Somewhere in the last few years the world quietly got scanned. Every rooftop, every bridge, every questionable extension your neighbour built without planning permission — all of it, in 3D, on a server. We looked at that and thought: someone should fly a plane through it.

So we did. TripGeo Air is a flight simulator that runs entirely in your browser, over photorealistic 3D tiles of the actual planet. There is no launcher, no 90GB download, no update that arrives the exact evening you had an hour free. There is a tab. In the tab, there is a plane. The plane is yours.

The whole planet is the runway

You start at Heathrow, because everyone should have to start at Heathrow at least once. From there the map is open. Buzz the Thames, thread the Manhattan skyline, follow a river you have never heard of until it becomes a coastline. Airports are where airports actually are, which means when you find one in the middle of nowhere, it is genuinely in the middle of nowhere.

Bring your own map

Here is the part we are quietly proud of. Paste in your own map data — KML or GeoJSON, exported from Google Earth, Google My Maps, or any GIS tool you like — and TripGeo Air turns your placemarks into a place you can visit.

Every pub on your walking tour. Every site on the dig. Every branch office, every trig point, every spot your grandfather was stationed. Up to 200 of them, lifted off the page and planted in the real 3D world.

Then you choose how to see them. Cinematic Tour hands the camera to a director: it sweeps between your places, orbits each one, reads out the name, and asks nothing of you but a comfortable chair. No aircraft required. Or pick Fly the Map, and you spawn in the air nearby with every marker beaconed and labelled below you — go and find them yourself, at whatever altitude your nerve allows.

It is your data. It just happens to be three-dimensional now, and you can land next to it.

Learn to fly (gently)

Your first flight is a circuit: glowing smoke rings hang over the field, and you fly through them and land back where you started. It is the aviation equivalent of stabilisers. Nail it, and the job board opens up.

Do an honest day's work

Sightseeing tours over nearby cities. Cargo runs. Passenger charters where your landing quality is, regrettably, noticed. Every job pays credits, credits buy aircraft and upgrades, and upgrades buy you the confidence to attempt things you probably should not attempt.

Twenty-plus aircraft, all of them different

Light props that float. Utility aircraft that shrug. Regional turboprops. Airliners that require you to think about your descent roughly a county in advance. They do not fly the same, and finding the one that suits you is half the game.

And also: rolls

Press Q or E and the world rolls with you, horizon and all. This has no economic value whatsoever. We recommend doing it constantly.

Free show, no ticket

Wherever you happen to be parked, you can call up the Air Show — a squadron of display aircraft trailing smoke through loops and passes overhead, entirely free, purely because it looks fantastic.

Open a tab. Take off. See where the planet goes.

air.tripgeo.com