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Please click here to read part 1 in this series on Simulator Heaven.
After signing in we were guided around to the cafeteria which has all of the creature comforts that you would come to expect from a modern forward thinking company. This was great but what we were all after were the simulators and it wasn't long until we were sitting in the cabin crew training simulator for our pre-flight briefing.
 It was a great sitting as a passenger in a section of a plane which was identical to what you would fly in from Melbourne to Sydney. We even had a demonstration of what happens in the event of a fire which included smoke billowing into the cabin and oxygen masks dropping from the ceiling.
While I was sitting in the trainer I couldn't help but reflect and appreciate the fact that all of the first and business class passengers were located at the front of the aircraft. Some might say that this is so that they can exit the aircraft more quickly upon landing and get about their business. After partaking of the miracle of flight I have no idea why anyone would want to exit an aircraft quickly and it seems to me that it's a lot of money to pay for a few minutes of time.
 When you really think about it, the upper class passengers are actually the crumple zone for the economy paying passengers. So in the interest of expressing my appreciation I personally would like to thank the business and first class passengers for their potential sacrifice in the event of an unscheduled stop in a paddock.
From the cabin crew trainer the group was split between a 737 Classic and a state-of-the-art A320. With a few others I headed over to the A320, walked across the gang plank and into the cockpit of one of the most popular aircraft flown around the world today. The first thing that struck me was that the attention to detail is staggering, right down to the coffee cup holders.
In order to fully appreciate just how accurately these simulators represent reality many of the instruments in a simulator can be removed and plugged into an actual aircraft that they simulate. Every few months the simulators are tested against a CASA bench mark from an actual aircraft and if the simulator doesn't perform in exactly the same manner then it's recalibrated and test again and again and again.
 There are really two main reasons why simulators exist. Cost and experience. It's much cheaper to train a pilot in simulator than to have a spare A320 sitting around for the same purpose. In addition, I'm sure that the average instructor would much rather train a pilot for an engine failure in a simulator than for real.
Back in the A320 I'm looking out the front of the aircraft and I see the runway disappear into the distance for Melbourne International airport. The graphics are truly staggering with skid marks on the runway, other aircraft parked at the terminal as well as a perfectly rendered countryside.
During the take-off the runway races towards you and you can feel the bumps in the tarmac through the undercarriage as the computer controlled jacks simulated each imperfection in the surface. The G-forces associated with the increased speed were perfectly simulated by pivoting the cockpit backwards so that gravity pressed more against your chest rather than directly down on your spine.
Rotating was a really interesting experience as the runway disappeared beneath us and was replaced by blue sky. The undercarriage was retracted with a suitable bump and now that we were airborne the motion became much more fluid and flowing.
 It was then that the instructor had a bit of fun with us by position a plane on a collision course directly ahead. The audible warnings certainly got our attention as the A320's computers calculated the potential collision and strongly suggested evasive action below the incoming 747. I'm sure that we must have passed within a few feet of one another and sure enough the wake turbulence began shaking the cockpit in all directions until we finally passed through it. I was just happy to not have had the same experience in a little Cessna as I'm sure the outcome would have been "down in flames"!
What is it about pilot's that want to do something more difficult than last time? It's like we are all drug addicts just wanting one more endorsement. That was certainly the case in the A320 simulator when one of the crew suggested that we do a take-off out of Innsbruck, Austria!
Innsbruck is situated in the middle of the Swiss Alps so naturally at the end of the runway was a dirty great big mountain. Not to worry, all we had to do was a quick right turn through a gap in the mountains while we scraped a wing along another soaring solid rock face to the right. Sounds easy doesn't it!
Just to add to the experience our sadistic instructor changed the season to winter and with snow gently wafting down. With a "we can take it" attitude our designated captain pushed the throttle forward and we began moving the A320 down the runway. As we gained speed those gentle snowflakes became meteors hitting the nose of the plane and we all felt more like Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon going into hyperspace rather than a humble jet liner.
Upon rotating, the mountain ahead reared its ugly head and the one on the right was doing a nice job on the paint work. It was at this point that I began to worry whether the instructor had placed an inbound 747 in the valley coming directly towards us. It was with relief that he indicated that he'd forgotten to add that bit to the experience.
 Despite the high pressure situation our captain kept a cool head and maintained a climbing attitude as he did a right hand bank down the valley and then suddenly we were above the clouds and into bright sunshine. It was at this point that I suggested that we see if we could find Innsbruck again and land on runway 26. The faces of my co-crew suggested that this was unlikely to be a good idea so the instructor flipped us to a night landing in Melbourne.
Yes, the evening was incredible fun and as well as fuelling a desire to extend my aviation skills beyond a humble light aircraft it also provided a glimpse into just what it takes to sit up in the pointy end of a big plane. The procedures, checklists and potential information overload combined with the responsibility for the lives of hundreds of passengers is daunting and in my opinion not everyone's cup of tea.
The evening also illustrated just how important it is that modern simulators can allow pilots to practice and experience adverse conditions and equipment failures so that they can be prepared in the event of an emergency. I love sitting at my computer and flying for the pleasure of it but the big multi-million dollar simulators at Ansett are a serious business dealing with serious situations. The instructors are the elite of the industry with thousands of hours of experience in all sorts of conditions and I can only thank them for passing this knowledge on to future generations of pilots. In the meantime, I just got to do this all again!
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