The Young & The Restless | Have wings, will fly

By Bree Harding

Nov 21, 2023

Desert landing: Welcome to Dubai International Airport. Photo by Contributed

Light show: Approaching Sydney. Photo by Contributed

You’re a day shy of becoming a teenager, and you’re at the helm of a Boeing 737 aircraft coming in to make your first-ever jet landing at the iconic Princess Juliana International Airport in Sint Maarten in the Caribbean, flying mere metres above the heads of beach-dwelling plane spotters.

First landing at the iconic Princess Juliana airport at Sint Maarten in the Caribbean. Photo by Contributed

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No pressure, but you have the most precious cargo on board in the shape of your mum and brothers, and you’re sweating a bit, concerned your inexperience may cause you to crash.

Luckily, you have a bona fide 737 pilot sitting in the cockpit beside you, calmly talking you through the process so your landing sticks.

Out comes the landing gear; down you come in altitude, you concentrate on keeping the nose of the plane where it needs to be and the entire craft centred and level.

Then voila, just like that, you touch down smoothly without incident while your co-pilot (the legit one) welcomes all on board to the tiny tropical island as we all capture our first glimpse of its picturesque landscape through the front windows of the plane as the sun is setting.

You look around at your family with a beaming smile fuelled by pride, adrenaline and, no doubt, a little relief.

Your first officer is quick to remind you that he doesn’t want to burst your bubble, but “you’re only as good as your last landing”, which we surmise must be a commonly used expression in a pilot’s world.

“Where would you like to fly to now?” he asks.

Without even refuelling, my 12-year-and-364-day-old chose to head back to Australia and fly us to Sydney International Airport.

Concentration: Flying into Hong Kong with fireworks to the right and lightning ahead. Photo by Contributed

How did we come to find ourselves in this situation?

Well, you see, it was as simple as driving from Shepparton to the leafy suburb of Kew East in Melbourne, where we then stepped inside Flight Sim Melbourne’s state-of-the-art flight simulator, which is based on the world’s most popular commercial airliner, the aforementioned Boeing 737.

My youngest son is a self-proclaimed “avgeek”, which my Snapchat oracle (My AI) defines as being someone who “really enjoys learning about different aircraft, airports and the aviation industry as a whole”.

This is certainly the case, as he checks his Flight Radar app daily to see which planes will be flying in his current vicinity, wherever he may be.

Then he’s outside with his binoculars or devices to take photos, depending on how low it’s flying.

He will tell me about models of planes, which are used for what purpose, which have been decommissioned and when, how fast they can fly, what the regular routes are for several different commercial airlines and which aircraft they use for each.

To celebrate turning 13 the very next day, I wanted to give him some related experience.

I inquired locally about discovery flights, where budding potential future pilots go up in a light aircraft with an experienced pilot and get to have a go at taking control of the plane to see what that feels like. However, unfortunately, he was still two years short of being eligible age-wise.

So, I started looking for alternatives, and that’s when I came across the next best thing: an opportunity for him to experience the thrill of captaining a commercial airliner in a distinctly lifelike simulator.

And the best part about that kind of flying? No risk of a real-life crash.

When he met with his first officer (the actual 737 pilot) and made himself comfortable in the captain’s seat, he was told he could choose from more than 24,000 airports around the world in almost any weather condition to fly to and as many as he could fit in during his 30-minute allocated activity time.

So we landed in Dubai at night-time, Sydney also after dark and took a sharp turn into “the old” Hong Kong while fireworks exploded to the right of us and lightning illuminated the clouds in the distance ahead.

There were three seats in the rear behind the cockpit, a convenient number for myself and his two big brothers to share the experience with him as spectators, cheer squad and unofficial videographers.

There were hundreds, if not thousands, of switches and lights in the cockpit, with full wrap-around screens displaying stitched realistic VR images out every window and frequent voice snippets coming through crackled radio transmissions for authenticity.

Still, imagery of the experience could fool those none the wiser that my 12-year-old had indeed been in control of a genuine 737.

Half an hour might have been a smidge too short an experience to travel all the way from Shepparton for, so I would recommend a nice meal at Gilbert’s a few doors down while you’re in the area or a spot of bargain shopping at the easily accessible Uni Hill DFO, or, if you have a little avgeek as I do, you might make it a whole plane-themed day and swing by Melbourne Airport’s designated viewing areas for a bit of plane-spotting on your way home.