Show HN: I made a flight simulator, except you're just a passenger

245 points - last Monday at 9:08 AM


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!

Source

Comments

LukaD today at 9:24 AM
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.
drayfield today at 6:05 AM
Or you could check out the non-vibe coded Airplane Mode from 2020:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/931310/Airplane_Mode/

ndr42 today at 12:38 PM
Sitting all alone in the plane I'm reminded of the movie Knight and Day (Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz) where they are nearly the only passengers (with some adversaries).
lejeanvaljean last Monday at 11:06 AM
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.
etatester today at 5:29 AM
Crashed within 10 seconds on iPhone 17 Pro. Love the vibes
GreyMolecules today at 5:56 AM
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.

inopinatus today at 9:28 AM
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.

unreal37 today at 12:10 PM
This is brilliant. Future enhancements can match the inner design of the plane to the actual plane used for that route by that airline, and the ability to choose economy, premium plus, busines class, etc...
mikeshi42 today at 5:39 AM
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!

flawed_crater today at 4:51 AM
Please remove the login screen. Is love to try this.
kinduff today at 6:03 AM
I asked for beef, they only had chicken. 10/10, average flight experience.
naich today at 8:45 AM
I like the way it smashes the CPU so that the fans sound like jet engines.
thoughtsimple today at 4:30 AM
Seems to hate not having location access on iOS. Keeps refreshing until eventually Safari just gives up.
wafflemaker today at 5:41 AM
Had to use uBlockOrigin to remove the login prompt. Think there could be a way to dismiss it without tricks like that.
d--b last Monday at 9:27 AM
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

zhaoziyuan2000 today at 6:01 AM
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.
ramigb today at 10:05 AM
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?
vavooom today at 6:35 AM
Selfie mode was too funny these characters are ridiculous. Also a whole plane to myself? What a steal!
gabriel666smith today at 8:24 AM
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.

kh_hk today at 10:16 AM
Unfortunately the flight plan is incorrect.
quietfox today at 6:55 AM
That’s a nice idea. Taking off from Frankfurt am Main felt like that ultra long runway in Fast & Furious 6 though.
onaclov2000 today at 11:11 AM
When will having to go through TSA be added?
ehliu today at 8:45 AM
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)

lateatdesk last Monday at 7:30 PM
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.
ironhaven today at 5:47 AM
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
khazhoux today at 4:30 AM
Genius doesn’t always look like you expect it will. Well done!

(Kill the login panel though —- it wouldn’t go away for me)

ferflowhq today at 9:56 AM
Nice idea. But would be better if there are other passengers as well. Also somehow has slow frame rate.
noufalibrahim today at 5:45 AM
It's very nicely done. I snapped the seatbelt on and that dread of a long boring flight automatically hit me. :)
zubspace today at 6:39 AM
Can't press the Continue button, because the footer overlaps it. Firefox on mobile.
tnolet today at 5:59 AM
Is this visual style Fable or Astra. I see it everywhere now. It’s the new black and purple
amelius today at 8:41 AM
Wow, that's quite some leg space!
jolmg today at 8:22 AM
Stuck on 0h 01m elapsed after 12 minutes.
darknavi today at 4:54 AM
Missing FCA (Glacier international airport in Kalispell, Montana, USA).

It's small but a beautiful flight!

modinfo today at 5:27 AM
I love that this is in real time and this jokes :D Even we have chess game :3
orliesaurus today at 4:37 AM
Flying to NYC, sitting next to nobody, never happened to me before :) - see you in 4h
DylanMerigaud today at 9:04 AM
Congrats on shipping this.
razzbee today at 9:14 AM
kind of unique idea, but who becomes the pilot? an ai ??
zergrush today at 5:35 AM
really wish i could sit by the window
bitwize today at 9:44 AM
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.
smallstepforman today at 6:36 AM
Now if we can watch fresh movies, that would be ideal …
groestl today at 5:34 AM
Next up: Airport Simulator! Enjoy security, customs, and the inevitable panic of missing your gate across more than 50 international airports around the world!
playoverbid today at 11:43 AM
nice one!
wossab today at 10:54 AM
I dig it. Got it bookmarked. Nice job, keep it up.
wazoox today at 8:12 AM
Ah, it's flying Paris to Bogota in a 1 aisle, 4 seats per rank regional plane, pretty unusual if you ask me :)
khantsithu today at 8:30 AM
cool
nader today at 5:45 AM
haha this is fun!
tony-ay yesterday at 3:32 AM
Pretty cool! I could see leaving it up on another screen to enjoy while I go about my workday.
fortran77 today at 4:30 AM
I'd pay $1 to upgrade to first class. $2 if I get a hot towel, a pre-departure beverage, and warm nuts.
seemaze today at 4:22 AM
no