About 70-80 percent of the earth's surface is covered with water. That's a lot of territory to explore in a seaplane in Flight Simulator! But if you want to start your flight from the water, how do you go about it?

If you've tried using the "Select Airport" screen, you may have noticed that there's no way to filter the list to show you only seaplane bases or airports with water runways. Admittedly, this makes it rather difficult to start a flight from the water unless you happen to know where the seaplane bases and water runways are. To make matters worse, if you start a flight on a land-based runway, you'll find that even at full power your seaplane won't move! Frustrating? You bet.

Here are some suggestions to help you get your seaplane onto the water.

Use Map View

If you know how to find your chosen body of water on a map, you can start on a land-based runway near the body of water you want to start on, then use Map view to move your seaplane onto the water:

1. On the World menu, choose Map.

2. Make sure Terrain Shading is turned on (click the icon on the far right to toggle it), then drag the aircraft symbol on the map to the water location of your choice.

3. Set the Altitude to 0.

4. Set the Heading as desired, and set the airspeed to 0.

5. Click OK.

Start in the air

Arguably, the easiest way to get your seaplane onto the water is to start flying with a land-based aircraft, and then switch to a seaplane and land on the water:

1. Fly a land-based aircraft over the body of water you want to start on.

2. On the Aircraft menu, choose Select Aircraft.

3. Choose a seaplane.

4. Click OK.

5. Fly to the water, and land.

Use Slew mode

Don't feel like landing? You can use Slew mode to move your seaplane down to the water's surface:

1. Start your seaplane on an airport not too far from water.

2. Press Y to enter slew mode

3. Press Q to raise your plane off the runway, press 5 on the number pad to freeze the movement when you have enough height

4. Use number pad 8, 4, 6 & 2 (arrowed) to move over water. Key 5 freezes the movement.

5. Press key A to lower your plane onto the water then release slew mode with Y key.

For a full list of Slew commands, see the "Keyboard Assignments" page of the Kneeboard (press SHIFT+F10 to display).

Save your flight