Tutorial: How to turn a plane around in Google Flight Simulator (the cool way)

In the last post about Google Flight Simulator, I showed you how to land a plane. Now for one of the cooler tricks. Very few pilots would attempt this, but you can, and I’ll show you how.

Let’s start above Chicago, like last time:

We enter Flight Simulator, flying about 41300ft above the surface.

First, retract the flaps and gear (press “[” a couple of times then press “G”). You may also want to increase your airplane speed (Home). After that, descend your plane a little bit so you won’t stall when you go up (20000 ft is a reasonable height.) Next, press the Up arrow key. This will make the angle of ascent very steep, and you’ll discover that we’ve made an upside-down loop-de-loop.

Keep holding the up key until you see the ground above you:

(If you are experiencing vertigo, please do not continue.)

You are now flying backwards. The final step is to right yourself rightside-up. To do this, simply press the left arrow key or the right arrow key. Once the arrow above the circle and the arrow below the circle line up, press 5. This will stop the plane from rotating:

I’ve always found that more efficient than pressing Shift+left or right (which turns the plane as well), but of course, no one would attempt to do that on a passenger jet 😛