especially it's power.Bob - LCNM

Edited March 3, 2012 by Toys_R_Us

[A380 0]

A380Don't knock it until you try it. I'm an avid flight sim guy just like you. I'm in shock, and the more I think about it, the more I am seeing exactly why MS did what they did. They have serious market share issues, and Google took the lead in this flying by mouse arena.

Took the lead with flying by mouse? If you consider that taking the lead then I consider you a troll.