My nerves at landing an aircraft for the first time - because it was all too real at Ascent Aviation

Glancing between the bewildering array of controls in front of me and the runway lights of New York’s LaGuardia Airport stretching ahead through the cockpit windows, I began to feel more anxious than when I took my driving test.

But don’t worry, I hadn’t been let loose on a Boeing 737 complete with passengers on board - that’s something pilots are only qualified to do after at least two years of training.

Instead, I was seated in a very realistic simulator in an office building near Glasgow Airport which exactly replicated what it’s like to fly the type of aircraft flown by the likes of Ryanair and Jet2.

I was at Ascent Aviation, at Linwood in Renfrewshire, which is one of only two companies offering this experience in Scotland.

It has just been assessed as being the UK’s best rated attraction, with a 98 per cent score on Tripadvisor and the highest proportion of five-star reviews - and I soon discovered why.

Helping me make sense of all the buttons, dials and screens was Ascent’s head of operations Stephen Balmer, a former private pilot. He sat beside me in the pilot-in-command’s seat to the left while I took the co-pilot’s seat to the right.

There would have been a vast amount of information to take in was I being trained for real, but Stephen kept it to the basics so I had some chance of following, being a complete novice.

He ran through the key controls, including the yoke - the equivalent of a steering wheel - which are replicated in front of both seats and interlinked, a bit like in a dual control car for learner drivers.

There’s a single throttle “quadrant” between them, which comprises a pair of throttle levers, one for each engine.

Unlike in a car, when you should be looking at the road rather than the dashboard pretty much all the time, Stephen told me that pilots spent 95 per cent of the time looking at their instruments rather than through the windows.

Stephen said: “Overwhelming is probably the first reaction from people sitting in the seat for the first time, but most of them pick it up quickly.”

The initial thing I noticed was the feel of the equipment. It’s very mechanical and required physical effort, unlike power steering in a car, which means a driver only needs to make minimal movements of the wheel to change direction.

That was certainly going through my head, and as we lined up on the runway to take off, Stephen asked me to focus on keeping the plane heading in the right direction and then ascending at the right angle.

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Also, in contrast to driving, I noticed the aircraft didn’t react instantly to the controls, so I had to anticipate its movements to avoid having to overcompensate, such as when pulling the yoke towards me to lift the nose.

Thankfully, there was no one in any cabin behind me reaching for a sick bag as the aircraft’s nose initially lurched up and down at the hands of their rookie pilot.

Once we switch the auto pilot, which takes control of the plane, there’s still a constant automatic movement of the ”trim wheels”, which spin round as they adjust for any change in the balance point of the aircraft.

That could be factors such as passengers moving around the cabin, the drinks trolley being wheeled along the aisle, the reduction in weight as fuel is burned, or changes in the wind.

The trim wheels are open and visible - as a back up in case there’s a system failure and the pilots need to adjust the balance point manually.

Ending our short flight by returning to LaGuardia, I expected landing to be the most nerve-racking part of the flight, as it is for me as a passenger, but Stephen took pity on me and split our tasks.

I was to focus on keeping the plane level as we descended while he looked after the speed and the wing flaps, which enable the plane to fly at lower speeds as it comes in to land.

I think I just about managed it ok and we touched down safely, but I suspect that was very much because Stephen was at the controls with me.

However, you can’t feel whether you’ve made a “hard” landing in this simulator - and there were no passengers to potentially congratulate you with a round of applause, but my own sense of relief was palpable.

I was impressed by Ascent’s set up from the moment I walked through the door to see the runway design flooring and “check in” reception desk.

As Stephen put it: “We have worked extremely hard on the reality of the simulator, and tried to make the entire building very aviation-like to immerse people in the feeling as soon as they step inside.

He said the simulators - Ascent also has an Airbus A320 and a light aircraft mock-ups - are very like the real aircraft. You really need to fly them, they won’t just fly like a computer game.”

“Our instructors all come from aviation, whether experienced or retired pilots, through to people who are just beginning their aviation training. They all have some element of entertainment and information to bring to customers.”