Sitting at the front of the plane, for a change!

After all these years of sitting at the back of the bus, I finally got to be the bus driver. 

For my birthday some months ago, S gave me an afternoon in a Boeing 737 flight simulator at the YVR Air Canada training centre.  Now that all the eye surgery is done and I can see again (thanks to great US and Canadian health care!) it was time to strap myself in to the cockpit.  Had lots of fun.  Bells, alarms, audible warnings (Terrain, terrain - repeated several times as I came too close to the mountains, or the ground), the sounds of the jet engines at full thrust, landing gear retracting and all the associated motions of take off, turbulance and landing. 

Absolutely overwhelming as the instructor sat in the co-pilot seat telling me what to do.  So much to pay attention to  After the first hour I was exhausted.  Take off was easy, landing wasn't.  I also learned that banking too far leads evenetually to rolling over, losing altitude quickly, confusion, panic and augering in to the ground at several hundred miles an hour.  Oops.  Forgot to hit the chime button telling the passengers and cabin crew to fasten their seatbelts.

There are several different Boeing and Airbus simulators there.  Toured them all.  Some are $23 million to buy.  The middle picture above is the simulator we were in.  Notice all the hydraulics below it to provide full movement.  We were doing night flying, so could see all the airport runway lights on take off and landing.  On my final take off, the instructor programmed in an engine failure to spice things up a little.  Great day, and wonderful to walk away from the crashes.