Today I was lucky enough to be a B787 Captain for a day! Well really just for about two hours anyway. The fine folks over at the United Airlines training department were nice enough to let me come over and have a little fun in their sim 787 today. It was nothing short of completely AWESOME! I had never been in a full blown Level D sim before, and it is amazing how real everything is. The full motion is incredible and you feel every single bump, even when taxiing, plus the scenery is taken from Google Maps so it is spot on. I was like a kid in a candy store. Without a doubt, one of the cooler things I have gotten to do.

Also, United is going to donate some 787 sim time for one of our raffle or silent auction items at the fly-in myself and four other controllers are putting on in September. So you could get to do it too!

Stewart what'd you think of the HUD?

Did you try any hand flown approaches with the HUD?

You'll have to tell the Continental training guys that you're available as a "seat filler" if they ever need one.

Can't bring myself to call it united and kinda glad I retired before all that got started . . .

The HUD is pretty slick! It sort of plays with your eyes a little bit, but I guess that is because I am not accustomed to it. Definitely really nice as opposed to looking down on approach.

I hand flew all of the approaches except for one auto-land, which made what I thought was "OK" look like crap. It was good to see different scenarios where controllers can really make life difficult on the pilots (hard to believe I know ). For example, when you guys are on downwind abeam runway 27 at 6,000 ft and 250 knots and you get pushed down to 2,000 with a "good rate down" for a close in visual approach. You hear about the difficulty to "slow down and go down at the same time" so it was good to see first hand how difficult that truly is. The entire thing was a ton of fun and I will absolutely be letting them know that I will be a seat filler! Thanks for the tip!

I got to spend 3 - 4 hours in the 737 sim at Love Field some years back. Next to soloing it was probably the coolest thing i have done in 35 years of GA. If anyone gets the chance take it. Lots of fun

Good morning Burns...

Not Stewart but a couple of us WWW (weekend warrior wannabe) bonanza pilots got an afternoon in one of the $$$ sims recently.
I've also gotten to fly a couple of the other big jet sims in the past..

It's a HOOT!... a blast!!

Concerning the HUD... the instructor "froze" the motion and gave us a few minutes to get the feel for the "trend" indicators and learn how much throttle/ control input was needed.. The lead/lag of the jet engines and mass of the boeing flies a little differently from our beeches.

Then both of us were able to successfully complete to landing a hand flown Cat III approach on our very first attempt.

The HUD was pretty amazing and easy..
what do they say... "like shooting fish in a barrel"...
of course that's in a sim... no metal can be bent....

Now why do you guys get paid the big bucks???
ADM and shooting those for real...

Leldon

The HUD in the sim is a little different in that in the airplane it focuses on infinity whereas in the sim it has to focus on a reflector screen 18 - 24 inches in front of it. That makes it a little easier to live with in the airplane. It's amazing what it'll do for Windshear Recovery, Terrain Avoidance to Traffic Resolution Advisories. You never take your eyes off the front windscreen. And for handflown approaches it really is a game changer.

I would think GARMIN/Honeywell/Bendix King could just take the feed from our SVT and transfer it to a combiner screen and give us the HUD in a Beech, preferably a V-Tail and give us the same capability. If someone wanted to take a try at it, I know where they could get a "demo" airplane.

Maybe we can get Trek to plant the idea at the big G. I suspect it'd have more usability than the IR cameras that are coming out.