How realistic is Google Earth Flight Simulator?
How realistic is Google Earth Flight Simulator?


It is very unrealistic in most respects.

I believe there are a number of important ways you can measure realism from a pilot's perspective:


view out the windows
appearance of instrument panel
mode of operation of pilot aids like autopilot, autothrottle
flying controls


physical character
responsiveness

interaction with ATC 
effects of wind, weather, turbulence, rain, ice
aeronautical characteristics of aircraft


It would be easy to focus solely on the last of these, but from my perspective this is not really the most important. 

Here's a few dissimilarities that occur to me.

View

The SR22 doesn't have a HUD.

I'm pretty sure the SR22 cockpit windows would take up a much greater area of my vision than my computer screen does. Especially peripheral vision. Also in a real SR22, there is important stuff to look at below the windows.

Instruments

Do these look alike?





Controls

In Google Earth you don't have anything like the range of controls that have to be used, where are all the switches, knobs and other dohickeys you find in the real SR22?

Waving a mouse around is nothing like moving a control column around. With a control column you have a much different sense of the position of the controls. Moving a mouse involves completely different muscles and different motions.

Moving a throttle lever is completely different to pressing PgUp and PgDn buttons to move a throttle position in increments

Feel

In Google Earth you don't hear any engine, you dont feel any vibration, you don't feel any turbulence, you don't feel anything in an uncoordinated turn or when pulling out of a dive, you don't feel the unevenness of a runway.

It's hard to really feel oriented in a simulator when your sense of balance and peripheral vision tell you you are sitting upright at your desk, not inverted and spinning towards the ground.

Disclaimer

I'm not a pilot, I have sat in the pilot's seat of a small Cessna and manipulated the control-column and rudder to make a few turns and attempt to maintain speed and altitude under the direction of a pilot. I've done the same in a glider, and I have done some take-offs and landings in a fairly amazing full (though static) commercial 737 simulator with full cockpit reproduction (all seats, panels, motorised levers, switches etc that you'd find in a real 737 cockpit, wired to a large rack of computers).

 A more realistic simulator

Google Earth is nothing like any of them in almost any respect.

It's a fun game though.