This should go without saying, but don’t let a congressman fly your plane. That was the lesson from a Capitol Hill event Wednesday, as Reps. Randy Forbes, R-Va., and Bobby Scott, D-Va., partnered to fly a simulated jumbo jet airplane as part of the third annual Capitol Hill Modeling and Simulation Expo.
The pair didn’t last more than a few minutes before they crashed and burned — literally.
“Never let him fly a plane … we crashed,” Forbes said.
The high-tech simulations included demonstrations from medical, defense and engineering fields for industry training purposes to eliminate casual common mistakes.
Scott dubbed Forbes the “congressional cheerleader for model simulations.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., agreed with the others on the importance of the simulations, and said jokingly, “I’ll associate myself with the comments of these guys.”
Scott said he learned very quickly the difference between authorization and appropriation after playing with the simulations.
“I crashed the jumbo jet, but it didn’t cost much but to reboot the machine,” Scott said.
