The irritation
Google Earth's built-in flight simulator is a remarkable globe-sized place to fly, but it is solitary. I wanted to see other people sharing the same sky.
ExperimentPrototypeWorking prototype
Earth Fighter
A Chrome extension that adds real-time pilot visibility, shared rooms, and radar to Google Earth Web's flight simulator.
- Current state
- Prototype — Working prototype
- Jack’s role
- Game design, Browser instrumentation, Multiplayer prototyping, Interface design
- Find it in the workshop
- Arcade & Menagerie · Globe cockpit cabinet
Built because…
The real build story.
What I built
I built a Manifest V3 extension that reads the flight camera pose from the page URL and a local WebGL matrix probe, publishes the aircraft pose to a WebSocket room, and renders nearby pilots in a HUD and radar.
The hard part
Google Earth is not an extension API or game engine. Camera extraction, page isolation, WebGL state, coordinate conversion, and smooth network presence all have to work without patching Google's internals.
Under the casing
Proof, not decoration.
Build evidence03 items
- A working Manifest V3 overlay for Google Earth Web Flight Simulator
- Callsign, room, aircraft-pose, HUD, and nearby-pilot radar data
- A live WebSocket relay for shared pilot presence, with no combat simulation
- Chrome MV3
- JavaScript
- WebGL instrumentation
- WebSockets
- Google Earth
Scope of work
What I owned.
- Game design
- Browser instrumentation
- Multiplayer prototyping
- Interface design
No victory-lap math
Outcome and lesson.
Where it landed
The prototype provides real-time pilot presence inside the existing Google Earth Web Flight Simulator, including callsigns, rooms, and nearby-aircraft radar. It does not add enemies, weapons, missiles, or combat.
What stayed
A useful extension can add one missing social layer without pretending to own the host application or turning the prototype into a different game.
This project has a physical address.
In the playable workshop, Earth Fighter lives in the Arcade & Menagerie as a globe cockpit cabinet. You can inspect it without unlocking anything.