How to play & controls Flight Earth
Flight Earth streams real elevation tiles and satellite imagery for the whole planet, so Hallasan on Jeju rises to its true height. You can depart from 33 airports, from Gimpo and Jeju to Heathrow, JFK and Queenstown, and 40 landmarks pop up an info card as you pass. Fly low and OpenStreetMap buildings stand at their real heights and are solid; five landmark bridges, including the Golden Gate and Gwangan Bridge, can be flown under.
The Cessna 172 flies on a six-degree-of-freedom model with stalls, ground effect, engine torque and propeller wash; the A320, F-16 and A-10 add a fly-by-wire law that holds attitude when you let go. Wind is fed into the air the aircraft moves through, so crosswind drift and gusts come from the physics, not from scripts. Time of day and weather can be changed mid-flight.
After the first lesson the game is a ladder: the lesson doubles as a check ride that awards wings, ring courses and a five-stage Landing Challenge follow, and combat missions stay hidden until you switch them on.
Goal
A flight sim over the real Earth. Start up, taxi, take off, turn and land without an accident; score 14 of 20 on the First Flight check ride to earn your pilot wings.
How it works
- Descend on a 3° path using the PAPI lights, cut power over the threshold and flare gently to touch down.
Modes
First Flight Lesson
Jeju, Cessna 172, a windless clear midday, about 15 minutes. Its 19 steps are graded as six courses of 20 one-point items: 14 passes, 16 earns silver wings and 19 gold, and a pass leads into Flight skills training.
Start flight · Start in the air
Free flight in any hangar aircraft from the airport you pick: at the end of the longest runway with the engine running, or above the airport with guidance to a nearby landmark.
Landing challenge
Five stages that begin on a 3° final: Short final (Cessna, 2 km out), Long final (4 km), Crosswind landing, Crosswind long final and Airliner landing (A320, 4 km). Each touchdown scores out of 100 with up to three stars; one star opens the next stage. Custom practice sets aircraft, wind and approach length.
Flight skills training
Three ring courses in still air north of Jeju: two in the Cessna, then an F-16 run at 490–590 ft over the sea. Fly past all eight rings within the time limit (240, 270, 210 s), through at least six, to open the next course.
Combat missions
Hidden until you turn them on. Five missions unlock in order, flown in the A-10 and F-16 against trucks, tanks and target drones that never shoot back. Stars come from success, 35% accuracy and finishing inside half the time limit.
P-51 Mustang dogfight
Listed with the combat missions but open from the start. Guns only against two Mustangs that pursue, evade and shoot back; you lose at 0% airframe integrity or after 10 minutes.
Fly with friends
A room gets a 4-character code and invite link for up to 8 signed-in pilots, with name tags and chat. Launch together starts everyone at one airport, time and weather, in formation. Aircraft pass through each other.
Controls
| Action | Mouse & keyboard | Touch | Gamepad |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pitch and bank | ↓ pull (nose up), ↑ push, ← → bank | Drag the left circle | Left stick |
| Rudder · nose-wheel steering | Q / E | Hold ◀ Pedal / Pedal ▶ | LB / RB |
| Throttle | W / S (with Shift: full / idle) | Right lever | RT / LT |
| Brakes · parking brake | B (hold) · P | Brake · Park | A · D-pad left |
| Flaps · trim | F / V · [ / ] · T auto-trim | Flaps ▼ / ▲ · Trim | X / Y · D-pad down / up |
| Engine · gear · autopilot | I · G · A | Engine · Gear · AP | Back · right-stick click · left-stick click |
| View · look around | C or 1–6 · U HUD · mouse drag | View · drag · pinch | B · right stick |
| Map · pause · next lesson step | N · Esc · Enter | Map · Pause · Next | none · Start · D-pad right |
| Combat weapons | Space gun · X missile/rocket | Fire · Missile | Assign in 🎮 Controllers |
Strategy tips
Sink rate is 35 of the 100 points
Touch down at 118 ft/min or less for all 35; 295 ft/min keeps 25, and past 492 ft/min in the Cessna (591 in the A320) the landing is hard and 7 or fewer remain. Centerline is worth 20: full within 3 m, zero beyond 18 m.
Land 150–450 m past the threshold
That band around the aiming-point bars at 300 m earns the full 15 for touchdown point; floating further loses points steadily until 900 m. Touching down more than 30 m short of the threshold or off the paved width shows a score but no star.
Build one unbroken stable stretch
The stable timer runs above 50 ft and more than 180 m before the threshold, while speed is within 10% of approach speed (59–72 kt in the Cessna), descent is about 170–520 ft/min and you are within 15 m of the centerline. Only the longest stretch counts: 27 s on the 2 km final, 45 s on 4 km, 26 s in the A320.
Flare on the callouts
Below 100 ft a radio-altitude readout appears, with tones at 100, 50, 30, 20 and 10 ft. The cue says flare at 32 ft in the Cessna, 48 ft in the A320. Full touchdown-speed marks: 50–61 kt in the Cessna, 105–128 kt in the A320.
Crosswind comes from the right
The Crosswind setting is the Strong wind weather: 24 kt at 300 m, weaker near the ground, gusting up to 12 kt more, from 35° right of the runway. You will drift left, so hold the right wing slightly low. Normal still has 5 kt from 15° right.
The examiner is looser than the labels
Bank fails only past 40° for 2 seconds, taxi speed only above 22 kt for 2 seconds. On final, 88 kt or less 70% of the time and within 220 ft of the glide path half the time both pass. After a crash or skip, tasks already completed in that course keep their point.
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