Sometimes, fortunate things happen to you when you least expect it. This morning for example.
After the AMAZING week in France (pictures and updates might be coming), the alarm clock at 5:30am to catch the first flight out was surely not the most anticipated thing in the world, and the shower that seemed to insist on digital operation (scalding hot or freezing cold – your choice!) did not make it better… so I expected this to be another dreaded tired and long morning commute. I called a cab, got outside, looked at my phone…
there was a new message from my best friend’s buddy Micha.
“Say, are you about to fly to Amsterdam?”
… well, yes, I am – but how does he….? Wait a minute – it trickled through my brain. He is a first officer for Lufthansa CityLine. My flight today is with a CityLine jet…
“Yep! Are you my captain?”
How exciting! I’ll be able to shake hands with him after the landing and I’ll be able to tell all my friends that a buddy flew me to Amsterdam!
“No, your FO. Wanna ride in the cockpit?”
Ha-ha, very funny Micha. Everybody knows that is forbidden in the post 9-11 world. Or is that only true for the US? Could it actually be that he is NOT pulling my leg? Is he super cruel or super cool?
“Are you kidding? That’s possible? Of course I want to!”
You’re not gonna get me, but if there is a chance – if there really is a chance for me to sit in the cockpit – I won’t miss it for my life!
“Then tell the Stewardess who you are at boarding. Which seat are you booked for?”
OK, this either is the real deal or he wants me to emberrass myself a LOT. But who cares, I’ll bite.
“9F. OK, I’ll give her a heads up.”
And that, my friends, is how it came to be. I made sure I was amongst the last people to get on the plane (limiting the potential for others to notice me making a fool of myself), spoke up to the FA, and sure enough: She greeted me with a smile, took my bag and my jacket, the cockpit door opened, and there I was – front row, big time.
After a quick hello to the captain (left) and Micha (right), I got settled in: The jumpseat gets pulled out from behind the captain, so I sat right behind and between the two with my back to the cabin door. Micha showed me where the oxygen mask was, in case of a loss in cabin pressure (they do not drop from the ceiling in the cockpit, and they are full-face masks that also have headsets installed).
I strapped in to the five-point harness (feeling like a race car driver), and Micha gave me a headset, so I could talk to the two during the flight and listen in to the radio chatter. Wow!
With a huge grin/smile on my face (that did not vanish until long after the landing!), I shut my mouth and let them do their job, which is quite busy: From closing the doors to take-off, there is a number of checklists they work through, they talk to the ramp agent and the tower for take-off clearance, and of course before they had already familiarized themselves with the flight plan and fed the onboard systems with all necessary information.
Off we went – and let me tell you, it is so much more exciting from the first row of the airplane! Thankfully I have been reading up a lot on how flying a commercial jet works in “whoops there are two hours reading time gone before you know it”-awesome thread of a Delta pilot who encouraged people to ask him all sorts of questions about being a pilot and flying in general, so I could make sense of most of the things the two did without asking too many stupid questions. Most of the time I was enjoying it way too much to talk in useful sentences, anyhow 
If you want to know more, I’ll be happy to talk at length about the rest of the trip – just say so in the comments! For more pictures of the flight (including a very happy Florian with his headset on), click the picture of the middle console (which I was sitting directly in front of), or click here. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to grin from ear to ear a bit more.
