flight simulator cockpit mockup? I hope you've enjoyed your flight aboard our brand-new Boeing 777. We'll be landing in a few moments, so please fasten your seat belts and place your seats in the fully upright position.

flight simulator cockpit mockup article

Also, you might want to hug the person next to you. I've never flown a plane before, so this might be a rough ride." That's what was running through my head as I looked down at the skid-marked runway of Hong Kong's Kai Tak Airport. Smoke billowed from a power plant below me.

I saw the South China Sea churning on my right. I almost started to feel responsible for the lives of the plane's 375 passengers. But then I remembered it was only a simulation. It's a pretty great simulation though, a $30 million, 777
flight simulator cockpit mockup Boeing is using to train pilots to fly its newest commercial airliner. United Airlines is just now taking delivery of the first "triple seven" to roll off the Boeing factory floor. But hundreds of pilots have already taken an intensive three-week training course at Boeing's Customer Services Training Center just south of Seattle, in Tuckwila, Washington. The triple seven is an airplane for the digital age. The entire plane was designed using CATIA, a paperless CAD flight simulator cockpit mockup system that integrates every aspect of the design process into a three-dimensional, graphic environment.

Pilots were training on instructional software running on Pentium-powered workstations before the planes were even built. Flight data is displayed in the cockpit on active-matrix LCD displays that are manipulated with a touch pad similar to the one found on newer system  PowerBooks. I had come to Boeing's training center to see how the company was preparing pilots to fly a new generation of airplane before it was even in service. But as I came in for my approach in the full-motion simulator, I didn't have much time to admire the training curriculum.

I was too busy trying to get my 250-ton bird on the ground in one piece. Planes landing at Kai Tak face one of the toughest approaches in the world. Training program Chief Pilot flight simulator cockpit mockup told me the approach requires aiming the plane at a huge red-and-white signboard attached to the side of a mountain. Just when you think you're going to hit the mountain, you veer sharply to the right, where the runway's flashing lights beckon you toward the flight simulator cockpit mockup.