The experience doesn’t live up to the hype!

We live in San Diego and were really excited about visiting Flight Deck. We signed up for the Fighter Pilot experience with high expectations. Things got off to a bad start when we tried to find the location. Mindful of the fact that if we arrived late, we would not be able to participate and lose our money, we left earlier than necessary. We used the address provided on their site and Google navigation took us to the GardenWalk which is an indoor/outdoor shopping and dining complex. We didn’t see any signage for Flight Deck and after driving around, we called them to find out where to go. The owner answered the phone and told us that for some reason, nav apps were taking people to the wrong entrance and to use Google. I told him I WAS using Google and asked if Flight Deck was inside the GardenWalk. I said if so, I’d just park in the structure and find him. He says it’s too confusing to find his location that way and asked us to drive another block and turn on Kattela. We’re trying to reorient ourselves and figure out where Katella is so we’re asking him questions while driving. He starts trying to navigate us but it’s awkward and although he insisted we do this, he seemed impatient and annoyed. We finally got to the correct entrance and it was just another parking structure for GardenWalk! If we’d just parked at the first structure, we would already be at their location! We parked, took the elevator up a couple floors and then found the FlightDeck location (with just a few minutes to spare). Just finding the place was a confusing, stressful experience. Upon arrival, I noticed their location was right across from House of Blues in the GardenWalk. They’re an anchor location with large visible signage. After entering Flight Deck, we were greeted by the owner and identified ourselves as the people he had just navigated. I told him that if he’d just said he was in GardenWalk when first asked, I could have parked and found his location. I then suggested he tell people he was just across from the HOB since this is highly visible and easily located in the complex. He said he was doing that so I asked him why he didn’t tell us! Silence. My final words to him were that he needed to do a better job helping people navigate to his location.

Now onto the Fighter Pilot experience. It started out fine. We donned flight suits and went through some ground training. Each of us had a control stick that was identical to one’s in the simulators. The trainer took us through the use of various buttons as well as how to turn, increase and decrease speed and elevation, fire missiles and canons and a few other functions. Then it was flight time. We each got into an impressive looking cockpit simulator complete with canopy. We were really excited. After a few instructions, they auto launched us from a carrier and off we went! Pretty cool so far but then, as we began to fly, the experience started to fall short.

The simulator never moves during flight so you don’t get any physical feedback when you turn, accelerate or land. You’re basically sitting in a chair watching a big screen in front of you. The stick was sloppy and it was hard to remember all the controls, their function and order. I was continually looking for the fight and found myself making long, slow turns to get back into the action. I didn’t intend to make these slow turns but that’s all I could do in the sim. Frustrating and not much fun. As the 30 minute flight went on, we realized it wasn’t going to deliver the experience we expected, and was represented, on their site. Bottom line for us is that it wasn’t worth the money. It’s not much different than playing a flight sim at the house. If you’re an experienced gamer who’s used to working multiple buttons/keys with both hands, you’ll probably enjoy it. If not, think twice. I spent $130 for two of us and the experience fell way short. It was a meh experience. There’s a lot of 5 star reviews so other people clearly think differently. This was our experience.