Commencing at 10am on the 27th of February, 50 students from
the University of Liverpool's Flight Simulation Group will be using one of the
Pilot Studies Lab’s full cockpit flight simulators to undertake a non-stop
simulated flight around the UK in support of the North West Air Ambulance.

The simulated flight, coined the "UK50", consists
of 50 individual legs around the UK and is expected to take around 30 hours to
complete, with each leg being flown by a student pilot and co-pilot team. The
students are participating on a voluntary basis and since the flight will be
conducted as per real aviation regulations, additional study has been required to
learn the methods and techniques used by pilots in real world operations such
as flight planning and navigation alongside studying towards their degree.

To add to the realism of the flight, live weather data will
be fed into the simulator which means that the students will also have to take
this into account when planning and executing their flights, while other
students will also be performing additional roles such as air traffic control
and flight dispatch.