Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms A very different experience...

Brilliant experience Brian.....I'm envious! On my tick list to do at some stage.

Brian greetings from the Austrian Mogs. Genie still talks about her induction last year into the navigators circle at the end-of-season party. But what a great adventure and you have definitely got it i.e. the modern pilot is not a bus driver, although I hear the pay is starting to head that way.

Read a poem "High Flight" by John Magee...

For me it says everything about flying. Glider, Chipmunk, Concorde or 777, it matters not. Flying is flying.

Brian

That's my day job!

Over the last 4 decades you can't imagine how things have changed.

Once bitten - I agree with you.

When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

I guess Icarus soon lost the urge .

Sounds great. I have been lucky enough to do something similar with Singapore Airlines as part of a team building (you can rent theirs, albeit a 737) and we each got to fly from SIN to KUL which was great fun.

QANATS offered me a chance to spend half a day in their 767 simulator in SYD but sadly I could not attend that.

I'm envious!

Some years ago my company had a contract to provide power system equipment at Cranebank where there BA had simulators.

I visited the site number of times and always came away with the opinion that they always seemed spectacular and realistic inside the cockpit but the strangest thing was the sight, from the outside, of them jogging about.

And that took a lot of power.


Also, I flew gliders for about 9 years in my younger days and I agree, flying is flying. Whatever you are in, on a landing approach you can only think of one thing no matter what is going on in the rest of your life.

I took my son for a experience in a 737 simulator and he flew it very well around LAX.

I love flying and it fits in very well my love of sailing. My son is less keen in the real thing but hopefully one day. Lately my wife has become quite hooked. She loves birds so I think it gives her the feeling she imagines in her feathered friends. Here's my Remos.

Jack,

Gliding is the real deal..I got an A&B Licence with the ATC and then joined the Midland at the Long Mynnd where I was working on getting my C.

A bungee launch off the hill is an experience never forgotten and as you say, landing does focus the mind. Power pilots tend to overlook the fact that unlike them once a glider has turned onto the circuit there is no way back, you are going to land. There is no power lever to push if you want to go round.

I gave up gliding when we bought a house... It is a period I look back on with great fondness. Gliding in the 70s was essentially unregulated, unlike today.

Thanks Guys for the various comments, it really was a super experience. I forgot to mention how good the graphics were, when we were taking off in Heathrow we could see the the lines of traffic on the periphery road round the airport. My friend says that they are even better on the 787 so they must be something else!

Luckily we had no crashes, despite my poor 'flying', which was good as apparently the engineers looking after the simulators get very upset if you do crash it. I There is an interesting story about this, but as it is a public forum maybe I should demur!

Maybe Milligoon can come up with some escapades in the simulators...