Opportunities to fly a plane for a non-pilot are few and far between. A flight simulator is not generally open to the public, mainly as they are usually kept busy training actual pilots. British Airways used to offer this to people but not anymore.
Those interested in aviation have an opportunity to fly a Boeing 737-800 simulator in Dublin. I actually found about this through a targeted Facebook ad of all things, which surprises me as they’re usually so useless at recommending me anything I care about!
The Boeing 737 Simulator
UPiLOT Flight Simulator Centre just north of Dublin Airport in Swords are a specialist provider of courses for professional pilots. Since the simulator is a Boeing 737-800, I am guessing Ryanair pilots probably use the facility.
One thing you should know up front is that this is a fixed base sim. That means it does not move about, but in every other respect it is exactly like the real thing.
Prices are pretty decent too, and they do gift cards, which will come in handy for things like Fathers Day or Mothers Day, I imagine. The flights begin at €149 for 60 minutes, €199 for 90 minutes, €249 for 120 minutes and €449 for 240 minutes. Pretty good, eh?
Overall Thoughts
With over 24,000 airports to choose from, you can fly from or to pretty much anywhere. Considering the high fidelity of modern flight simulator visual systems, it will be very much like actual flying. For all the information about it, you can go to the UPiLOT website here.
Have you done one of these types of experiences before? What was it like? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by John Christian Fjellestad on Flickr via Wikimedia Commons.
S7 Airlines Boeing 737-800 cockpit by Alex Beltyukov on Airliners.net via Wikimedia Commons.
I’ve had the chance to fly the simulator at the Excel Tokyu hotel at Haneda airport. It was 33,000jpy for 90min, so a little more expensive than the one in Dublin, but I thought it was a great experience where the instructor ran you through preparation, taxi, takeoff, flight from Haneda-Itami both manually and autopilot, then land. They also let me do a few standalone takeoffs/landings with the time leftover at the end of the session. Next time I’d actually like to try a simulator session with some events, like high winds or engine out rather than a standard flight… Read more »
That sounds like great fun actually and at €250 for 90 minutes, still pretty good value I think, especially as it’s such a unique thing. Enjoyable all round, it seems – I can’t wait to try something like this myself. I really should have done it years ago! Thanks for the comment.