Boeing, Boeing | The Gadget Grill

Hands up if you’ve ever wanted to fly a plane.

Me too.

In fact, I have. Many years ago, when I was living in Dallas, I took the controls of a Cessna 172 and flew it around the skies of east Dallas. Relax, Dallas is safe again, but it was a very enjoyable experience.

Apart from that, I’ve enjoyed many hours at the controls of software such as Microsoft’s Flight Simulator, but I’ve never found it to be fully engaging, and I’ve never been able to manage to land any simulated aircraft.

With that in mind, I ventured down to Darling Harbour in Sydney this week, to have a play in the simulator at Flight Experience.

The simulator is a very comprehensive piece of kit. It’s a full size replica of the flight deck of a Boeing 737, complete with instrumentation, controls … everything. Except motion. It’s absence surprised me, but to be perfectly honest, I was even more surprised that I didn’t actually miss it, once under way. I think that the only time that I noticed that there wasn’t any motion was as we landed; it was simply way too smooth. Especially given the skills (or lack thereof) of the Pilot On Charge. Yeah, me!

The reason the absence of motion doesn’t provide a detriment is because, beyond the windscreen is a full wrap around video display, showing you where you are.

Which, in my case, was the new Hong Kong international airport. My mission for the day was to fly from the new HKG airport to the old one, perform a touch and go, circle back around, and then land the aircraft, again at the old Hong Kong airport.

With my lack of expertise, guidance was to be given to me by my co-pilot, Nikunj. In reality, Nikunj is a fully licensed commercial pilot and flight trainer, and having that sort of expertise on hand adds to the authenticity of the experience. In reality, the quality of the simulation here is such that it actually allows pilots to maintain some aspects of their ongoing license requirements.

After a pre-flight briefing, I was taken into the cockpit and was given an introduction into the major controls: their purpose, and their operation.

Flight Experience Gary Stark

And then it was wheels up: steering with the foot controlled rudders while on the ground remains a challenge for me, but no, we didn’t collect any other aircraft while taxiing or accelerating and lifting off.

Retract the landing gear, lower the nose back to about 3 degrees, and then navigate to the old airport: over the headland, follow the strobes and markers, and then prepare for landing. Set the airspeed, flaps, landing gear, touchdown, accelerate, and do it all again.

What a blast!

If you’re looking for that unusual gift for someone, this would have to be a contender. You can take a couple of passengers with you as well, and after the flight, a DVD of the flight is available.

Flight Experience is available in Sydney at Darling Harbour, and in Brisbane, Melbourne and West Australia as well.