that is a simulator of a boeing 767-300er.
oh yes it is.
i am going to try to do justice to last night’s experience in this post, but i don’t know if i will capture it. last night around 11:30, megan, her dad and i met at the red roof inn on virginia ave and headed over to delta flight ops, where we met up with one of his neighbors who also happens to be a 767 flight instructor.
to appreciate what a treat this was for us, you have to understand just how much all three of us love everything that has to do with flying and planes.
he had arranged for us to spend a good two hours inside the 767-400 flight sim.
it’s pretty incredible when you walk in there. the room is long and two stories tall. the sims sit on big hydraulic levers about 6 feet off the ground. across from the sims are briefing rooms where they do instruction. in the room we were in there were four of them lined up. three 67’s and a 777. the machines are incredible. as we walked in, someone was training in the 777 and it was bouncing all over the place; tilting, banking, etc.
our pilot walked us across the bridge into the sim and there we were. he shut the door and we were inside an perfect replica of a 767 cockpit. (take a look at this pic of the flight deck. apologize for the grainy pictures but i didn’t think i would be able to take them so i didn’t bring my camera.) he shut the door, directed megan to the pilot’s chair and me to the first officers chair.
after a punch of a few buttons, and animated screen of hartsfield popped up and we were at the gate.
megan got to go first and she used the pedals to taxi us to the flight line. it’s hard to convey just how real it felt in there. the screens are so goo and the hydarulics so perfect that the sense of motion is perfect. it feels just like being in a real plane.
after getting to the flight line, megan got to take off and the fly around over atlanta for awhile. our instructor then showed us how the plane lands on autopilot. and, my friends (sorry johnny mac) it felt just like landing a place, right down to the bump. then we learned how to land the plane using the flight director, which basically amounted to turning off the auto-pilot and landing using the stick and yoke.
megan went first and she landed pretty good but got scared and pulled back on the yoke and up we went again. i know you are thinking, ‘got scared? you are in a sim,’ but it so feels real that your heart starts beating faster. megan landed again and then it was my turn.
it was the most exhilarating thing i have ever done. i’ll admit that anyone flying with me would have gotten sick and i was weaving all over the place trying to get the plane it line. you look on this flight director at the cross-hairs and end up overcompensating and then having to turn again. i got it down though, and then did exactly what megan did; right back into the air.
and again, i cannot stress this enough, it feels so real that it really felt like we were going back up.
i tried again and this time kept it down. and then i had to steer us down the runway. wow. that was crazy. we were weaving all over the place but i finally got us stopped at the end of the runway. then i got to take off. actually take off is pretty easy compared with landing.
then megan’s dad got to fly. we were instantly transported to san diego where he took us off over the pacific. serisoulsy, with the push of one button were were in san diego. and then we flew to la and landed several times at lax.
megan’s dad was a riot. he used to own and fly a plane so he seriously thought he was chuck yeager up there. whereas megan and i were just amazed and bewildered by the whole thing, her dad was super-serious. he was checking meters and looking over instruments and all in all acting like he was just right at home in a 767. which of course he wasn’t. but it sure was fun to watch. i think megan and i got almost (not quite, but almost) as much enjoyment out of watching him as we did flying ourselves.
when we finally walked out of the simulator a few hours later i really felt like i had been in a plane for hours. i’m totally not doing this justice, but i have to say that it absolutely was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.
all of that though, i won’t be in a 767 anytime soon flying. it’s hard and complicated. duh.
UPDATE – one other thing i forgot to mention. when our instructor took over flying he also gave us two examples of malfunctions, showing us what it looks like if you lose and engine on take-off and also giving us a wind shear experience on landing. both were pretty spooky but it did feel good knowing that there is a well-established routine to deal with it.
An amazing experience is right! Can anyone try this out?
Wait til the TSA hears about this.
….if at any point I’m on a commercial jet with any of you readers and the pilot chooses the fish for dinner and gets sick, please feel confident that I can land the jet now. No problem. Easy as pie.
White people thing #502….flight simulation.
[...] heard in a very long while, however, was recently posted over at my friend James’ blog at the arc of time. I won’t spoil the story, but it involves flying big jets (sort of). Go check it [...]