For those frequent flyers who miss the upper deck of the Boeing 747-400, fear not. In a place called Tattenhall in Cheshire in the UK, you can enjoy being a pilot in a simulator experience, as well as visiting upstairs in all its glory.
Tattenhall is located near Chester, which is a relatively short distance away from Liverpool and Manchester. The 744 Experience is in the countryside, on a farm, in a barn.
The Simulator Experience
British Airways retired all of their Boeing 747-400s during the pandemic. One of their frequent flyers decided to rescue an upper deck and cockpit from the aircraft. As it turned out, they had to source each piece from a separate aircraft in order to have the best quality.
Below is a video running for a little over an hour, which outlines everything about this. A huge amount of work was undertaken to get the cockpit set up for use.
These days, everything on the flight deck is working and you can fly the aircraft on your visit. As it’s a real Boeing 747-400 cockpit, the simulator experience is very realistic, even if it does not move.
Those visiting the upper deck will find British Airways second generation Club World seats. All of them are in full working order, so you can try them out.
Overall Thoughts
It is very cool to see these pieces of the Boeing 747 looking like they did back when they were in service. From the story, it seems it was just a random set of circumstances that led to all of this being put into place.
Pricing seems to be £279 for a 90 minute flight or £379 for a 150 minute flight, which is reasonable when compared to similar simulator experiences I have seen. To be quite honest, it would be a fun afternoon out and all the details are on the 744 Experience website here.
What do you think of this simulator experience? Have you been or would you want to go? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by Olga Ernst via Wikimedia Commons.
