Inside the Boeing 737 Cockpit That Tom Cruise Made Famous
- Jet simulator open to non-pilots is frighteningly realistic
- It’s not a Max, but this Boeing plane doesn’t change much
An untrained pilot tries to land a jet. What could possibly go wrong?
Source: Bloomberg
We’re sitting in a Boeing 737 simulator with a large autograph of Tom Cruise scrawled on a panel above; this is the cockpit you see in his film, “American Made.”
It’s a 737-200, rather than the notorious 737-Max that’s so much in the news these days. But the reason airlines and pilots love the 737 is the cockpits and handling don’t change much; indeed, replicating that comfortable feel is the reason Boeing designers decided to use a software fix known as MCAS on its newer, more-powerful Max. As our simulator instructor says, if you can fly this 200, you should be able to fly the fleet of 737s. Some pilots and airlines aren’t so sure. They’re demanding costly training on a Max simulator before the jet is allowed to fly again.