Bugalugz
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- Oct 29, 2006
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Hi Guys,
Way back last year (geez thinking bout it now it's a long time ago) I found the British Airways Training Centre (EBAFT) did a 'Flight Simulator Experience" I have never tried the fix based simulators as I don't think it's the real thing so a lot of money for not much gain.
Unfortunately they only do bookings a couple months in advance but on the day the slots were released for October I got an email and organised an 'experience' The only Simulator available throughout October was the 757 with one day (which didn't suit anyways) the 747.
So the 757 it was, I was kinda disappointed as would have loved the 767 or 737 but 757/767 same coughpit anyways but excited and grateful to be able to have booked it and know I was going to get my chance at a full motion sim. It's not cheap either at £399 but luckily Google did good and found me a discount code which got it down to around the £300 mark.
So 6 weeks out the date with a 757 was set!
Now for the story!
So after a few days of driving around Scotland and tasting excessive amounts of liquid gold in the Highlands it was time to drive to Aberdeen and spend a night there prior to heading to London. Our main reason for choosing Aberdeen was because at the time we booked every other Scottish airport with British Airways to Heathrow was charging £150 more and it was only about £60 to fly Aberdeen to Heathrow so we chose that option.
After visiting Aberdeen and experience all it's "offerings" which isn't a lot lol Though had a nice shopping centre with a good cinema and huge selection of restaurants it was time to head to London, this was a happy but sad moment. Having traveled around Europe for the last 6 weeks and experiencing some great things and falling in love with Scotland (by far the friendliest place I have ever been)
The day started bad, early wake up and an early flight. Dropped the rental car off which had damage when I picked it up in Edinburgh and that was all noted and supposed to have been sent to Aberdeen which never happened and after almost an hr of arguing I was right and free to go!
Walk into the terminal to organsied chaos with all the flights to the London airports showing the dreaded "Cancelled" or "Delayed" At the time there were quite a large amount of words coming out of my mouth that I won't repeat here!
I seen our 9.30 flight had been rescheduled to 1130 for a 1300 arrival which still gave me enough time to get to the training centre between 1430 and 1500. So as we were both Gold on QF we headed to the lounge to relax for what was to be 3 odd hours. Well at 1100 the dreaded announcement came........our flight had been delayed indefinitely due to weather in Heathrow at this stage I was pissed but it was totally out of my control so I just had to grit my teeth and carry on. After a few calls to EBAFT explaining my situation I had calmed down a bit.
Anyways at around 1230 we got told they would be boarding the aircraft at 1300 but the catch was we weren't going anywhere!! We were just preparing so we would be ready to go when we were able. So after a further 1hr30m on the bloody plane it started to snow, it was at this point that the Captain said De Icing equipment wasn't available and we were going! So we rapidly escaped to the runway and took off with no hope at this stage of actually landing anywhere.
But the good news once we had been flying for an hr was that we would be landing and we were starting the decent into Heathrow. We arrived into London just around 1545 well after my simulator experience was meant to start.
After a few calls to the lovely Melanie from EBAFT the instructor had come in late due to me advising of the situation and was doing the experience after me and then mine would be conducted later on. So I was very grateful for this news.
We jumped into a cab, gave the address and away we went putting trust you can only place in a London taxi driver as we had no clue where the hell we were going, but after a 10 min ride we were there and getting visitor passes and heading to the Training building.
We had to wait around a bit but it was good to relax and chill out after a stressful day, the instructor had finished with the other client and it was finally my turn! There was a half hr briefing on how the aircraft flys and basic controls and coughpit layout etc by this time it was about 6pm.
Well there she was, an amazing sight. It's freaking amazing to see these in operation next to each other. It was time to "board" I was like a little kid in a candy store, smile from ear to ear and bouncing around with excitement. No cameras were allowed but phones were allowed with airplane mode lol so managed to snap some iPhone pics. Luckily I had my mate who rode in the jump seat so he was snapping and videoing away.
The instructor was excellent I can't for the life of me remember his name at the moment, no doubt it will come to me as I hit submit! But he was a career pilot and did many many years in a 747 and was involved in an incident that he said proved just how strong and resilient the 747 was while flying above America and he was a stern Boeing man. He did this as a hobby post retirement to keep his hand in and just enjoyed it, so because he was enjoying it I was too, he was very patient, calm and easy going and let me have a play!
The only downside with the 757 is it's an 80's/90's Simulator with the graphics to go with it but as the instructor said it's not the graphics you came to see it's flying the plane and he was dead right, i barely had time to look out the window anyways!
We just did laps around London and a couple of take offs and landings. But its amazing to control the aircraft and just how responsive it really is. Generally just played, did some max bank angles, full thrust stuff. It's amazing how real the simulator makes everything feel from a hard landing to the runway lights down the centre of the runway.
As you can see I wasn't always on the centreline
I have some vidoes of the experience as well and I actually had a semi decent landing by hand with a bit of wind and everything and still managed to get it on the centreline and no get too far off the glide slope, so was pretty happy with myself. After an hr of flying around it was time to jump off and head into London and check into the Hotel. By the time that happened it was about 2130, so it had been a long stressful but rewarding day! It was really my own fault for booking flights on that day and travelling but it was just the way the dates lined up and couldnt get to London any earlier and no sim slots until I left 8 days later.
The instructor was excellent, even dropped us off at the Tube Station to head into London so was very thankful for that too.
It's hard to put into words but it's an amazing experience. I always had wanted to be a Pilot but the cost was always just to prohibitive so ended up driving trains for a living so it's opposite but anyways! So I was grateful I had the means and opportunity to do this and would do it again in a heartbeat.
It was a great launch pad to an AWESOME week in London and to top it off the First Class upgrades came though from J so it rounded off an excellent week and a bit in London.
Way back last year (geez thinking bout it now it's a long time ago) I found the British Airways Training Centre (EBAFT) did a 'Flight Simulator Experience" I have never tried the fix based simulators as I don't think it's the real thing so a lot of money for not much gain.
Unfortunately they only do bookings a couple months in advance but on the day the slots were released for October I got an email and organised an 'experience' The only Simulator available throughout October was the 757 with one day (which didn't suit anyways) the 747.
So the 757 it was, I was kinda disappointed as would have loved the 767 or 737 but 757/767 same coughpit anyways but excited and grateful to be able to have booked it and know I was going to get my chance at a full motion sim. It's not cheap either at £399 but luckily Google did good and found me a discount code which got it down to around the £300 mark.
So 6 weeks out the date with a 757 was set!
Now for the story!
So after a few days of driving around Scotland and tasting excessive amounts of liquid gold in the Highlands it was time to drive to Aberdeen and spend a night there prior to heading to London. Our main reason for choosing Aberdeen was because at the time we booked every other Scottish airport with British Airways to Heathrow was charging £150 more and it was only about £60 to fly Aberdeen to Heathrow so we chose that option.
After visiting Aberdeen and experience all it's "offerings" which isn't a lot lol Though had a nice shopping centre with a good cinema and huge selection of restaurants it was time to head to London, this was a happy but sad moment. Having traveled around Europe for the last 6 weeks and experiencing some great things and falling in love with Scotland (by far the friendliest place I have ever been)
The day started bad, early wake up and an early flight. Dropped the rental car off which had damage when I picked it up in Edinburgh and that was all noted and supposed to have been sent to Aberdeen which never happened and after almost an hr of arguing I was right and free to go!
Walk into the terminal to organsied chaos with all the flights to the London airports showing the dreaded "Cancelled" or "Delayed" At the time there were quite a large amount of words coming out of my mouth that I won't repeat here!
I seen our 9.30 flight had been rescheduled to 1130 for a 1300 arrival which still gave me enough time to get to the training centre between 1430 and 1500. So as we were both Gold on QF we headed to the lounge to relax for what was to be 3 odd hours. Well at 1100 the dreaded announcement came........our flight had been delayed indefinitely due to weather in Heathrow at this stage I was pissed but it was totally out of my control so I just had to grit my teeth and carry on. After a few calls to EBAFT explaining my situation I had calmed down a bit.
Anyways at around 1230 we got told they would be boarding the aircraft at 1300 but the catch was we weren't going anywhere!! We were just preparing so we would be ready to go when we were able. So after a further 1hr30m on the bloody plane it started to snow, it was at this point that the Captain said De Icing equipment wasn't available and we were going! So we rapidly escaped to the runway and took off with no hope at this stage of actually landing anywhere.
But the good news once we had been flying for an hr was that we would be landing and we were starting the decent into Heathrow. We arrived into London just around 1545 well after my simulator experience was meant to start.
After a few calls to the lovely Melanie from EBAFT the instructor had come in late due to me advising of the situation and was doing the experience after me and then mine would be conducted later on. So I was very grateful for this news.
We jumped into a cab, gave the address and away we went putting trust you can only place in a London taxi driver as we had no clue where the hell we were going, but after a 10 min ride we were there and getting visitor passes and heading to the Training building.
We had to wait around a bit but it was good to relax and chill out after a stressful day, the instructor had finished with the other client and it was finally my turn! There was a half hr briefing on how the aircraft flys and basic controls and coughpit layout etc by this time it was about 6pm.
Well there she was, an amazing sight. It's freaking amazing to see these in operation next to each other. It was time to "board"
I was like a little kid in a candy store, smile from ear to ear and bouncing around with excitement. No cameras were allowed but phones were allowed with airplane mode lol so managed to snap some iPhone pics. Luckily I had my mate who rode in the jump seat so he was snapping and videoing away.The instructor was excellent I can't for the life of me remember his name at the moment, no doubt it will come to me as I hit submit! But he was a career pilot and did many many years in a 747 and was involved in an incident that he said proved just how strong and resilient the 747 was while flying above America and he was a stern Boeing man. He did this as a hobby post retirement to keep his hand in and just enjoyed it, so because he was enjoying it I was too, he was very patient, calm and easy going and let me have a play!
The only downside with the 757 is it's an 80's/90's Simulator with the graphics to go with it but as the instructor said it's not the graphics you came to see it's flying the plane and he was dead right, i barely had time to look out the window anyways!
We just did laps around London and a couple of take offs and landings. But its amazing to control the aircraft and just how responsive it really is. Generally just played, did some max bank angles, full thrust stuff. It's amazing how real the simulator makes everything feel from a hard landing to the runway lights down the centre of the runway.
As you can see I wasn't always on the centreline
I have some vidoes of the experience as well and I actually had a semi decent landing by hand with a bit of wind and everything and still managed to get it on the centreline and no get too far off the glide slope, so was pretty happy with myself. After an hr of flying around it was time to jump off and head into London and check into the Hotel. By the time that happened it was about 2130, so it had been a long stressful but rewarding day! It was really my own fault for booking flights on that day and travelling but it was just the way the dates lined up and couldnt get to London any earlier and no sim slots until I left 8 days later.
The instructor was excellent, even dropped us off at the Tube Station to head into London so was very thankful for that too.
It's hard to put into words but it's an amazing experience. I always had wanted to be a Pilot but the cost was always just to prohibitive so ended up driving trains for a living so it's opposite but anyways! So I was grateful I had the means and opportunity to do this and would do it again in a heartbeat.
It was a great launch pad to an AWESOME week in London and to top it off the First Class upgrades came though from J so it rounded off an excellent week and a bit in London.
