Yep that's right, I flew an Airbus A-320... sort of. My friend is a first officer at Virgin America, and he snuck me in to their training facility to try my hand at their full level-D training simulator. Wow. I thought my home simulator was cool... I got a few pics but they don't do it justice, insanely realistic.. a perfect cockpit replica, full motion and intense visuals. I managed to land a Cat1 ILS to minimums, and it was actually a piece of cake. The Airbus is so automated. Even in hand flying mode, you basically just guide it to what it wants to do. It's so automated it follows the program, you set the speed and it sets the throttles, you set the fix and the altitude in the FMS and it handles the rest. Fly by wire.

The visuals were intense and the whole experience was basically indistinguishable from flying the real plane. In fact, my friend said his first flight in the real plane was with a full load of passengers. Nice.







[youtube]http://youtu.be/scwmy-9BASM[/youtube]

That's Cool, sounds like a great friend!

Did it call you, "Retard"?

The French can be so rude.

That is a great experience. I have a friend who is a check airman and simulator DPE with American for 757, 767, 787, and he said the FAA did not allow non employees to see the simulator (after 911).

I flew the 777 at United (Houston) a 2.5 years ago. It was one of the FAA Fast programs. It was a group of us and we all got about five minutes in the sim. You had to be cleared into the building and they followed you if you went to the bathroom. Very tight security even in the building. The security bit seemed like a bunch of overkill to me.

Kevin

It sure did!

Adam,

That panel looks just like the one in your Baron.

I have gotten a couple of sim rides on another airline's machines, concurrent with sim rides being administered for interns. Security was not an issue, although I was being hosted by a senior check airman. Perhaps that made the difference?

Good fun, and I was able to establish that a 737 flies like big ol' heavy airplane.

Adam,

The standing joke on the Airbus fleet at my old airline was the second ''Retard" call was for the PF ..... 5500 hrs on the Bus. Somedays I miss the sidestick, tray tables and weird Airboose Logique!.

Regards,
Nigel

This guy lives like royalty!!!

Once upon a time I was allowed to fly a full motion Thales 737-800 sim.

The electronic trim and auto throttles were pretty amazing at the time.

So awesome

Even if it's not a Boeing

The goal of Airbus is to make the real airplane fly as much like the sim as possible.

Mike C.