Simulators/YouTube Gems

I'm blogging from Long Island (pronounced lawn-guy-lend) tonight, where I'm spending a few days while meeting with Northrop Grumman. The meetings were nice and productive, but the coolest part was when Jerome (my counterpart on the E-2) took me over to see the new simulator NGC is setting up to train pilots. And since no one was using it, they let us in to give it a shot.

Now, you may have heard me talk about flying the 737 simulator at MPC, which is another vendor in Chicago. It's set up right next to their large conference room, and people are invited to try it out during breaks. Well, I was at one meeting with several amateur pilots. Granted they were used to flying little Cessnas and whatnot, but I watched them crash that thing one after another. When I decided to give it a go, I executed a beautiful takeoff, circled the Sears Tower, and made a picture-perfect landing at O'Hare. The old guys were all duly impressed- it may be one of the proudest moments of my life. One of them asked "Wait, do you have a pilot's licence?" I said "No, but I've played a lot of video games." Therefore, if I'm ever on a 737 and the pilots become incapacitated somehow, I feel I should be the one to take control while the tower talks me down.

That said, if I'm ever on an E-2D Advanced Hawkeye and the pilots are incapacitated, keep me out of the cockpit. We couldn't keep that thing in the air! I don't know if the software wasn't set yet or what, but I have a lot more respect for Hawkeye pilots now.

So now I'm killing a little time in the hotel, and I figured I'd share some real gems I found on YouTube. First off, check out these Transformer costumes. The Optimus Prime guy at the end totally takes the cake!

And while we're at it, check out this "real life" Transformer that's all kinds of awesome. My favorite part is the anime-tastic pose it strikes- If it had fingers, I guarantee that it would have thrown up a peace sign.