Found Abandoned British Airways Plane Simulators at Training Centre (Part 2) 

It's so weird, I did my training there about 12 years ago, really strange to see it abandoned.

Most commercial buildings have a design life of 25 years. Pretty shocking when I learnt that during construction courses. They're basically throwaway buildings. It's cheaper to build new than refurbish.

Get us a G&T and a bag of peanuts love..

All big businesses do this. Interestingly I watched a video yesterday which said Elon Musk with his mission to inhabit Mars, personally signs off any order over $10k. At big companies I've worked at I've had approval levels 10 times that in pretty low level jobs. It's all part of the system. I'm sure you're not complaining too much about your totally unstainable BA pension which is an equally wasteful system.

What’s my pension got to do with highlighting the waste of the tables, chairs etc?

You have to wonder? I mean that’s a 737-400 simulator. That would have resale value to this day. And whoever buys it would pay to dismantle and haul it out. Why just abandon something like that?

@@andrewtaylor940 The number of 737-400s still in service isn't great. And everybody who still flies them already has enough simulators for their needs. The 400 is heading into retirement in favor of much more efficient replacements.

@@Turboy65 True, but there is almost always a market for simulators for still flying planes, if just for the parts. It just seems strange to completely abandon them to the elements. I did see it right that those were link simulators, correct? A number of theme parks would buy them for the specialized parks. Disney and Universal both have high volume rides that use those sims as the basis. Such as Star Tours. The much larger cabin simulators I can understand not being able to sell or move. But those still break my heart to see rotting. I know of a few Emergency Services Training facilities that would kill to have those. And they don’t need latest model specific sims. Just basic aircraft layouts to practice entry and egress, search and rescue and patient handling.

@@andrewtaylor940 In fairness, the number of operators still flying the B737-400 are typically smaller, discount passenger or freighter airlines that have "newly" acquired that type. The cost to purchase/maintain a $10MM level-D simulator is out of reach for the majority of those operators that only have a few -400 models in their fleet. It's therefore, more cost effective to send their limited number of -400 pilots to facilities that already have these certified simulators already in place.

@@andrewtaylor940 That's not even a 400, it's an old 200. You don't see them in Europe anymore and they start to become rare in developing countries as well.

how is it being a cabin crew member on a flight? Is the pay good aswell? I’ve been thinking becoming one because I’m interested in aviation but not sure

Yeah, the documentation folders of the aircraft would be like pure gold :D

Maby you can go and buy it , bung security a few quid

@@mehere3013 shady bastards would take it I guarantee. However I live in the States not London anymore so it’s quite the swim to get some books. Lol

@@MaxRank yeah some genuine panels too lol

I can definitely recognise "Colour Down the Side", "Bauhaus" and " Colum". Haven't seen them for years.

BA engineer said those patterns a nightmare, as you couldn't swap around rudders, the patterns wouldn't match.

@@flybobbie1449 I never even though about that, that would suck

Project Utopia lost BA millions

God those liveries were loathsome

Wow some enlightening stuff there. So you're saying that the mock planes weren't real planes. And that they floated coz they were surrounded by water. WOW, this is real 'insider stuff'. Just out of interest when it wasn't water they were surrounded by then what did they float on instead?

Oh f*cking right !!!!

I can't speak for the 737 shell as it was completely intact. However that 747 was definitely a repurposed fuselage, look at the metalwork and ribbing+telltale green paint where the panelling was removed here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_pcozSmAcZE.html There is no way that they would go through the trouble of recreating that just for a mockup when the trainees were never supposed to see underneath the panels.

@@harrier331 These mockups are made at the Boeing factory, and for reasons of cost efficiency, are made to the same design specifications of actual aircraft, using the same parts and assembly processes. much of the training requires the relevant structures to be EXACTLY the same as operationalaircraft (eg:opening, closing and arming doors and emergency features) It would be FAR MORE expensive to "carve up" an actual aircraft. Where precision instruments (fittings) were irrelevant for the purpose of the simulator, such parts were not fitted (reason why the cockpit is garnished with stickers). But this was never a functional aircraft.

@@brunosmith6925 I still don't believe it... The fuselage of aircraft is practically worthless when it comes the the actual scrapping of said aircraft it is almost always worth more to the scrapper in literal metal weight than it is to keep the structure, I have personal experience dealing with Air Salvage International as part of my work to attest to that fact. I also know about air crew training... None of it requires the simulated environments to be manufactured in the same manner as a real aircraft, only that the interior/exterior are the same and that the functions are the same. The simulated cockpit instrument panels in the 747 also point to that fact... a scrapped and repurposed fuselage where all valuable components were removed. It's a simple numbers game, the cost to manufacture this large of a section of fuselage using the same assembly as a real aircraft (especially when the manufacturing techniques are irrelevant) would be exorbitantly expensive whereas using a real scrapped and repurposed fuselage would be very inexpensive, It's that simple. You lose all credibility when you claim that Boeing uses the same parts and production specifications. Even if I did accept that Boeing made these specifically as training aids (I don't) the notion that they would use the same parts and materials etc is farcical. I have worked within a specific feild of aircraft interior design for many years, the cost of certification, flamability testing and record keeping etc that is required for aircraft components and materials is extremely high, the claim that they would literally throw money down the drain and use certified components and materials when there would be no requirement to is laughable. Boeing is not a monitarily stupid company, they know what they are doing. Having said all of that, if you have some real proof of what you claim then please provide it...

@@harrier331 mock ups can be made by anyone, but aircraft manufacturers sometimes have an involvement as they can incorporate it as part of the contract to buy the airframe type. But there is nil reason other than convenience for them to make the mock up. Somewhere like BA has the purchasing power to get mock ups included with a sale agreement, smaller airlines buying second hand airframes certainly won't get it from the likes of Boeing. Even you average college in the UK that does courses for prospective aircraft stewards will have a fuselage mock up. Even some travel agents used to have mock ups so people could choose their seat or class.

Ditto! I worked for Air UK leisure.We did are recurrent training here every year.

@@pennymcgarry8329 haha small world! What a great friendly company it was. Ended up with Britannia, ok but nowhere near as friendly.

They found a ton of asbestos and the cost of renovation was too high to make it worthy on this older building.

This is what is the problem with decon its expensive, even if you let public in to take stuff it would be a public safety issue !

aka the ‘Chatham Dockyard’ livery

It was sold to a developer for 10s of £ms about 3 years ago.

Yea but price of removal and remediation of asbestos in the buildings would be up there too. Then add demolision on-top of that. Would it really be worth it?

@@toddross7507 well if that were true the country would just be full of abandoned building that never get redeveloped. Especially as just about everywhere in the world is less valuable than space and land in London.

@@david1731048 don't disagree with what you said, for some instances it would be. I'd say most likely they'd sit on the land and watch the value go up further before developing.

@@mikemorris3421 was it sold?,I understood that BA own the land , and when the 3rd runway is built which would include Waterside being demolished, the plan was to redevelop Cranebank as the head office ?

You do realize that was their title intro and not all those shots are from this site, the pools and cars are from a different video.

@@jordanbrown1170 I didn’t realize that, so thank you 🙏🏼

An amusement park could have wanted those outdated sims, or are the operating and maintenance costs prohibitively high?

Sometimes not built by the aircraft manufacturers but other firms too.

When I last visited the UK in 2009, British Airways were in the process of retiring the 737-400. I am not sure when they did retire the last one.

Mid-90s? They were used in many colleges for at least another decade. I saw them in the mid-2000s all over the place!

@@DaibhidhBhoAlba ok 👍

@@DaibhidhBhoAlba Yup, the university I work at finally 'retired' the old OHPs from classrooms in 2012, so way, way beyond the mid-90s. By nearly 20 years.

@Stormtrooper1488 What a moronic stance... there is clearly a reason that they have left it standing rather than demolishing it outright. For all you know they intend on renovating it.

​@@harrier331 That won't happen, the building is full of asbestos which is why BA abandoned the building

@@ilkleytom Any future use of the building/land would also require the removal of the asbesdos so I hardly see that as an argument when they could infact just make safe the asbesdos which has become a hazard, there are many buildings open and functioning right now which are riddled with asbesdos.

@Stormtrooper1488 Doesn't change the fact that the new owners may want to sell equipment with a current value such as components of the simulators.

But as the narrator says - strange that they weren't donated to a museum (assuming no airline wanted them)

@@fToo all valuable parts are stripped and repurposed. Anything left costs more to safely dismantle and move than to let it sit and be demolished when the site ever gets cleaned up

@KevPotter21 and leave nothing but footprints

I call nonsense on that. The word "British Aiways" is emblazoned in large lettering at the front of the planes, so how can someone not identify what airline is it? Nah, it was nationalist sentiments, the same sentiments that brought Brexit, that led the change. I distinctly recall Thatcher taking a hankerchief and covering the tail of a model BA plane, haughtily saying "We fly the British flag, not these awful things".

Businesses have to pay for clearance. Everything left there would have cost more to remove than its value. Only thing they didn’t consider urbex would visit and show the world what they left abandoned. Not great for BA’s CSR or ‘brand image’