An Outstanding Experience

[Theodore Martin]

Hello guys,
I got a chance for a GREAT experience. I got to have my own personal time in a Southwest Airline full motion simulator, and as you would expect, IT WAS OUTSTANDING!!!!! I got to do takeoffs, shoot landings (one was an ILS with clouds down to 500ft. AGL), and fly a quick route from KDAL to KHOU (we did 4x or more time during cruise).

As you may know, unfortunately, there was a serious plane crash at Addison airport (which is only 3 or 4 miles from me here in Dallas) a few weeks ago. The plane, a King Air 350, lost one engine on takeoff and crashed into a hanger killing all 10 people onboard. The simulator controller at SW configured the same situation for me in the simulator. He set it up to loose the #1 engine just after takeoff. Since he told me what he was doing and how to handle the situation I actually was able to recover and fly the plane/sim with one engine (even though the engine quit a little early, just prior to takeoff, and I started veering off the runway).

The controller even simulated a crash by stalling the plane just after takeoff. I watch the show Air Disasters on the Smithsonian Channel and always imagined how pilots felt when watching the ground come up at them during a crash. With this simulation I have a deeper appreciation of that feeling. It was very scary watching the plane dive into the runway concrete from the pilot's seat, and the full motion simulator generates a huge thump at crash. When I opened my eyes the screen in front of me was totally red.

Besides the simulated crash the hour I spent in the simulator was WONDERFUL.

[Harold Henderson]

Ted, your face says it all!

[Robert Shepherd]

That's awesome...! Love the pic Ted!

[Todd Meek]

That is awesome Ted. Glad you enjoyed your time in the simulator. I would love to do that.

[Michael Blakely]

Wow! Incredible experience!