Features

With so many Heathrow cabin crew living in Slough, Windsor, Colnbrook and Langley, BBC Radio Berkshire's Maggie Philbin visited BA's cabin and flight simulator to find out what their job involves.

First of all, Maggie needs to learn what to do in an emergency landing.

Andy Clubb says: "The cabin simulator is fairly sophisticated, we've got the motion and we're going to introduce smoke, we'll get a chance to operate the doors - so it's a real hands-on experience."

And even something as seemingly basic as lifting off the hatch is surprisingly difficult.

"It was so heavy! I need a bit more upper-body training in the gym," says Maggie.

"I was saying (to the trainers) that in real life that I'd be able to ask other passengers for a bit of help here, but they said 'no you have to do it yourself."

Geof confirms: "If anybody else tries to help you they're going to get in the way and make it difficult for you."

Maggie Philbin shooting down the chute

But he also says that the heaviness of the door isn't so much of an issue in a real-life situation.

"Everyone remarks just how heavy it is - that's because you're doing it in a very calm and controlled way.

"If anybody ever had to do it for real, which thankfully very rarely happens, the adrenalin kicks in and the weight is no longer an issue and you'll end up being able to throw it for miles."

Once all passengers have been evacuated the job of the cabin crew doesn't end there.

They have to take along the appropriate survival kit, depending on where the plane has landed.

"All the survival kit comes in a big suitcase by the door," says Geof.

"Once everybody's out we can grab this kit and equipment. We have signalling equipment, and we have a Sea Doo marker - which you attach to a raft, throw it into the water and it stains the sea a bright fluorescent colour so you can be spotted from the air.

"We have quite a few variations of flare, hand-held ones, and the flares that can be fired up into the sky."

The kit also includes GPS equipment and first aid kits.

Maggie then embarked on a flight simulation course, led by Senior First Officer David Pote. Here you can listen to how she fared. Some might say she's a bit of a natural!

Flight simulator introduction:

Maggie says: "It's like walking across a gallery and looking down onto a squash court, except all of the squash court is taken up with a huge metal building on pistons."

Senior First Officer David Pote says: "Each simulator weighs about ten tonnes, it has full six axis and full motion, powered by 3000 pounds of square-inch hydraulics."

The take-off:

Maggie says: "This is absolutely terrifying because I feel like I'm doing it."

Maggie and David are racing down the runway at 200 miles-per-hour before taking off.

It's so real, that David says: "If you look down the right hand side you can see cars going down the M25."

Maggie says: "If I was just sat here and you told me I was in a plane, I would believe I was actually on a plane."

Maggie becomes pilot:

Maggie says: "This is so frightening!"

She at first has to steer with her feet, and goes 130 miles-per-hour down the runway.

"Why are we going down?", she asks, once in the air.

Maggie achieves the "perfect" landing!:

Maggie learns about reverse thrust in order to safely land the aeroplane.

David says: "That was very very impressive."