How’s this for an authentic start to your Mutahida simulator flight? You arrive at Al Bateen airport, walk past the security gate and head for a huge dark warehouse. Tough looking guys wearing camouflage fatigues stride purposefully about as you make your way past trucks and huge stacks of mysterious-looking cargo. The scene, it crossed our minds, was not entirely unlike one from video game Time Crisis 3, although the illusion of danger was somewhat spoilt when one of the camo-clad lads kindly stopped to ask us if we were lost. Nonetheless, we started feeling pretty pumped up, and we hadn’t even got inside the simulator yet.
Housed in something that looks a little like an oversized caravan, the simulator itself is small, with just a cockpit and a few seats. We clambered straight into the pilot seat and our trainer Anas Elmourad started off by talking us through the array of blinking panels, buttons and dials, which are all laid out exactly like those of a Boeing 747 – 400 aircraft. Above the controls, a ‘window’ shows graphics of a runway and you can check out views of the plane from a distance, or from the pilot’s viewpoint.
Your first job is to get the plane ready for flight, so Anas asked us which airport we wanted to fly from and what weather conditions we wanted to practise in. You can choose any airport you like, short-haul or long-haul, day or night, in good weather or bad. For our first trip, we took it easy and picked a daytime journey with clear weather, taking off from London Heathrow and landing in Abu Dhabi.
Anas took the co-pilot’s seat, and, after quickly flicking a series of switches and punching numbers into various panels, we started moving, steered our way down the runway and took off. Although the pretend window shows images of the plane moving through the sky, you actually spend most of your time fixating on the screen below, which shows you if you’re flying straight and level.
‘In bad weather conditions, or if there was low visibility, pilots need to be able to control the whole flight without looking out of the window at all’ says Anas. Anas spends most of his days either teaching people how to use the simulator or practising himself, and talks throughout the session as though it’s an actual pilot training course. Whether it’s put on or real, we aren’t quite sure, but he seems genuinely anxious if you look like you might crash or are too heavy-handed with the controls, and frequently overrode our steering using the co-pilot’s wheel. A computer game it certainly isn’t.
This really adds to the experience however, and, although the simulator doesn’t actually move, you soon get so caught up in the controls that you forget it’s not real too. When we missed the end of the runway at Hong Kong Kai Tak International Airport (in reality this closed 13 years ago as it was such a notoriously difficult place to land), we had to circle back on ourselves before we could touch down. Suddenly we felt as frustrated as though there were 400 passengers behind us who might start grumbling about the late landing.
Having worked with the simulator for years, Anas knows all the millions of gauges to check and dials to tweak. He has clocked up thousands of hours virtually flying all over the world and probably has more experience in a Boeing cockpit than many real pilots do. Has he ever flown a real plane? ‘I haven’t yet, but I’d really like to one day,’ he says wistfully.
The simulator is used by both flying enthusiasts who just want to see what it’s like being in a life-like cockpit, and professionals in training who need to practise the tricky part of their job – taking off and landing. All ages and abilities can have a go and there’s so much to learn you could spend hours practising before getting the hang of it. So if you fancy getting in the pilot’s seat, sign up for a session. If you ask nicely, you might even be able to persuade Anas to call you ‘Captain’.
To book a flight, visit www.mutahida.com or call 055 4110300
