Jump seat Question (from a non-pilot)?
 

To many of you all this will be a dumb question, and I frankly have searched through the internet and this forum looking for the answer, but a dumb question is still a question and needs an answer.

A little background just to see where i'm coming from:

I am not a pilot, currently about to start college and heading down the road for either AFROTC or Air National Guard, either way going through the military to get my now 1500 hrs. I am also a big flight simmer, using VATSIM to practice communication and following SIDs and STARs. So I know enough to skim the service about aviation in general.

I have a family friend who is a Delta pilot, my dream would be to ride jump seat in the cockpit, does anyone know is this is possible or if it has ever been done? I know with security these days everything is difficult and tedious. Previously I was set-up to get into a simulator but events unrelated prohibited us from making it there.

To pilots within the industry, this is probably a no brainer. Sorry if this has been asked before but i searched long and hard with no avail.

Thank you for your help.
Horizon513

The big exception that I know of is that much of the rest of the world is a little more relaxed about cockpit visits in flight; people may have bent the rules a little in the pre-9/11 days but it's actually been a really long time since non-crew were allowed on the flight deck officially on U.S.- flagged airlines at all.

It would still take a bit of luck but in theory you would have a fair chance while traveling outside the USA. I had a lot of luck getting cockpit visits and even a full-length jumpseat ride across Switzerland traveling non-rev in Europe back in the '90s. that was pretty cool.

Ok thank you. My best chance would probably getting inside a simulator, I figured that flying jump seat in cockpit would be near impossible.

Another option might be talking to your Air National Guard recruiter. Many tanker units have community outreach flights every couple of months. They usually take anywhere between 10-25 people up on an aerial refueling mission. Passengers are usually allowed in the cockpit for these flights. In the past it's usually been school teachers, state senators, city officials, etc. that get the rides but I've seen a few high school kids too. Maybe something to look into.

ranger

Impossible on a 121 US carrier.

Impossible on a US airline. For security reasons I'm going to leave it at that and close the thread.