Sat in the Pilot seat!
 

I'm going to leave specifics out of this so I don't unintentionally get some pilots fired. I was on a flight this weekend which was delayed for over an hr. The pilot said there was a ground stop at the destination and to sit tight for the next announcement. They then said that we could come into the cabin to say hi if we wanted. So I waited for the line of 20 or so people to clear, then made my way up there with my camera and asked if I could take pictures. They said no problem, as a matter of fact, take a seat :) The pilot went out to grab a cup of coffee and the co-pilot was there answering all our questions. They were so nice and cool.

For a guy that's never been in the flight cabin, it was a pretty awesome experience. Does this happen frequently?

When I was younger (not that long ago, almost 21 now), we always visit the cockpit. One time on a HKG-SFO my brother and I both got to sit on the pilot's seat as well. This usually happens in the beginning of the boarding process. We usually ask a FA who would then ask the cockpit crew.

Well, I got a lucky upgrade a few years back on the JFK-LHR route, and the FA asked me whether I would be interested in having a look at the cockpit, and indeed, I got a pilot's-eye view (777).

I was a bit surprised how many bells and whistles there are, and also that you kind of have to be careful to climb over the dials and levers to get out of the seat.

I was impressed by the interior, although admittedly isn't most of the flying done on autopilot?

Last year my son (4 at that time) was invited into the cockpit before departure when we sat in the upper deck. I was quite surprised when I saw him wearing the pilots cap and the pilots joking with him.
Nice gesture in this time of sometimes excessive security thinking.

F.R.

A year or 2 back, a FTer, knowing I was on a flight his firend was piloting, called and I sat in the jumpseat of the 747 during the flight. That was alright.

(Inter Asia/Not United flight)

Last summer got to sit with my brother in the jumpseat of a UA 747 (I got pilot). Got a nice photo too :) Actually sat and talked with the pilot for a good 15min before the co-pilot interrupted us saying we have to take off :) Also got some business cards and the LA and HA maps on the route we were flying!

it does happen from time to time.

it's never not great. :D

haha nice picture :)

I remember when I was younger always asking to see the cockpit. It never ceased to amaze me seeing the three officers and all the buttons/dials. These days well.... too many redeyes... :rolleyes:

Biggest thrill for me was on an AC DC-9 about 18 years ago. I was the winner of an Aeroplan contest as they picked my seat number (this was mid-flight). I was told to go to the cockpit to claim my prize. While there, I mentioned to the pilot that I had never been in the cockpit before. He told me that when they were about 20 minutes from landing, to come up and I could sit in the jumpseat. So I had a first-person view all the way to touching down on the runway. By far my greatest flying experience!

I flew in the jumpseat on an AC flight into YOW a few years back. I was chatting with the FA and mentioned that this flight, which was only 3 or 4 months into the year, was requalifying me for Gold status again. She commented I flew more than her.

2 minutes later she asked if I wanted to visit the cockpit as a thank you. I moved and stayed there right through to taxing to the gate. Way cool :cool:

It's nothing a pilot could get fired for as long as the engines are shut down, it's just great customer service!^ If anything report this pilot to UA for going above and beyond what he has to, something which is more and more rare among pilots, IME.

Back when UA was flying a JFK-SEA A320 nonstop, we were in a ground stop for ~4 hours at JFK due to thunderstorms in the area. Being an aviation geek and sim junkie, I ended up on the flight deck talking with the F/O for a good hour as the Captain had left the plane to talk to operations. After about 10 minutes, he said "do you want to sit down?" and there I was in the left seat.

I recall asking about particular approaches he found difficult, what hydraulic systems powered what when they did a single engine taxi, flying techniques, and all sorts of other stuff that you could ask about without being considered suspicious before 9/11. Aside from my 2 flights with Capt. Molly Flanagan, it's probably my best memory from a UA flight. It didn't hurt that as a lowly 2P at the time, I was in 6A, had an empty middle, and the gentleman in 6C was a 1K or similar, because the first class F/A brought him a sundae...and then asked if I wanted one too.

Not bad, when you think about it: a 4 hour delay is one of the best flights I've ever had on UA, and it was all about customer service.

I remember years ago sitting in the cockpit flying in a BA 747 over Greenland and Canada. Too bad those days are gone...

Flying JFK-SFO last month, we had an hour ground stop at JFK and the pilot invited anybody who wanted to come into the cockpit to chat. Amazingly, nobody went up there so I walked up and had a good 30 minute chat with the crew. Great guys and a great introduction to the cockpit!

The 777 cockpit is a little tight with 4 of us up there, but it's pretty easy to get in and out of the seats once you know how.

Most of the flying during cruise is done on autopilot, but that doesn't make it easier, it just eliminates the tedium. It's actually easier to hand fly the airplane for an approach and landing than to set up the autopilot to do it. And even when we do autoland, the autopilot does not manage the airspeed or control the flaps or landing gear.

My question is how many people know immediately which cockpit is shown in the picture? :)

And to confirm, it's perfectly fine to come into the cockpit, sit in the seat and take pictures, as long as the engines are shut down. It actually happens all the time. If the people don't have a camera with them, I'll take a picture and email it to them.

Wow-very cool! Post the pics so we can all wallow in jealousy :)

My wife and I honeymooned in SF and flew, I think, CO up from LAX (this was many, many years ago). We mentioned the fact of our honeymoon to an FA and she invited us up to the cockpit. There, the pilots treated us like royalty. We were invited to sit in both the pilot and first officer seats, they gave us their hats to wear and took our pictures at the controls of the 737. I love this picture.

I showed it to my mother some time later and told her that, because it was our honeymoon, they actually let us fly the plane. My mother said she didn't believe it. I said, "Well, we didn't actually fly it, the whole thing is run by computer, but they did let us sit in the seats and press the buttons which controlled the plane. Of course, when we landed they took over." My mother said, "Really? I don't think that's a good idea at all."

To her dying day, she thought we flew our honeymoon flight to SFO. ;)

I hope not....last summer going on Ted from SFO to PHX with my 3 1/2 year old we boarded first the pilot was there and asked my son if he wanted to visit, let him sit in the pilots seat, wear his hat, and push some neat buttons. My son could not stop talking about it the entire flight. I wrote UA a nice letter praising the pilot (not mentioning the cool buttons), hope I did not get him in trouble.

I do! I do! :) (EICAS gives it away)

Hi Gumpfs,

My guess is the photo of Karen is in a B747. Right???

Pilots like you who take an interest our enthusiasm are the Best!!!

had a similar experience during a 2 hour ground stop at lax. 57 heading to sfo and the captain said we could deplane and wait in the gate area or if we'd like, come up and visit the flight deck. well, yo know me.... :D second best flight deck experience i ever had...

this was #1:

july, 2001, air france florence-cdg, ba146

i went up to use the lav and when i came out, the cockpit door was open and there was the capt and f/o making a little girl (maybe 3-4) laugh hysterically by flipping switches which made their little "alarm/whoop-whoop sound". she was priceless but here am i getting an incredible view at 30,000 feet. being a a pilot wannabe (missed my calling), i was pointing out the various instruments to myself and the capt noticed this. i was asked in french if i was a pilot and in my very bad french i responded no but i always wanted to be one. he played "20 questions" by asking "and what is this for", etc and i "passed" but when atc came on with the initial descent request, i said thank you very much but that's my cue to leave and he said "why don't you sit in the jump seat for the rest of the flight". i was floored and took him up on his offer with the caveat that i don't want him getting fired and he responded that i was not to worry. i had the thrill of my lifetime and to make it even better was that i saw the crew at dinner at the hotel at cdg that night and bought them all a nice after dinner drink

Brand new 777 at SAN
 

My favorite UA memory actually occured in San Diego around 1995. UA was celebrating 50 years of service to SAN and actually arranged to take a delivery flight of a new 777 from Boeing to San Diego to mark the occasion. My neighbor, the US station manager at the time (former PSA employee) offered to let me tag along with her to go to the airport employee tour of the new 777.

Obviously, there were lots of SAN employees and UA officials there and we were allowed to walk around the plane and then climb up for a flight deck tour. I was lucky enough to take the left seat for a while and the volunteer UA crew members gave me a demonstration of the systems. The thing I remember most is the ease of use of the "point and click" nav system that would enable the crew to command the aircraft to any possible diversion station if necessary.

Seeing the new 777 sitting in SAN made the airport look small. It was a great way to spend the afternoon during those "good times" at UA. :p

This was in Sydney in January, then I got offered again on a LX-HKG flight a few weeks ago. I basically asked the pilot if I could take pictures of the cockpit, and he said "would you like me to take a picture of YOU in the cockpit?" :D

I just have to add my favorite photo from last October on a SFO-FRA 747

http://gallery.yaresse.com/v/vacatio..._1340.jpg.html

I don't have it online yet, but on my first B6 flight a few weeks ago a very nice FO took a shot of me in the left seat. I hadn't been in a cockpit since I was about 6, and I'm closer to 30 than I care to talk about. I remember flying somewhere with my father as a kid, getting up front, and the Captain was nice enough to push the stick forward while at the gate and show off the stick shake.

Is it sad that I'm almost 95% certain that you're sitting in the pilot seat of a 747....way to much time playing MS Flight Simulator.

OH...and I've got to sit jump on an E-3 AWACS for landing :)

Surprisingly, all the photos here are in the 744. The screens look a bit like the 777, but the giveaways are the round dial standby instruments (the 777 has EFIS standby instruments), and as LarryJ said, the 4 engine parameters on the upper EICAS screen.

See? Why cant they figure that out. Its ALL about customer service! For an industry thats based on something as unpredictable as the WEATHER for crying out loud thats really all they have left. Customer service!

I remember an experience not more than a year after 9/11...we were boarding and the FA gave my brother the Captain's hat and said to go give it to him and I could go along (I wouldve been about 12 at the time). We talked with the pilots and got to sit in the captain's and FO's seats. Still looking for a picture of that....but it was a cool experience.

While not the same as the Jumbo's...
 

...the seat beside the pilot is always available for anyone flying from downtown Vancouver to Victoria on any of the cariers like Island Air. I love these flights, flying over the islands, and at only 4000-8000 ft. some times you can see whales. :D

Similar to HomerJ...I flew in the right seat of a small CapeAir plane from Nantucket to Boston. The experience of flying a visual approach to BOS at dusk was very cool. It was windy and the passengers behind us looked terrified, but I thought it was great to watch the approach from that perspective, along with all the Capt was doing to keep the plane level in the winds. Once on the ground, taxing around 777s and 767s, you realize how small the plane actually is!

My previous employer had a NetJets account that we used for travel between HPN and Bermuda. The jet wasn't all that big, and I was sitting in the seat closest to the cockpit and struck up a conversation with the pilots. They invited me to sit in the jump seat for the flight and we had a good chat. I, too, play too much FSX, so I had lots of questions. They were good-natured about it and seemed impressed that FS offered so much detail that I was able to talk somewhat intelligently about flight. The landing at HPN was pretty cool. There's nothing like seeing it all first hand and out the cockpit window.

Pictures
 

My six year old in the captain's seat of an Aloha Ailrine's 737-700 SMF-SNA:

http://bucketchild.net/~patrick/phot...CF0012.JPG.php

The only time I've ever been in the "cockpit" of an airplane was when I chartered a 4-5 seater Cessna (Skylane?) and I sat next to the pilot. I even got a few minutes with the stick (most amazing flying expiereince of my life!) this was pre-9/11 of course... and on a 4 seater airplane. It was for wineing and dineing some buisness folk that I was taking to northern Michigan for my father's buisness... they joked with me big time at dinner later, said I was "as giddy as a schoolgirl" ;)

Just two weeks ago, taking the family to San Juan from DTW. While boarding,I asked if I could get a photo of my 1 year old, and was offered to take the captian's while the captian took my camera and snapped a couple of photos! :)

At the Flyertalk CO DO II at IAH in 2006, we had our big Q&A session and subsequent BBQ inside a hanger with a freshly repainted 752. Every attendee was free to visit the cockpit, including sitting in the pilots' seats.

Similarly: I managed the right seat of a small Cessna 206 out to the Dry Tortugas ..... and back! 500 feet cruise.

seaplanesofkeywest.com

Well worth it if you're in that area!

I'll do my AOPA duty I guess.

If you are willing to spend a trite $5-$8k (or less!), you can become a pilot and sit in the cockpit anytime you want! Think about it, less than the cost of a TATL business class r/t

nyaa-nyaa
 

>I< got to sit in the pilot's seat at the controls of a simulator *several times* when my friend's husband was training pilot for 737's. Yes, one of those behemoths that requires one to cross a bridge separating one from any other support other the piston-stilted cockpit.
I never once "crashed" my several flights,--no, I'm not a pilot, ("tho I played one on TV")-- but one of the real Garuda pilots qualifying for re-certification did. acK!:eek:

You can still charter Skylanes, even after 9/11.

Its wonderful to read these threads and realise that there still is a magic associated with flying and that adults can experience it too.

I'm lucky (sic) enough to have spent more time in jumpseats than I can remember and to have a position that makes jumpseat access pretty easy. I've built up a small collection of jumpseat videos of takeoffs and landings (most pilots love having me film up there 'cos they never get to watch their own work critically!), some of which I've got uploaded to youtube. I'm still kicking myself for forgetting the camera on my trip to Barbados a few weeks ago - that was a picturesque approach and departure in perfect light conditions at dawn.

Some of my better videos :

London Gatwick : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xoov8k95Z8
Paris CDG (Rainstorm) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4DSdIzSEFY
Paris CDG (Night ILS) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ1M9bPXOgE
Accra, Ghana : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBphmu5o5mY
Malta : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T74RrRXNeUs

My full collection can be found here. (will try to upload some more in the next few days!)