(Image source from: The Denver Post)

The United Airlines has recently added nine brand new flight simulators at their state-of-the-art center in Denver to train the hundreds of pilots they will eventually be hiring.

United Airlines Captain Mike McCasky has served as an airline pilot for 28 years. "It's incredible to actually fly an airplane and see the sights in the world as you see it from the air." He's seen, firsthand, how far training technology has evolved, it is exactly like flying," McCasky said.

United Airlines is thriving and that means more pilots are needed. "We are hiring pilots to match the growth that the airline has announced. We have new hire classes started today, and will have new hires through the end of this year," said McCasky.

More pilots mean more training. That's where the flight training simulators, called "sims" for short com it. "We have 31 on the campus today. We will have 32 by next March and then we will add simulators to our expansion base in late 2019," McCasky said.

The enlargement makes the Denver flight training center the biggest in the world.

United Airlines pilots are not the only captains of the sky learning on these machines. "We will rent or sell excess simulator time to other carriers but that's on an as able basis."

United Airlines has added nine new sims at the flight training center at the old Stapleton Airport in Denver. Each one is built to train on a specific aircraft.

The technology reproduces everything from takeoff to landing to utmost turbulence, and even more. All in a 100 percent safe but very realistic environment. "We do things in the simulator that we would never attempt or try to do in an airplane to include upset recovery training."

More than 130,000 employees will train on the sims every year at the Stapleton facility. Every pilot and flight attendant will train on the new additions with the goal of staying up to date on the up-to-the-minute best practices for safe flying.

-Sowmya Sangam