Airliners International
Day two of Airliners International show kicks off with more tours.
United Airlines Flight Training Center was the evening tour. After a brief stop by the collectibles show, which I mostly resisted as I do not need more junk, it was a quick bus ride to the United Airlines Flight Training Center across the street, and then a very long and detailed tour that ran well beyond its assigned time, as all the tour guides were very excited to talk about their work.
Easiest to talk about was a bit of history, as the United Flight Training Center has dozens (nearly a hundred?) cockpit simulators, some static, some full-motion. They are apparently out of expansion room so a new flight training center is being built nearby, although watching all the new subdivisions around makes me wonder who lacked the foresight to buy up more land before the housing boom. (yes, I know foresight is... easier said than done). A little museum on-site also has some fun bits of United history, especially the flight attendant uniforms over the years, although this particular center is focused on pilot training rather than in-flight crew training.
Jim, our particular group's guide, lead us around the entire complex several times, letting us into Boeing 737, Boeing 757, Boeing 787, and Airbus A320 simulators, one of the emergency slide training rooms (we were not allowed on the slide), the emergency raft training room, a full on Boeing 767 evaculation simulator room, and a room full of exit door mock-ups/simulators. It was simultaneously overwhelming yet I felt like we didn't do enough; talking with some of the other groups who were touring with us at the same time, many actually tried on the life vests and other bits, which no one in my group though to do (oops!).
They had some operation metrics on display on some of the digital signage, some of which was explained, some of which was not. Apparently Jim, our guide, is focused more on basic flying and United operations, so things are more of a pass/fail, at least for the training he gives. Later steps in United's flight training get into a more detailed grading/evaluation of skills, and unfortunately due to late hour, we did not get a chance to talk to any other flight instructors during the tour.
The tour itself felt mostly unscripted, which actually was totally fine, but very much reflects on the experience of myself and my fellow tour attendees-- so much was shown to us, it was a bit hard to take it all in and appreciate it. Sadly we did not have anyone training to be a pilot on our tour, we could have more focused questions to help get more value from the tour. Still a great experience, and being caught out in the pouring rain on the way back did nothing to dampen just how good both tours had been today.