GeoFS

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# **GeoFS**

## General Knowledge

GeoFS is a free browser-based multiplayer online flight simulator created by Xavier Tassin. It has become famous recently for its stunning performance at the 2019 Flight Simulator Exposition in Orlando, Florida.

GeoFS includes 89 aircraft, ranging from the tiny Piper Cub to the enormous Antonov-225. Its community is very strong, and most of the available aircraft have been contributed by other users. There are a few plugins or browser extensions compatible with GeoFS.

The GeoFS community is strongest in it’s wiki, which can be found here. The wiki is home to many fictional pages, such as airline pages which others have added as “roleplay”.

## History

GeoFS was released on Friday, 1 October 2010 as GEFS, Google Earth Flight Simulator. It was very rudimentary in comparison to the current GeoFS, having only three aircraft, very basic multiplayer and weather, and some sounds and animated parts.

GEFS became an instant hit, and Xavier kept rolling out new updates. The Douglas DC-3 was added in Version 0.2, and the physics engine was revised to make it simpler yet more realistic when flying. The Dassault-Dornier Alpha Jet was added in Version 0.3, along with flaps and airbrakes. Version 0.4 was not a major update, but it did improve flight models.

Version 0.5 of GEFS added lots of things, ranging from the Sopwith Camel biplane (unfortunately, it was removed in a later update) to multiplayer chat and improved weather engine. Version 0.6 added the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 and Major Tom, a hot air balloon, as well as even more improvements to the weather engine. In June 2011, Xavier released some site traffic figures, which showed than over 18,000 unique visitors came to GEFS, many coming more than once. Version 0.7 added the Airbus A380 and the Sukhoi Su-35 as well as a time slider that can set the time of day. Version 0.7.1 added reverse thrust to the A380 and MD-11.

Version 0.8 saw the addition of the Concorde, Cessna 152, and Zlin Z-50. It also added runway lights for night flying and an aircraft carrier, which was highly appreciated by the community. Version 0.9 added three gliders and improved dynamic-wind. 2013 had only one update, but Version 1.0 was a huge update, adding autopilot, PAPI lights, an Antonov An-140, and gave users the ability to create accounts.

No updates came for three years, but in 2016, GEFS was migrated form Google Earth to CesiumJS, an open-source program that turned out to be far better for GEFS. Versions 1.1 to 1.4 were mostly background updates, but they added features such as shadows, better multiplayer, and a new weather engine. 1.5 released a list of logged-in pilots as well as the number of Foos, or users without accounts, that were flying.

GEFS became GeoFS on April 4, 2017. A few months later the Boeing 737-700 was added in a KLM livery. Xavier released an aircraft editor for people to create their own aircraft. In 2018, the growing popularity of GeoFS made it too expensive to provide the standard high-definition Microsoft Bing satellite imagery for free. The imagery was replaced with free but lower definition Sentinel-2 imagery, but the option was made to purchase HD for 10 euros (since Xavier Tassin lives in Europe).

Xavier began to make GeoFS easier to maintain in 2018. He made the decision to purchase, process, and host the huge amount of data required to run GeoFS himself. It was a huge project and is still not fully complete. During the 2019 FlightSimExpo in Orlando, GeoFS was one of the innovating flight simulators, and its success was noted by educators. As a free, browser-based program that had no major hardware requirements, it was a godsend for an educator who didn't want to pay hundreds of dollars to get a program with decent flight physics.

Version 2.7, also known as the Summer Update due to the huge amount of additions, was released on July 14, 2019. It added the Pitts Special S1, improved the autopilot, and drastically improved the weather engine. This update was considered by many to be one of the biggest updates to GeoFS.

Version 2.8, officially released on 12 February 2020, added another glider, helicopter, and multiple livery support. Wing flex, contrails, and vertical speed for autopilot were also added, as well as a remodeling of the website and UI. FMC and AP++, incompatible with the previous version, became compatible once more.

Version 2.9 has so far added a new PC-7, reworked several aircraft, done a number of assorted bug fixes, improved physics, and two new versions of GeoFS were released for schools and mobile.

Version 3.0 includes two new aircraft, vast improvements to the atmosphere effects (volumetric clouds and Rayleigh scattering), 3d trees and vegetation, simulation of the drag coefficient spike around Mach 1, and an update to the water effects that also allows for floatplanes. More features, such as radio navigation, advanced AP, and ILS are coming soon. The actual release date of 3.0 is not known.

GeoFS 3.1 was a small update that added the P38 to GeoFS and some bug fixes

GeoFS 3.2 is the latest version with the addition of the Cri-Cri, DHC-2 Beaver, bug fixes, and more community contributed planes. The famous GeoFS 3D buildings chrome addon was also added in this period but it is only usable in 2.9 due to many of the devs having potato computers.

## Controls

GeoFS might be a big game, but it’s gameplay controls and mechanics are very simple. Keybinds can be changed through the control panel. There are three control modes: Keyboard, mouse and joystick.

All keybinds listed are the default settings. *Controls in **bold** can only be accessed with the keyboard*

*Pitch is inverted for all methods of controlling*

### Keybinds

C - Changes camera view. Scrolls through a list: Follow, Cockpit, Cockpit-less, Chase, Free, and Fixed are all default views. Some aircraft have more views such as Right Wing and Right Engine

**H - Toggles the Heads-Up Display, removing the instruments shown in views other than Cockpit**

J - Toggles joystick control mode

K - Toggles keyboard control mode

M - Toggles mouse control mode

N - Opens the navigation panel, a map of all the GeoFS player locations and airports

O - Opens the options panel, with settings for weather, controls and crash detection

P - Pauses the game locally (*Only for the player that paused it)*

R - Resets the simulation to the last selected location

S - Toggles sound

T - Toggles chat (*Only possible if logged in)*

V - Enables video replay of the simulation from the last reset

**Number-pad keys 1 (*Number keys on the right of the keyboard) - Rotates the camera 45 degrees right***

**NP 2 - Centres the camera left/right (*does not affect the camera’s pitch tilt)***

**NP 3 - Rotates the camera 45 degrees left**

**NP 4 - Rotates the camera 90 degrees right**

**NP 5 - Resets the camera**

**NP 6 - Rotates the camera 90 degrees left**

**NP 7 - Rotates the camera 135 degrees right**

**NP 8 - Rotates the camera 180 degrees**

**NP 9 - Rotates the camera 135 degrees left**

**Tab - Teleports to the camera’s current position**

### Flying With The Keyboard

These are keyboard control mode buttons. While some are able to be used with the mouse, the majority are not.

**Up Arrow Key - Pitch down**

**Down - Pitch up**

**Left - Bank left (*Turns left if roll/yaw mix option is on***

**Right - Bank right**

**< - Steer left (*With roll/yaw mix option off)***

**> - Steer right**

**Enter - Centres all control surfaces**

**PgUp/+ - Increases throttle through 0-9**

**PgDn/- - Decreases throttle through 9-0**

**0-9 Number keys (*Numbers at the top of the keyboard) - Instantly increase/decrease throttle through 0-9***

Spacebar - Applies the brakes (*Does not toggle)*

**; - Toggles parking brake**

A - Toggles the autopilot. The autopilot has 4 settings: in-flight airspeed, heading, altitude and vertical speed (*They are not able to be set with the keyboard)*

B - Toggles spoilers

**E - Turns on/off the engines**

G - Deploys/Retracts the gear

**X - Plays an aircraft only animation. *(Not present on all aerial vehicles)***

**F - Plays a secondary aircraft only animation**

[ - Extends flaps/droop snoot (Concorde)

] - Retracts flaps/droop snoot

#### Mechanics

**Reverse thrust can be activated by holding PgDn below engine idle. The throttle gauge will increase again after holding past idle, to around 60%. The reverse thrust power varies with aircraft, as well as the reverse thrust animation, such as reverse thrust buckets and having the blades turn the other way. To remove reverse thrust, simply increase thrust. (*Not all aircraft have reverse thrust***

### Flying With The Mouse

Mouse controls are very simple, and utilise the same keyboard shortcuts. To fly an aircraft with the mouse you must figure out where to position the mouse to ensure that the plane is balanced. If you do not position the mouse properly, then your aircraft might go into a spiral or nosedive. Typically, centering the mouse cursor on the screen will centre the controls.

Controlling with the mouse, you cannot fly the plane properly while trying to use the navigation panel, as moving your mouse to use the panel will result in the aircraft possibly spiralling out of control. You can use the pause mechanic to help with this

### Flying With The Joystick

Compatible joysticks and gamepads can be connected to GeoFS controls by pressing any button on the joystick or gamepad. Joystick controls can be configured to emulate the controls of a real plane, and offers the greatest amount of customization out of the three control types. However, they must be purchased separately.

Opening the configure dropdown menu in the Options panel lists all recognised buttons and axis and their current states, and allows each to be assigned a specific control. Move the axis around and press the buttons to update their states if you are unsure which one is which. For instance, one axis may be assigned to pitch while another is assigned to roll, and a button is assigned to the gear. Each axis may be inverted if desired.

While autopilot is engaged, the roll of the aircraft can still be manually affected slightly if using a joystick.

## List of Aircraft

Below is a list of all aircraft in GeoFS, a total of 88. All players first spawn as a Piper Cub.