LancairTalk

On Monday my friend Eric invited me to join him in the Boeing 767 full-motion simulator for an hour that won
in a charity auction. We were a bit behind our goal of arriving 15 minutes early but our host greeted us at the
entrance and gave us an introduction to the building and showed us around a bit on the way to the simulator.

These are the high end, full-motion, full 180-degree visuals simulators. Apparently the new ones for the 787 is going
to have more tha 180-degree visuals so you can even look backwards a bit. We got into the simulators, sat in the front seats
and saw that we were parked at KSEA gate N10. He gave us a quick briefing of the various displays- the PFD, MFD, auto-pilot controls
(hmmm, sounds familiar) and started our push-back. Steering was quite a bit different since you use a little turn-handle on your left
rather than foot-steering, but after a few lurches we managed to taxi all the way down to runway 16R. Flaps 5, throttles to about 60%, press
the N1 button for auto-throttle. We are pressed back in our seats a bit, the speed tape scrolls up pass 140kts, rotate slowly and then
all the way up to 15 degrees and we are air-born. Wow.

After a somewhat disorienting reset we are now suddenly on long final for 16R and flying a landing. We each flew a couple of landings
which were surprisingly easy. The auto-throttle takes care of most power settings, you just maintain glide slope, about a 2.5 degree nose-up
attitude, and listen to the call-outs from the radio altimeter. At about 100 feet you pull back the power a tiny bit, at 50 you flare-slightly
(just 2 degrees more up) and on touch-down you slowly lower the nose and pull up on the thrust-reversers which are these extra
knobs on the top of the throttle.

None of our landings were even close to botched so that answers the old question “could a couple of GA pilots safely get one of these
things on the ground in an emergency”. My first landing was a bit too soft- our instructor said that you are supposed to put the mains
down solidly to reduce ground-roll, avoid skidding, etc.

We then switched to SFO where Eric took off, and we did a few wacky manuvers that you could never do for real but in the simulator
its all just computer graphics. We flew under the Golden Gate Bridge and then did a series of barrel rolls. Finally we did a few more
landings and I convinced our instructor to give me an ILS at minimums which again went just fine (although spotting the approach lights at
DH was difficult and the transition to visual was a bit wobbly, but that is realistic too).

All in all, an amazing experience- I’d highly recommend it for anyone if you get the opportunity. My log book now
lists 1.0 hours of time and 3 landings in a 767-400. Our host at Boeing was great and
its a really amazing thing that they donate tons of these simulator experiences to various charities for fund-raising. I wish I had
better pictures but I only had my camera-phone and I had the settings wrong so I only got a little tiny image.

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