My son Chris(part 2)

 When we got to Chris' house and settled down, he took us on a tour of the house. He showed us his backyard, which has a fabulous gazebo and a large seating area. It has a fire pit with more seating, and the kicker was that he has fake grass for a yard. At first, I thought it was silly, but once he explained his reasons, it all made sense. Chris showed us the laundry room and the wooden structure he made for it, which gave him a place to stack and fold clothes. Next, we made our way to the basement; he showed me the recent repairs he had done and the provisions he had installed for future projects down there. 

We all skipped breakfast on Saturday morning as we had plans for lunch and dinner later. We loaded up and headed to the United training center where Chris works. I know I have mentioned this before, but experienced Chris is a Boeing 787 flight instructor. He works with new pilots transitioning to the 787 and professional; he pilots who must requalify/recertify, for lack of better words. Chris and his girlfriend(a 757 pilot) took us around the vast training center(which has multiple buildings) and to the history center. The history center had information, uniforms, models, and equipment from the start of United and Continental Airlines. One really neat thing was finding out that Chris' girlfriend Erica's mom is a flight attendant for United, and she is in her 70s. One of the flight attendant uniforms that they had displayed was a Hawaiian muumuu. Erica said her mom had gotten rid of many of her old uniforms, but she knows she kept the muumuu. 

After we left the history center, we made our way to one of the 787 simulators. Chris had told me that he had gotten a whole four-hour block on the simulators for us. Earlier, Chris had asked Angie and me if we got motion sick. He explained that sometimes people get motion sick in the simulator, especially when a bunch of taxiing is involved. It was probably because of the screens you look at in the simulator, especially when there is a lot of sideward movement. Chris told Angie and me to get in the pilot's seats however we wanted to. I sat in the left seat, and Angie got in the right seat. I don't think that she was expecting to be sitting up there. The 787 also has a cool thing called HUD, which is the heads-up display. The HUD is a roughly 6x6 square piece of glass with images projected onto it. It projects the images of the displays that you have pulled up on the Primary Flight Display(aka PFD). Usually, that would be the attitude indicator that shows if you are climbing, diving, or turning in either direction. There is more on this display that you need to pay attention to, but that is the gist of it. 

Chris set us up just short of the runway to prepare to take off. He sat behind us, where the instructors sit, so they could create scenarios for the students. As I was looking around, I noticed that I had a strong wind going from left to right. I said something about it, and he told me it was an almost 35 mph crosswind. To most people, that means nothing, but the wind would push me sideways at a good clip. After Chris had everything set(no wind included), he told me how to taxi onto the runway. It was at this time that I fully understood how people would get motion sick; as the airplane turned, the scenery moved rapidly, and it messed with my head and gut. Once I was lined up, that all stopped, though. Chris gave me some pointers on taking off and what I needed to look for, then told me to take off. Taking off like that in the front seat is like nothing I have ever felt. You see the land disappear and then nothing but the sky in front of you. 

As we were flying along, Chris was telling us about different flight aspects of the 787. He told me things it could do that most other aircraft couldn't. The first thing he talked about was the ability the 787 has to be able to turn left or right in a stall. A stall is the breakdown of the smooth airflow over the wing into a turbulent one; this causes the aircraft to lose lift and fall from the sky. When Chris was learning to fly in a small single-engine plane, I went and flew with him, and his instructor had him put that small plane in a stall. I don't get uncomfortable flying in helicopters or planes very often, but when I do, it is usually when I am caught off guard by something. That stall caught me off guard as we started to fall from the sky. Chris quickly recovered the aircraft(meaning he got it so the airplane had lift again), and we flew out of it. So, in the 787, Chris told me what to do, and into the stall, we went. When you stall the airplane, the yoke(steering assembly) starts to shake...a lot. So, as it was shaking, Chris told me what to do and to notice how the plane was turning left and right. I will admit it was intimidating but also really cool. 

The last thing that we did was really hard, landing. We were landing at Houston Intercontinental Airport. By this time, Angie had moved from the right pilot seat, and Chris had jumped up there with me. This meant that Erica took over the simulator set-up tasks. It was set up for a 3-mile final, which means that I was 3 miles from the end of the runway. We had the HUD back down, and Chris was telling me what I needed to be looking for in the HUD. There was a diamond shape on the right side of the display, a diamond shape on the bottom, and a pizza and pizza pan that I was supposed to keep lined up simultaneously. The diamond on the right was to keep my altitude right. The diamond on the bottom was to keep my alignment with the runway right. The pizza and pizza pan were to guide me on the "localizer," guiding me to the right place to land. To put that into perspective, you are driving your car into your garage using the car backup camera with the yellow, red, and green lines to line you up. Oh, also, you are going down a steep hill covered in mud and water, which, with the slightest over-correction, you will shoot past or into the garage with a big thud. It took me a lot of tries to get a good landing. Luckily, Chris turned off the crash function. Each time, I seemed to focus on one thing or another. I probably would have "crashed" a couple of times; I would have gone around a couple times and snapped the front landing gear off a time or two. I focused on one thing or another too much, or I would overcorrect too much. But in the end, I was able to land a couple times that weren't too bad, but the last time was the best. 

After I was done trying to land without killing us, Chris took over and showed me the right way to land. Erica was having a good time throwing curveballs at Chris just to make things interesting. He showed us that the 787 can land itself in very low-visibility situations. In that scenario, the only thing that the pilot has to do is control the throttles and the reverse thrusters once you are on the ground. Chris landed with a 35 mph crosswind, and that was pretty interesting. 

The whole experience in the simulator was absolutely amazing. I was so impressed with all that the airplane could do, with its safety features and ease of flight. I was more impressed at how Chris handled the aircraft's systems, the simulator set-up, the simulation changes, and how well he flew the plane. We all had a fantastic time, an experience I will cherish for the rest of my life.