It wouldn't surprise me if a bunch of the work was contributed by engineers using 20% time (no, it's not dead) who wanted to make the April Fool's hack happen.

It wouldn't surprise me if a bunch of the work was contributed by engineers using 20% time (no, it's not dead) who wanted to make the April Fool's hack happen. I've seen Cambridge Googlers (from the ITA acquisition) come in over the weekend playing with an RC helicopter to get some video footage of the old ITA building and the old ITA logo before they moved into their new digs in the expanded Google campus in Kendall Square. And they did it just for fun! (BTW, trying to keep a RC helicopter steady in the face of winds near things like cliffs or buildings is not so easy....) I'm sure Google provided support in some fashion, but very often in terms of engineering effort, these sorts of thing are 100% done by passionate Googlers using 20% time. Often, people who want to make things like this happen will recruit people outside of their immediate product area, who have special expertise that might be needed. There are definitely people at Google with private pilot's licenses, and almost certainly Googlers who can fly (real) helicopters.... One of the really neat things about working for Google is getting to hang out with people who are way smarter than you, and who often have all sorts of interesting skills and talents you don't have --- yet. :-)