Wow, now this is an Easter Egg. By hitting either Cmd-Option-A on a Mac or Ctrl+Alt+A on a PC in the latest version of Google Earth (the one with Google Sky) it will bring up an option to enter flight simulator mode!

You get the option to fly with an F-16 Viper or an SR22 propeller plane and you can choose to take off from a handful of airports from around the world. Nevermind that fact that I crashed the F-16 every single time, and couldn’t get the SR22 to take off – and that I thought I was enjoying some nice San Fran scenery when I was really in Italy – this is simply an awesome hidden feature.

I think Google has seriously tapped into my brain and is now just making everything I wanted when I was a teenager. First it was Google Sky – now they’ve basically created cooler versions of two of my guilty-pleasure computer games – Streets of Sim City and SimCopter.

SimCopter was great because you could take a city from Sim City (not to be confused with Sin City, though that’d be cool too) and explore it first hand by air (or by foot if you landed, got out and walked). It’s Google Street View that actually reminds me a lot of Streets of Sim City, but I wish there was another Eastern Egg in Google Earth that allowed you to drive around instead of fly. Maybe the next release?

I can’t believe the quality and smoothness of the scenery when you’re flying as well. Someone at Google spent a lot of time on this for it to be hidden away!

I may just have to go out and buy a joystick (yes, this Eastern Egg accepts them).

Greatest. Easter Egg. Ever.