Google Earth is a virtual globe program that lets you surf through our entire planet. You can zoom and search for your town and much more things such as school, churches etc! Google Earth Pro (Gold) is the upgraded version, it has a lot of more features such as movie making or advanced printing and much more... Worth 400 $ Google Earth Pro combines the power of Google Search with satellite imagery, maps, terrain and 3D buildings to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips.

Google Earth for Pilots - This is part of a new series exploring Google Earth uses for different professions/ hobbies.

How to Get 3D Buildings in Google Earth Flight Simulator

1. Enter Flight Simulator mode - Select "Tools->Enter Flight Simulator". Optional: fly to a city which has 3D buildings (tip: San Francisco, Baltimore, Atlanta, Raleigh, Charlotte - these all have lots of 3D buildings). NOTE: - there is a bug in GE 4.3 if you select the "Current View" option in the "Enter Flight Simulator" window, you may end up at an higher altitude than you expect upon starting the flight (much higher). Just fly back down to the city level.
2. Open the Sidebar - Sidebar shortcut - Press ‘Ctrl + Alt + B' (or + Option + B' on the Mac) to bring up the sidebar
3. Turn on 3D Buildings - Turn these on in the Layers pane in the lower left after the sidebar opens.
4. Turn Off Sidebar - IMPORTANT - before resuming the flight simulator, turn off the sidebar by hitting the sidebar shortcut from step 2
5. Resume flight - Now you can resume flying the flight simulator by hitting the SPACE key and the 3D buildings should stay on for your current flight.