Must pilots climb over controls to sit?...
 

...or do the seats pull back so you can sit down?

Sorry, but I have seen the nice cockpit pics lately and was wondering just how the pilots get into and out of seats without stepping on all sorts of controls.

Silly question, but curious....

Believe the seats are on sliding rails just like in your car.

So the next logical question is, are there cupholders?

:D

Carefully. I imagine that after a while they figure out the best way to step/slide into their seat without hitting controls.

They are, but on some aircraft you're still stepping over the controls in the center. (The 737-200 cockpit that I sat in last June comes to mind)

Probably, and the Airbuses have that fancy tray table too.

Boeing 767 has cup holders or somehting on the side where you can put your beverage. So I think the larger Boeing planes have them, too.

Boeing = yoke in your way
Airbus = no yoke, kinda like a car without a steering wheel

Almost all airliners have that center console between pilot and FO that takes some two-stepping to achieve BIS.

This is an interesting question, with a generic answer. Basically it depends on the aircraft model. Some cockpits are rather small and space is indeed limited. So you must indeed be careful when seating yourself in the pilot/copilot seat. The seat assembly does slide forward and aft providing easier means of entry and exit. The head room is also limited as well. So you might need to bend your upper body, and outstrech your leg when seating yourself in the seat.

On most modern jets, cockpit seats have a pretty good range of movement so you can get in and out quite easily.

As a birthday treat recently I got to fly an A330 simulator, the seat on that was like an expensive car seat. It was motorised and slid back and to the side, allowing you to get in by stepping over the front part of the centre console, sitting down then gliding the seat back into position.

An incredible experience by the way, even though the views were obviously artificial it felt absolutely like the real thing. (A good job I suppose as our lives depend on them for pilot training :) )

Did you bring a logbook? If it's a Level D simulator you can log it as flight time :)


As other people have said, it depends on the aircraft. In some, the seat can slide out far enough for quite easy access, others may require a little more flight deck aerobatics. Quite a few airplanes have handles on the ceiling for this reason

No log-book as it was a one off birthday present and the first time I had had the experience. It was a level d simulator based at Manchester UK. Used for commercial pilot training and command courses.

I was impressed by the way it could be changed from an A330 to an A340 simulator and back again by making a few minor changes to some of the panels.

It was very expensive and my flight involved three people for an hour with 20minutes in control of the simulator. The flights were all around MAN and each of us got to have a go at a take off, final approach and landing and an 'emergency' situation. You could buy an individual experince which got you the simulator for 2 hours. In this one you could choose where you wanted to fly and experience a whole range of situations. (Have to wait till my next 'big' birthday for that one!)

I got to fly the plane into the ground, waiting for the ground proximity alarm to tell me to pull up! When it did, it was full power to the engines and pull back on the stick to climb out. It was quite a rush!! It would have looked fantastic from the ground if it had been real! Although I wouldn't have liked to have been the Cabin crew as the passengers deplaned at the airport. I think there may have been one or two claims for compensation. :)

In real life, I believe that pilots that have the license for the A330 are also allowed to fly the A340. If I am not totally mistaken, I think the LH A333 pilots also fly the A343. Not sure if they are also allowed to to fly the A346.

You need to be rated on both A340 and A330 to fly both. You can't fly an A340 if you just have an A330 on your licence and not A340.

However, your A340 type rating course would be much shorter if you are already type rated on A330.

(And vice versa and it also works with A320.)

I just found out the other day that the A330-300 and A340-300 are almost the exact same, with the only difference being the A340 has 4 engines. Most carriers put more fuel tanks in the 340, but they have the exact same dimensions.

The 330<->340 course isn't even a full type rating, but rather just a differences training endorsement.