A slightly different flight

Slightly OT but hopefully some of you will find this trip interesting. I was lucky enough to receive an hour in the BA 747 full motion simulator at their flight training school. I have done it once before when they were based in Cranebank but the new facility is simply amazing.

On arrival at Vanguard House we were issued two security passes and tried to find our way to the simulators. With not much help from security we ended up on floor 1 of TBC. This was not only the wrong floor but the wrong building. Trainee cabin crew everywhere and quite a lot of cabin mockups:



We finally tracked down my instructor, an ex-BA 747 Captain, and we went into the simulator ‘room’. It’s huge. All together there are 16 full motion and 2 fixed based. Out of the 16, 4 were the B747 and the rest were made up of: B767, B777, B787, A320 and the A380. Quite an impressive view. One of B787 sims belongs to VS and they even have their own instructor room there with the BA logo in the corner; looked a tad strange!



This was my particular toy for 90 minutes:



If you have any interest in aviation I highly recommend. It really is so much fun and realistic. I spent my time mainly concentrating on my landings as I wanted to perfect my flare. Here’s a little video of us in action. This is my sidestep landing at Heathrow.

https://youtu.be/kIquJ1s8-D8

This is something I personally find really interesting so if you can DM any relevant info I'd be grateful

It's open to the public so if you'd like to have a go:

http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/baf ... experience

Both my experiences were presents from my better half. It's become my 'go to' as I can be a pain to buy for. She once investigated how to purchase VS UNIQ

For those reading who'd prefer to try out a trip down an emergency slide:

http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/baf ... -nocourses

I've not done the latter but might give it a go when it's back up and running!

If you have any specific questions, feel free to DM me.

something I would love to do, but could never justify the price (especially factoring in travel/hotel cost) - would rather try my hand at a real small aircraft.

Looks like fun

That loks like real fun! Though is it not more fun to put the 'plane into a roll or some other unwise manoeuvre?

I spent a day in Crawley with Virgin as part of an aromedical course (a few years ago). We had a fab time in simulations with Virgin training staff: evacuating in a cabin full of smoke, putting out galley fires, CPR in the aisles, emergency evacuations jumping down the escape shutes and converting them into life rafts. Also went to LGW for a tour around a 747. Loved it.

Sadly i no longer do aeromedical work as there is no demand for it in rural Devon