World's Coolest Flight Simulators..

Our next stop at Ames was to see the building that houses the flight simulators. Jimmy was like a kid in a candy shop. He’d trained in a simulator while in the Navy and even managed to get me inside one for a “flight” over Coronado. First we entered a room that could have been straight out of a sci-fi movie where we saw the Vertical Motion Simulator, the world’s largest flight simulator, which can move as much as 60 feet vertically and 40 feet horizontally. Then we passed by the control room on our way to a room that houses the cabins to a whole variety of simulators; above is the tilt rotor cabin which showed Moffett Field on the screen.

The most exciting cabin to enter was definitely the space shuttle, where all shuttle pilots have trained. The girls also enjoyed standing up in the lunar lander. After lunch with Deb, we visited the Ames Exploration Center, the free museum open to the public, which was anticlimactic after our earlier tour.