For those of you that have not flown with me, count yourself fortunate because I am petrified of flying. Many of you that have flown with me know, "meltdown/panic attack" pretty much sums it up. So when United offered Pat and I an opportunity to actually spend 2 hours in an Airbus A320 flight simulator and have a flying lessons with a United pilot I was really excited to finally learn about what really is going on behind those closed doors.
Our pilot, John, a former naval fighter pilot, has flown for United for almost twenty years. He was extremely nice and was very curious as to how we got this amazing opportunity from United. Apparently after 9-11, the only people who are allowed to train in the simulators are licensed commercial pilots or pilots training through United. The simulators are used so pilots learn how to handle any situation that could possibly happen in the air. The simulators are so realistic it is hard to describe, but here goes.......
As we strapped in and prepared for takeoff, our instructor John hit and clicked about 20+ buttons in the simulator and explained to us the "cliff notes" version of what he was doing. Since neither of us were actually training to be pilots, he got to skip past a lot of things that would have made no sense to us anyway. Then he turned on the engines, did something to the flaps, took the emergency brake off, plugged in our flight plan and explained the checklist. He decided to use a tug to push us out on to the runway so that we could taxi for awhile and then takeoff. It was so unbelievable how much it felt like we were actually flying a plane, while we were taxing down the runway I had to keep reminding myself that I was just in a simulator. The cockpit is an exact replica and when the simulator is activated everything you see on the screen is exactly how it would look if you were actually flying. The only way I can describe this is, imagine the most amazing graphics you have seen in a video game, well now imagine that times 10. It looked so real, every detail of the sim cities spot on.
So I decided, as Captain (LOL) that it would be best if my Co-Pilot, Pat would take off first. Pat selected San Francisco as the city that he would like to take off from and fly around. As Pat got up to 120 on the runway and John told him to begin to pull up the nose, I began to feel my hands begin to shake, it felt exactly like a takeoff and had all those great noises to go along with it. Then just moments after takeoff John began doing all kinds of things on the control panels. As he would push a button I would hear a noise that I recognize from flying, so I began to ask him what all of the noises you hear in the back of the plane are. He demonstrated everything you do after take off and explained everything to me as he did it. It was such a surprisingly comforting thing to learn about what I feared. As we got up in the air, we began to fly around the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island, then we flew out over the ocean for a bit before heading back in so Pat could attempt his first landing. Although most pilots are really focused on paying attention to the radio and all the monitors and gages, Pat and I were basically on a digital vacation. After Pat landed it was my turn.
I selected Denver to fly around because I wanted to see the things from the air that I recognize. Although my taxing was not that great, I do have to say I had quite a takeoff :). As I flew around Denver and Golden, Pat and I found all of things we wanted to see from the air, the stadium, Coors Field, Downtown, Red Rocks and some of the well known mountains in Colorado.
Just to make the flight feel 100% realistic the pilot adjusted the setting to the normal turbulence we feel when taking off and heading over the mountains YIKES, it got a bit bumpy at times. Being the AMAZING Pilot that I am I just flew right through it, only needing help from the pilot a couple of times. I brought the plane in for a very steady "touch and go" landing and then handing the controls over to Pat again. We flew around for a bit more and then decided we were ready to land (we both started getting a bit queasy). It was truly one of the neatest things I have ever done.
