Buckle your seatbelt, secure your tray table, and open your window shade. Now you can simulate flying anywhere in the world as a commercial passenger, from takeoff to touchdown. Terrain, weather, and realtime sun position included. Don't worry, the latest release now features legs, so you can get up and go to the bathroom on longer flights. Enjoy!
Waiting eagerly for the "crying baby" extension pack. The "get to your seat" MMO. And the "I want to pee, but the guy next to me is sleeping" campaign.
Also, inflightsimulator: 1980, with ashtrays and lethal weapon playing on dropdown TV sets
What a great idea! How about, a kid behind kicking your chair, the person in front of you abruptly putting his seat back all the way, and a person of size next to you spilling into your seat.
Or the passenger who is friendly and wants your window seat, but doesn't want to straight out say it. Then turns deranged when they find out they are in the middle seat for the whole flight.
You know what? I had fear of flying. I did a training with a pilot in a simulator, but it was in the cockpit. I don't have fear of flying in a simulator or in the cockpit. I have fear of flying as a passenger, I'm sit in a chair. That's what I would have liked during my training. I told that to Air France and they did not understand but this might seriously be useful.
Interesting, thanks for the idea. Would be pretty cool if this app did have some real-world applications, beyond being a bit of a meme app. Thanks for the comment!
I don't think you can completely eliminate this as people naturally don't like giving up their agency which is usually going to produce at least a low level of anxiety.
Agency and information in a way. I actually feel safer in a tiny 4 seater plane than a jet, even though objectively that's probably backwards. Being able to look at all the parts of the plane, how the movements derive from the pilot's actions, actually see out the front, it is more reassuring. More similar to being a passenger in someone's car. It probably doesn't hurt that it is easier for my mind to imagine a Cessna gliding gently to earth than a passenger jet.
I’m not at ease in an airplane. I rarely fly but i actually like it, but I’m really anxious.
What helps me is always taking a seat near the wings. First that’s where the plane moves the less. And moreover, it’s pretty reassuring watching them supporting the plane in their great stability, they always move way slower than the cabin.
Plus you can alert the crew if something's off before take off (eg. loose/missing screws/panels). A forner colleague of mine did that, and got to see the entire maintenance crew come out for an impromptu RCA and incident response.
UAL used to let you listen into the cockpit to ATC chatter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17656352 — I understand this was really helpful for calming some passengers' nerves during flying.
Also useful for people who want to ride along with someone currently on a plane. "Honey, you are over Kansas right now!"
Useless things tend to be deeply useful to a select few.
I am loving this "re-weirding" of the internet. For the younglings, this is very much the sort of pet project that would bubble up in early internet days. No startup raising money, no pain point necessarily being solved, just one person's idea lovingly rendered to life.
I should have known he had views like this. I've heard similar things expressed and I believe this sentiment personally, but I'm happy to know I can add his name and the original quotation to my archives.
BA (and presumably other airlines) run fear-of-flying courses where you have some ground sessions with flight crew explaining what happens during takeoff/landing, what noises you might hear, etc. Then you go up for a short flight as a passenger to sort of re-enforce what you learned earlier.
I like how much work you've put into just being a passenger :) I'm building a little world in the browser myself, so I like finding projects like this.
Next up: Airport Simulator! Enjoy security, customs, and the inevitable panic of missing your gate across more than 50 international airports around the world!
I was hoping for a very detailed menu with more flight avionics in the in flight entertainment screen but I guess the speed and altitude in the HUD is all I get. I want to know the exact plane T am flying in
Hahaha this is awesome. I can teach what it's like to be on an airplane to my friend who has never flown before.
Currently playing on my usual route, ICN -> HKG. The flight path is too ideal. Due to airspace restrictions in china, almost every flight has to divert over taiwan in real life, but this one cuts thru mainland china.
Every once in a while I would put Flight Simulator 2020 on my desktop and work on my laptop. I found that watching the digital world pass by while working put me in a slightly different headspace. Not sure it increased productivity but working while sitting in an actual plane does provide me a bit of focus.
Train ride videos on YouTube scratch some of the same itch.
This is fun. I would love if it used real flights, and filled the cabin with the avatars of anyone else "on" that flight.
Slight bug report - might just be HN hug-of-death related - on Arc browser, mostly without it as the active tab, I seem to have been stuck over Slough for some time (an ignoble fate).
I believe Arc reduces resources allocated to background tabs, and I don't think it likes being a background tab.
Wow, this is so unbelievably unoptimized. The sound of my computer fans makes it so immersive.
The shadow map is being rendered twice with 300+ draw calls and 1M+ triangles. Full resolution GTAO is probably even more expensive with a lot of fetches per texel. I'm sure there are a ton of low hanging optimization fruits and I'm confident claude et. al can fix all those issues, but if you don't know where to look and never profile the app then you get a vibe coded unoptimized mess.
Kindly simulate two hours of queuing at the Schengen border, a coin toss minigame over whether security is “laptops in” or “laptops out”, bonus if your belt pings, lounge access roulette, wailing infant(s), guy two rows back with the worst most productive cough you ever heard (still got that old N95?), retaining status planning spreadsheets, baggage systems failure at Denver, people using the loos in their socks, unstaffed rentals counter, tired neighbour using your shoulder as a pillow, Franz Kafka’s “The SSSS Boarding Pass”, guy who won’t close the damn window shade, creepily accurate PRC face recognition systems, shuttle bus orienteering challenge, Emerald ass-kissing, lost at Doha, cabin uncomfortably warm mid-flight, world’s most disappointing beef, go-around three times at Queenstown and diverted to Christchurch again, passport reader unresponsive, 7.1kg carryon rule nazi, 30 minutes of taxiing, US domestic “lounge” with no facilities at all and nowhere to sit, drunk British lady, gigantic American guy, bassinet accident, Tight Connection Sprint, can’t quite name the minor TV celeb in 1A, Hong Kong Monsoon Warning, crew yelling “sit down sir the seatbelt sign is still on”, toilet scrum during long final after breakfast on the redeye, and (my favourite) the consequences of sitting in an exit row and when they give you the briefing and ask if you’re willing to follow these instructions in an emergency, saying brightly “Looking forward to it!”
It's lovely, but its flight physics model could use some updates. For example, there's no SkyMall, no Biscoff cookies, and no flight attendant (or on-screen video) giving a humorous, memeable explanation of the plane's rules and safety features.
Nice concept but It would've been better if you don't force people to sign in with the auth box always shown I had to delete it from the node tree using chrome devtools. also why not enable WASD keys or even arrow keys to move?
Nice.
Waiting eagerly for the "crying baby" extension pack. The "get to your seat" MMO. And the "I want to pee, but the guy next to me is sleeping" campaign.
Also, inflightsimulator: 1980, with ashtrays and lethal weapon playing on dropdown TV sets
Thanks for playing! I'll be sure to consider so of those for the next release!
What a great idea! How about, a kid behind kicking your chair, the person in front of you abruptly putting his seat back all the way, and a person of size next to you spilling into your seat.
Or the passenger who is friendly and wants your window seat, but doesn't want to straight out say it. Then turns deranged when they find out they are in the middle seat for the whole flight.
The Boeing extension pack and watch how the plane deteriorates in the air in real time! Door plugs, MCAS, the works!
You know what? I had fear of flying. I did a training with a pilot in a simulator, but it was in the cockpit. I don't have fear of flying in a simulator or in the cockpit. I have fear of flying as a passenger, I'm sit in a chair. That's what I would have liked during my training. I told that to Air France and they did not understand but this might seriously be useful.
Interesting, thanks for the idea. Would be pretty cool if this app did have some real-world applications, beyond being a bit of a meme app. Thanks for the comment!
This is going to sound insane, but something like this for the backseats of various common, and maybe even exotic, cars would be cool too.
I have similar problems being a passenger in an uber for more than 15 mins. I lose my mind on roadtrips when it's not my turn to drive.
I don't think you can completely eliminate this as people naturally don't like giving up their agency which is usually going to produce at least a low level of anxiety.
Agency and information in a way. I actually feel safer in a tiny 4 seater plane than a jet, even though objectively that's probably backwards. Being able to look at all the parts of the plane, how the movements derive from the pilot's actions, actually see out the front, it is more reassuring. More similar to being a passenger in someone's car. It probably doesn't hurt that it is easier for my mind to imagine a Cessna gliding gently to earth than a passenger jet.
I like the idea of someone losing hundreds of millions of dollars if my plane goes down.
I’m not at ease in an airplane. I rarely fly but i actually like it, but I’m really anxious.
What helps me is always taking a seat near the wings. First that’s where the plane moves the less. And moreover, it’s pretty reassuring watching them supporting the plane in their great stability, they always move way slower than the cabin.
Plus you can alert the crew if something's off before take off (eg. loose/missing screws/panels). A forner colleague of mine did that, and got to see the entire maintenance crew come out for an impromptu RCA and incident response.
UAL used to let you listen into the cockpit to ATC chatter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17656352 — I understand this was really helpful for calming some passengers' nerves during flying.
I really appreciate it when I get a pilot that actually tells us wtf is going on.
a good example here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlGySMlSxRs
Also useful for people who want to ride along with someone currently on a plane. "Honey, you are over Kansas right now!"
Useless things tend to be deeply useful to a select few.
I am loving this "re-weirding" of the internet. For the younglings, this is very much the sort of pet project that would bubble up in early internet days. No startup raising money, no pain point necessarily being solved, just one person's idea lovingly rendered to life.
Don't try to build something for everyone, build something that's everything to someone. - paraphrasing Ferry Porsche
I should have known he had views like this. I've heard similar things expressed and I believe this sentiment personally, but I'm happy to know I can add his name and the original quotation to my archives.
I'm not afraid of the flight, for me its customs and surrendering all my data. They even want my balls ffs.
BA (and presumably other airlines) run fear-of-flying courses where you have some ground sessions with flight crew explaining what happens during takeoff/landing, what noises you might hear, etc. Then you go up for a short flight as a passenger to sort of re-enforce what you learned earlier.
https://flyingwithconfidence.com/
first fly to the UK to take the course...
I like how much work you've put into just being a passenger :) I'm building a little world in the browser myself, so I like finding projects like this.
Pretty cool! I could see leaving it up on another screen to enjoy while I go about my workday.
Thank you!
Finally, a use for a second screen!
no
What if they add snakes?
Genius doesn’t always look like you expect it will. Well done!
(Kill the login panel though —- it wouldn’t go away for me)
I'd pay $1 to upgrade to first class. $2 if I get a hot towel, a pre-departure beverage, and warm nuts.
I always have warm nuts on a plane...
Seems to hate not having location access on iOS. Keeps refreshing until eventually Safari just gives up.
Flying to NYC, sitting next to nobody, never happened to me before :) - see you in 4h
Please remove the login screen. Is love to try this.
Hrm. I can play it without logging in
I can't it covers half of my mobile screen and it doesn't seem dismissible.
Likewise.
It's almost comical how annoying it is. I just want to try it.
Yeah, not a great experience, but it will let you play if you just register with something random.
Missing FCA (Glacier international airport in Kalispell, Montana, USA).
It's small but a beautiful flight!
I love that this is in real time and this jokes :D Even we have chess game :3
Crashed within 10 seconds on iPhone 17 Pro. Love the vibes
Yeah same here.
ahhh your phone crashed! I was a bit confused for a moment... Could you imagine if the airplane crashed like 1 in every million plays?! :O
Looks amazing for the 2 seconds before it implodes on iPhone though.
You have to turn on airplane mode
It uses too much RAM, it’s vibe coded so makes sense
It's slow in FF, too. Cool for a flight simulator to crash, but it should simulate a plane crash. Not crash the simulator itself :)
Immediately crashes my FF on Windows 11.
Next up: Airport Simulator! Enjoy security, customs, and the inevitable panic of missing your gate across more than 50 international airports around the world!
really wish i could sit by the window
3 overhead reading lights for a 2-2 configuration? On a trans pacific flight? Literally unplayable.
Would love to see this open source and extended!
Had to use uBlockOrigin to remove the login prompt. Think there could be a way to dismiss it without tricks like that.
I just closed the window instead, it wasn't that interesting
haha this is fun!
It's very nicely done. I snapped the seatbelt on and that dread of a long boring flight automatically hit me. :)
I was hoping for a very detailed menu with more flight avionics in the in flight entertainment screen but I guess the speed and altitude in the HUD is all I get. I want to know the exact plane T am flying in
Hahaha this is awesome. I can teach what it's like to be on an airplane to my friend who has never flown before.
Currently playing on my usual route, ICN -> HKG. The flight path is too ideal. Due to airspace restrictions in china, almost every flight has to divert over taiwan in real life, but this one cuts thru mainland china.
Is this visual style Fable or Astra. I see it everywhere now. It’s the new black and purple
This is really cool! Also, my girlfriend suggested it would be nice if she can login and be on the same flight so we can fly home together.
I asked for beef, they only had chicken. 10/10, average flight experience.
Beef or cow?
I had the fish.
Steak or fish.
I had lasagna
Or you could check out the non-vibe coded Airplane Mode from 2020:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/931310/Airplane_Mode/
That's... why?
I can understand slow games like EuroTruck or Farming Sim. But what's the point of this?
These days it's pretty unusual to think of an idea that hasn't been done yet, so when you do, I guess you just don't think too much and go make it.
Is there a mosquito simulator yet?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Mosquito
Time for the more biologically correct Mrs Mosquito?
Is there a mosquitto simulator, where you roleplay as an IoT pub/sub server?
Well, now I'm intrigued. I can envision some interesting mechanics...
Might be helpful for people who have never flown.
Every once in a while I would put Flight Simulator 2020 on my desktop and work on my laptop. I found that watching the digital world pass by while working put me in a slightly different headspace. Not sure it increased productivity but working while sitting in an actual plane does provide me a bit of focus.
Train ride videos on YouTube scratch some of the same itch.
And 10 euro, lol. I'll just go with the free one, thank you.
enjoy the browser based jank
Interesting! But it seems there are quite some people who will pay for such content:-)
Selfie mode was too funny these characters are ridiculous. Also a whole plane to myself? What a steal!
Except if you're the main character of a plot !
Now if we can watch fresh movies, that would be ideal …
A pirate website disguised as flight simulator? What a madman!
Pirate websites evading detection by using disguises is real. There's one out there in a totalitarian country that pretends to be a parked domain.
Can't press the Continue button, because the footer overlaps it. Firefox on mobile.
That’s a nice idea. Taking off from Frankfurt am Main felt like that ultra long runway in Fast & Furious 6 though.
Ah, it's flying Paris to Bogota in a 1 aisle, 4 seats per rank regional plane, pretty unusual if you ask me :)
Stuck on 0h 01m elapsed after 12 minutes.
Can be fairly accurate perception of time on a plane.
This is fun. I would love if it used real flights, and filled the cabin with the avatars of anyone else "on" that flight.
Slight bug report - might just be HN hug-of-death related - on Arc browser, mostly without it as the active tab, I seem to have been stuck over Slough for some time (an ignoble fate).
I believe Arc reduces resources allocated to background tabs, and I don't think it likes being a background tab.
cool
Wow, that's quite some leg space!
Geez how strong is the chess engine? No chance on hard... even on medium this is a struggle.
EDIT: which is true to form on some airlines lol (but on others, even hard is trivial)
I like the way it smashes the CPU so that the fans sound like jet engines.
Congrats on shipping this.
kind of unique idea, but who becomes the pilot? an ai ??
Wow, this is so unbelievably unoptimized. The sound of my computer fans makes it so immersive. The shadow map is being rendered twice with 300+ draw calls and 1M+ triangles. Full resolution GTAO is probably even more expensive with a lot of fetches per texel. I'm sure there are a ton of low hanging optimization fruits and I'm confident claude et. al can fix all those issues, but if you don't know where to look and never profile the app then you get a vibe coded unoptimized mess.
Kindly simulate two hours of queuing at the Schengen border, a coin toss minigame over whether security is “laptops in” or “laptops out”, bonus if your belt pings, lounge access roulette, wailing infant(s), guy two rows back with the worst most productive cough you ever heard (still got that old N95?), retaining status planning spreadsheets, baggage systems failure at Denver, people using the loos in their socks, unstaffed rentals counter, tired neighbour using your shoulder as a pillow, Franz Kafka’s “The SSSS Boarding Pass”, guy who won’t close the damn window shade, creepily accurate PRC face recognition systems, shuttle bus orienteering challenge, Emerald ass-kissing, lost at Doha, cabin uncomfortably warm mid-flight, world’s most disappointing beef, go-around three times at Queenstown and diverted to Christchurch again, passport reader unresponsive, 7.1kg carryon rule nazi, 30 minutes of taxiing, US domestic “lounge” with no facilities at all and nowhere to sit, drunk British lady, gigantic American guy, bassinet accident, Tight Connection Sprint, can’t quite name the minor TV celeb in 1A, Hong Kong Monsoon Warning, crew yelling “sit down sir the seatbelt sign is still on”, toilet scrum during long final after breakfast on the redeye, and (my favourite) the consequences of sitting in an exit row and when they give you the briefing and ask if you’re willing to follow these instructions in an emergency, saying brightly “Looking forward to it!”
I love air travel.
It's lovely, but its flight physics model could use some updates. For example, there's no SkyMall, no Biscoff cookies, and no flight attendant (or on-screen video) giving a humorous, memeable explanation of the plane's rules and safety features.
Nice idea. But would be better if there are other passengers as well. Also somehow has slow frame rate.
Nice concept but It would've been better if you don't force people to sign in with the auth box always shown I had to delete it from the node tree using chrome devtools. also why not enable WASD keys or even arrow keys to move?