I tried to land in Seattle but ended up in some nearby mountains. Sigh. Well, I’ve only been here 4 1/2 years. :smack:
I tried going home to Mother and Dad’s in New Brunswick, Canada, and landed pretty much in their backyard. That clinches it. I’ll go home to Mother if I get abducted, then.
I was curious and tried again with my parents’ house in Texas. I ended up in a one pony town about 170 miles west, south of Abilene.
Piece of cake. But then, Vancouver Island makes it easy to find my bay. Landed in my front yard.
I landed on my roof. The airport is very near my town and my house is right beside a large shopping centre, both handy reference points.
I can’t do it without being able to glide just a little. I’m a half-mile off the South Platte River, and once I get close enough to pick out the valley between Denver and North Platte, I can zoom directly in on it. But getting close enough is the trick. I ended up in Kansas the first time – mistook some range in New Mexico for the Palmer Ridge.
I tried a one shot and ended up about 50 miles east of Houston, which was what I was aiming for.
With multiple clicks it was pretty easy, but I was still off by about two blocks.
Maybe I spend too much time fooling around with Google Maps and geography porn in general, but this was no challenge at all. The St. Lawrence River is not the sort of gossamer phenomenon that readily escapes notice, and we happen to be the second-largest island on it. I didn’t run into trouble until I realized that I couldn’t tell which of the two dozen townhouses on my block my apartment is in, but hell, setting down in the local park would probably be safer and just as convenient (I could even go for ice cream after).
Well, I just placed mouse pointer over general area that I though my home is, and then used mouse roller to zoom-in. After more detailed map loaded, I again placed mouse pointer over my home and zoomed some more and so on, until maximum zoom showed my home and parking area right next to it.
That’s the technique I’ve been trying to recommend.
Mouse wheel zooming centres on the mouse pointer (as does double-clicking, although that seems to me harder to control).
If you can zoom in to your house or neighbourhood without clicking and dragging the map (even if you have to pause a little between zooms, to take stock), and without zooming back out again to get your bearings, you succeed.
If you need to drag the map, because your zooming has moved your destination off the edge of the visible area, you fail - and you have to walk.
Naah, I was ripped off. I have played with Google Maps and Google Earth so many times, I thought I’d ace it. I had the pointer right over the centre of the Sydney metropolitan area, but when I zoomed in, I was in rugged bushland, so I assumed I’d landed in the Blue Mountains or Kuring-Gai National Park (both about fifty miles from my house). Turns out I wasn’t even in the right state, but in Victoria, about 500 miles away. I know I didn’t screw up that badly.
Did you use the zoom slider? That tends to screw stuff up. If I use the slider with the map centred over my house, I end up in the Champagne region of France. Which would be OK, really.
Finding a spot by the coast is way easier than inland. First try I nearly landed at Heathrow (runway 27L I think 
) rather than at home just south of Oxford. The easiest marker for me ought to be the Thames but you just can’t make it out from high altitude and when you get too low one bend looks like another :dubious:
I’ve now tried for my Dad’s house in Dundee (Scottish east coast) and had no problem hitting it first go. Between the the Firth of Tay and the Law - an extinct volcano - it was a doddle.
Yeah, I was confused by the Bristol Channel being rendered as an amorphous greeny-yellow blob. I didn’t know the pollution had got that bad.
I double click zoomed until I thought it would be close. I was about 35-40 miles off.
Brendon Small
I tried a straight drop from orbit this time. I clicked once to center the map and then roller zoomed all the way in. Ended up a little southeast of Georgetown, about 12 miles from my house.
Perfect landing in the driveway, took fifteen double-clicks, no scrolling or zooming out needed, we have a one-acre bass pond on our property which acted as a landmark at around click #10, but I was right on target regardless
I’ve always considered myself good with maps and geography. Without any road or city labels, I wound up about 50 miles Southeast of my home. I guess I’ve got some walking to do. The trouble with Central VA is there aren’t mountains or waterways nearby to navigate by, all forest and fields.
Zooming straight in with no mouse movement, I wound up on the sidewalk by the correct expressway exit. That’s maybe 5 miles from my apartment.
Adjusting between zoom levels took me straight to my front door, but on the last zoom, I elected to land on the golf course next door so I wouldn’t block my neighbor’s driveway.
Damn, I ended up in Dayton (about 75 miles southwest of my house.) BOTH times.
Okay, first time I didn’t really understand the rules, but I mucked up anyway by orienting on the wrong great lake, Erie instead of Ontario. If I hadn’t zoomed back out, I’d have had to make a landing in Toledo.
Second time, very easy. The western end of lake ontario makes a GREAT landmark for finding my home town, and then I need to pay a lot of attention to the local street patterns, finding ‘the delta’ and then ‘queenston circle’ and looking for my cross-street.
ETA: Maybe this should be moved to the games forum. 