A few hours in, I had a plane flying over Manhattan.
The up and down controls were reversed. That wasn't the funny part. The funny part was the plane itself — it was sideways. Not banking sideways, just... facing the wrong way entirely. Like someone had rotated the 3D model 90 degrees and called it a day. A few iterations later it was flying backwards! Then, finally, it faced forward.
But the thing is — even with the plane pointing the wrong direction and the controls doing the opposite of they should — I was flying over Manhattan. In photorealistic 3D. In a browser tab. The streets below looked like real streets. The buildings looked like real buildings. Central Park looked like Central Park, not just a green square on a map.
And I was controlling it.
That janky, broken, sideways first flight was the moment I knew this was going to be something.
Why I Built a Flight Simulator
I've been playing video games for as long as I can remember. And somewhere along the way, I got into flight sims. F-15 Strike Eagle II on the Amiga blew my mind as a kid. Later came Microsoft Flight Simulator. Then X-Plane — which I'd argue is still the best pure flight sim out there. I bought a PC specifically for this. More accessories and extra screens than I'd like to admit.
So I know what a good flight sim feels like. I also know what it takes to get there: a gaming PC, 100GB of disk space, $60 plus multiple add-ons, and enough patience to deal with all of it.
Most people will never do that. Most people have a passing curiosity about flight — they've looked out a plane window and thought "I wish I could just do this whenever I want" — but they're not going to invest hundreds of dollars in hardware and software for it.
I didn't set out to solve that problem. I'm just a computer science engineer who likes to build things.
The Magic of 2026
Here's what made this possible: the tools have changed everything.
I've been deep in AI-assisted development. ChatGPT, Cursor, Lovable, OpenClaw — I've used them all for different projects. For WorldFlightSim, Claude Code builds most of the codebase.
I'm not a game developer. I can't code a flight simulator. But I'm an engineer and I understand architecture, systems, how things fit together. I have the vision for what this product should be. AI is my CTO, my team of developers, and more.
That's the magic of building in 2026. From idea to a working prototype in hours, not months. From "what if you could fly in a browser?" to actually doing it, in a single sitting.
The breakthrough wasn't just vibe coding. It was a Google API.
Google has spent years scanning the entire planet in photorealistic 3D. Every city, coastline, and mountain — captured from satellites and aircraft, reconstructed into three-dimensional terrain. They call it Google Maps 3D Tiles.
This means I didn't need to build a terrain engine. I didn't need to model cities or paint textures. The best 3D map of Earth already existed. I just needed to put a plane in it.
Google provides the world. Claude provides the plane. The browser does the rest.
The entire planet as your playground. Not a curated list of airports. Not a handful of cities. Everywhere.
Two Weeks of Late Nights
Two weeks. Mostly nights and weekends. That's what it took to go from that sideways-plane prototype to a real product.
I'd describe what I needed — "build a flight physics model for a single-engine prop aircraft" — and Claude Code would write it. First pass. Working code. Then I'd test, spot what was off, explain the problem, iterate. Things got corrected and refined until they felt right.
But honestly, the physics and the engine aren't what I spent most of my time on. I focused on the game modes — because that's what makes it a product, not a tech demo. Career mode with pilot ranks. Ring Run racing through city skylines. Photo mode. A tutorial to teach you how to fly.
What You Can Do Right Now
Let me just tell you what exists, right now, for free, in your browser:
Open a tab. Search for any place on Earth. Fly there.
Your childhood home. The Eiffel Tower. The Grand Canyon. That beach you've been meaning to visit. It's all there, in photorealistic 3D, from the cockpit. The streets look real. The buildings look real. It's uncanny. 
Beyond free flight:
- Ring Run Racing — checkpoint courses through city skylines
- Career Mode — start as a student pilot, earn your wings
- Photo Mode — capture and share your best views
It works on phones, tablets, laptops. No download. Two aircraft for now — a Cessna 172 trainer and a Cirrus SR22 for when you want more power.
Is it Microsoft Flight Simulator? No. MSFS is for serious simmers with serious hardware.
WorldFlightSim is something different. It's for the person who has 15 minutes and wants to fly over Paris. The kid who's curious about what their school looks like from the air. The traveler previewing a destination from the sky. The person who would never touch a traditional flight sim — until the barrier to entry became zero.
Some experiences should just be... available. Open the link and fly.
Search for your house. Fly over it. Try Ring Run in Manhattan. Turn off SAFE mode and attempt a barrel roll — you'll probably crash, but that's half the fun.
If you like it, share it with someone. If you don't, tell me why — I'm @fmfamaral on Twitter.
This is just the beginning.
Fernando Amaral is a computer science engineer, lifelong gamer, and the creator of WorldFlightSim. He builds products with AI and occasionally forgets to sleep. Find him at @fmfamaral.