Two weeks ago I had the opportunity during an outing with the Avgeek French community to experience a new flight simulator in the center of Paris. There are simulators in Paris but not that many but A330 simulators are much rarer.
Go to iFlight Paris, 11 rue de Belzunce in the 10th district, a few steps from the Gare du Nord. They have been open for barely a month and really deserve to be known.
The store is an official reseller of Airbus licensed products and various other products that should satisfy avgeeks of all kinds.
Then comes the discovery of the simulator. It is an exact replica of an A330 cockpit. Of course it is not on jacks. Too bad for the sensations but logical for a building in the city. In addition, it reduces the changeover time between different customers, which the customer in a hurry to take the device in hand can only appreciate.
The now sadly famous cockpit lock control.
More than 24,000 airports are available. The image quality is very nice even if the owners promised us a future upgrade of the system for even more realism.
We were able to test a number of them day and night, in normal or stormy conditions, with or without engine failure… The connoisseurs took the opportunity to try a mythical airport that no longer exists: the famous Kai Tak in Hong Kong, which has been closed for years and which you have to find on your own for a visual landing, as instrument landing is impossible due to the lack of ILS.
The “real” pilots present among us (including one from 330) confirmed that the experience of this simulator was very realistic. A professional opinion is always good to take.
What more can I say? I was won over by the friendliness and availability of the person who really gave us a quality experience while answering our many questions. All our requests were answered with a smile, which allowed us to experience some interesting situations.
In short, I’m going back as soon as possible to really learn how to master all the complexity of a flight and the instrumentation. A beautiful tool and a passionate and exciting staff.
Finally, four videos taken on the spot in order to give a better idea of the experience. Bursts of laughter included.
[Edit suite à complément d’information de spécialistes]
The simulator is aCockpitSonic Pro Solution. Used in Germany for the training of pilots but in France no certification in this way has been requested.
