The experience offers an insight into the wonders of modern commercial air travel. As the name suggests, it was Emirates who funded the £4million attraction. It opened on Friday 5th July 2013, costs £3 to enter for adults and £1.50 for children. They also have a Boeing 777-300ER, and an Airbus A380-800 Simulator, which costs £45 if you want to have a go for half an hour (£35 before 10am). Since I used to work in simulation and knowing what the going hourly rates are for these things, the additional cost for a ride doesn't surprise me.
The experience is next to the North Greenwich Airline Station, which are the cable cars linking the O2 Arena and the ExCeL London. Me and a couple of friends arrived by car and parked in the O2 Arena car park which is actually right next to the Aviation Experience. The only thing with this is that the parking charges are ridiculous, it cost us £5 for an hour and I believe it goes up to something astronomical after 2 hours. Otherwise the best way is probably via North Greenwich tube station which is also very close-by.
The attraction has a few cool things for the customers to play about with, most of which is educational. The first thing we played around with was the interactive Principles of Flight screen, where you had an animated aerofoil with air particles. You could adjust the shape of the aerofoil and the speed of the air and see how efficient or inefficient you were making it in real time, which was pretty fun and I think very useful in helping people to understanding the theory behind flying. My friends tried giving me a hard time by asking how it all worked, but fortunately I managed to sound clever and dug out all of that good stuff about Bernoulli's principle from ground school.
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| Changing the shape of the aerofoil |
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| Brings back memories of Ground School |
On top of the principles of flight screens there is a 1:2 scale replica of a Rolls Royce Trent 800 engine made entirely of Lego. I have to say, this thing is a masterpiece and I salute whoever made it, even more impressively the fan blades actually move!
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| Spinning blades |
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| From the side-ish |
There was also a cool video presentation which shows how the luggage is transported from when they're checked in to entering the cargo hold along with some interesting facts being flashed up through out the video such as the distance the baggage travels.
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This luggage has travelled further than I have in the past few months
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The main attraction for me was the 777 and A380 simulators upstairs. It didn't really make sense for me to pay for a half hour ride in these sims since I've already paid a considerable amount of money towards my training anyway, of which will consist of training in a 737 sim during my MCC. Nevertheless I asked the person who was supervising if I could have a sit down on the 777 sim to get some pictures. It's quite a feeling to sit there and think that one day (hopefully) I'll be in this seat for real, so I did savour those few minutes. |
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| On the 777 Sim |
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The only criticism I have of the attraction is that it is a bit short on content, and I'm not sure if the general public would really appreciate what Emirates are trying to show here. It isn't something that's worth travelling a long distance for, since you can't really spend more than an hour there, however there is plenty to do in the area with it being right next to the O2 Arena so it would be wise to make it part of a day out. When I went, there were pretty much only 3 other people who came in after us, all of which left before we did so I'd say a bit more advertising is needed. For me it was a great experience since I am naturally an aviation enthusiast, and both of my friends enjoyed it too. If you like your planes then I would recommend a little visit if you're around London.
Check out the rest of the photos:
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| Excuse the pillar |
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| A380 from upstairs |
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| Economy class seats |
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| Hologram of an A380 in flight |
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| A380 at the gates |
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