Typerating only job

[Captain_al]

United Airlines also used to have a ground school and sim experience that was for the general public. One day of ground school on the 737, followed by an hour or two of simulator time. You got a certificate that said you participated in the training, but of course no type rating.

I did this myself... it was really fun. It was at the United Flight Training Center in Denver, and we had the ground school portion in a real United classroom, with a real United instructor, and then for the sim time we used the United level-D sims.

The best part was that I could log the 737 time as real flight instruction, because the instructor was legit.

This was also pre-9/11. 

Mostly because of me, these public joyrides are a thing of the past (post 9/11). Long story short, I was in the simulator with Zacarias Moussaoui (in Federal Prison now) in August 2001 in KMSP. I was called in to fly as a FO support pilot in a LOFT since a student was yanked because the crew was not getting along. Interesting it was a Greek and a Turk, can be like mixing oil and water. The funny thing is I am of American/Greek descent. I was one of the folks involved in raising red flags that led to the Moussaoui arrest on an expired visa violation. He was Al Qaeda sent to scout 747's for the 9/11 attack. Because the MSP FBI were not allowed access to violate his personal rights by the Washington DC FBI, his computer contents remained off limits till the aftermath of 9/11.

Two days after the attack, I got a call from the FBI in MSP. I was in KSEA. They questioned me on my observations and conversations I had with Moussaoui. He was standing right behind me as I was in the FO seat. I said I thought he was there for one of our joy rides since he was just observing this period with the instructor. On the break,when I questioned him he explained he was here for 2 days of ground school and 4 days of full flight. I thought this was really strange and had to be costing him thousands for a 60 hour pilot with no pilot certificate.

The FBI asked about these "joy rides". I said we had them at Northwest because I had done a lot of them with the public over the years, but they were usually 1 hour. I also told him United does them as well. That afternoon on CNN, I saw scrolling headlines that the FBI had terminated all these public joy ride programs at United and Northwest. Prior to 9/11 it was easy to get a friend or family into the simulators, after that it was like Fort Knox...