The Delta Flight Museum is in a rare position to have a
full-motion aircraft simulator available to the general public. Ours is a Boeing 737-200 simulator built by
CAE in Montreal, Canada in 1999. It was
used by Delta Air Lines to train pilots until 2013, at which time there were no
more B737-200s in the fleet. Around this
same time, the Museum was undergoing a major renovation and the simulator was
brought over to Historic Hangar 2 and set up for public use.
Now, who’s going to run it? That’s where our simulator operators come
in. We have three part-time Simulator
Operators on staff at the Delta Flight Museum – Chick Smith, Mike Raftis, and
Paul Talbott.
L-R: Chick Smith, Mike Raftis, Paul Talbott
Chick Smith started his aviation career out of college in
1966 when he joined the US Air Force. During his 6.5 years on active duty, he flew F-100 fighters during a
1-year combat tour in Vietnam and then instructed in advanced T-38 trainers at
Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, GA. Chick joined Delta Air Lines in April 1973 as a pilot flying Boeing 727s
and working his way to the up the fleet to the Boeing 767-400, over 30 years
later. After retiring from Delta in July
2003, he spent the next 10 years enjoying retirement by traveling and visiting family and friends, and
even volunteering at the Museum before joining our staff in 2013.
After graduating high school, Mike Raftis went into the
US Air Force to become an airborne radio repairman for 4 years. When he got out of the service, he joined Western Airlines in Los Angeles in April 1967. At Western, he worked in the maintenance records department of the
engine overhaul shop while earning his FCC radio telephone license. After 1.5 years, Mike moved to the electrical
line service department where he maintained electronic systems on aircraft. In 1981, Mike transferred into the simulator
maintenance department and joined the Delta team after the 1987 Delta-Western
merger. Two years later, he transferred
to Atlanta and became a simulator maintenance supervisor. Mike was in the simulator maintenance
department until retiring in April 2005. After retirement, Mike took some time to drive around the US and enjoy
his free time. Mike joined the Museum staff in
2013.
Paul Talbott was bit by the aviation bug at age 4 when he
had his first airplane ride with his father, who was a pilot in WWII. At 16, Paul went to work at a small, local
airport in Wellsville, OH where he traded work for flying lessons. He joined the US Air Force after high school
and served 4.5 years as a Russian communications intelligence analyst, where he
was stationed in Turkey and Vietnam. After the military, Paul used his GI Bill to attend aircraft maintenance
school and joined the Delta Air Lines team in December 1969, working in Detroit
as a line maintenance technician. In
1973, he transferred to Atlanta, and began volunteering in the Delta Archives
in his spare time. In 1995, he joined the
line maintenance training department, and later began teaching aircraft
maintenance taxi school, utilizing the full-motion simulators. After retiring from Delta in April 2005, Paul
returned to Delta as a contract instructor and worked various other airport
contract jobs, until joining the Museum Staff in 2013.
If you’d like to experience the simulator for yourself,
one of these three Operators will be there in the cockpit with you leading the
way, giving instructions, and letting you take off and land safely (or
not). To book your Simulator Experience,
click here.
Tiffany Meng
Director – Operations