With half term fast approaching, busy parents need lots of ideas – that don’t break the bank – to entertain the kids. So yesterday I took a 10 year old young man – amongst the hardest to impress – out to Greenwich North tube station which is just 15 minutes on the Jubilee Line from Waterloo. For here there are three aviation-flavoured separate attractions to explore.
Emirates Airline
We started our adventure with a cable car ride on the Emirates Airline. Now I know it’s “just” part of the London Transport system connecting the area around the O2 to the area across the river near the ExCel centre but it’s still exciting.
As we walked up to the embarkation point, we were wowed to see just how high those cable cars fly. Cue some conversations about smaller cable cars in ski resorts. Tickets cost £8.40 for adults and £5 for kids.
We waited in a short, fast-moving queue and watched folk with bicycles and dogs and buggies board. Then it was our turn – each car takes up to 10 passengers so we met some lovely folk on a day out.
Once you are out of the building, the cable car picks up the pace and you are lifted 80 metres high into the air. It feels a bit weird – just as if you were really flying. There’s an interesting audio track playing about Brunel’s tunnel across the river and how the area has regenerated.
While I was admiring the fabulous views of Canary Wharf and pointing out City Airport and the Thames Barrier, my 10 year old companion was marvelling at just how small (“that truck looks just like a toy”) everything looked from such a height. The ride took about eight minutes and we were so impressed that we decided to return straight away – this time for all the photos and selfies (not forgetting to tag #MyEmiratesView).
Emirates Aviation Experience
In a small building next the cable car you can see part of an enormous Rolls-Royce aeroplane engine sticking out. This exhibition is a bargain costing just £3 for adults and £1.50 for kids. It’s a relatively small space but crammed with really interesting things for those who simply like to fly in planes or avid aviators.
There are four main areas. We started off in the science area. There’s a massive £26 million engine in the corner. And a sort of giant sliding x-ray window that runs slowly in front of it that explains how the engine works through the suck, squeeze, bang, blow flying routine. How those high temperatures don’t melt the engine still foxes me. My young companion soaked it all up like a sponge.
Then we had a play with the large interactive screens explaining how lift works. Elementary physics made palatable. We were asked a few questions about the weight of planes and the various things they carry. Then we learned how wings work – and had to choose to examine the wings of different types of planes.
In the section for “on the ground” we stood facing a giant glass case within which is a non-stop speeded up film showing all the things that must happen during the 105 minutes that planes have to turnaround between landing, offloading, refuelling and reloading and setting off again. A miracle of modern project management. And you need to pay attention because then you get to play one of two table top games where you attempt to do that turnaround process yourself. It’s not as easy as it looks.
Then we entered a darkened room with a 180 degree screen and stood on a floor that moved a little to show you what it feels like to be a piece of luggage checked in at Dubai airport and the amazing behind-the-scenes journey which looks a bit like a rollercoaster for cases. It was fun.
Around the corner there is a section of plane seating so you can experience what it’s like to actually be a passenger. You have head phones and a touch screen and can watch videos on all sorts of subjects like jet lag and what’s good to eat in the air. And there are some impressive wall displays showing you all of the flight routes around the world during a 24 hour period.
Then we went up some stairs – with cute runway lights at the edges – and waited our turn to enter the massive front of plane model and enter the huge cockpit. My 10 year old wore the captain’s hat (naturally) and I got to wear one of those pretty red cabin crew hats. The assistant there kindly took lots of photos for us. Overall, it was an excellent experience and we both learned lots about commercial aviation.
Flight simulator
And if you have a young person (or even an old one!) who is a real flying fanatic you can pay £45 for a 30 minute flight simulation. This price covers four people though. Kids need to be at least nine to do this as you are given a briefing by a real pilot, the simulator is used to train real pilots and they don’t make any special allowances!
We were talked through all the controls – foot pedals for direction and speed on the ground, the joystick for moving left and right and up and down in the air and a big sliding speed control in the centre.
I was put in charge of landing gear and wing flaps while my 10 year old companion was talked through lots of screens and told about what to do at different altitudes and how to keep those wings level and the best way to do different banks for turning. It was like a real flying lesson (and I should know as I’ve done a few in my time – although in a light aircraft rather than a 500 tonne Airbus 380 or Boeing 777). Whilst I struggled to keep up my ten year old was rapt and took it all in.
And then we were off. He selected from one of the 10 airports to take off from and did a pretty much perfect performance. But that was in daylight with calm weather. I thought it was really neat that the simulator shows all the real landscape and features you can see from Dubai, Istanbul, Heathrow or other airports.
Then we had a go at landing. The first was good, the second not so good (so we turned off the rain! Those realistic alerts are authentic and alarming) and the third was pretty much perfect – scoring 37,000 (you enter your name so it can be competitive) which is apparently excellent for a first timer. My companion was very pleased with himself. And rightly so.
Shop and café
We exited into the café area where we refuelled with paninis and cola and sat in some comfy aviator-like chairs. I allowed him to select a gift from the genuine merchandise shop and was not surprised when he picked out an Emirates bag to impress his mates at school. I had to wait a while as he watched a video showing some famous footballers (please don’t ask me as I have no idea) visit the centre and try their hand at the flight simulator. I think he was checking that he did it better than them.
Finally, I coaxed him out and we spent a short while pottering around the grass area outside and checking out what was coming at the O2 (and declined his suggestion that we book for a climb up and over the dome) before taking the tube home.
While the cable ride had been very exciting, and I had loved that huge Rolls Royce engine, it was obvious that he would pick out the flight simulator as his favourite part of the afternoon. Who knows, maybe he has a future as a commercial pilot.
It was a great day and the first two elements of the trip were very affordable.
