Simulators and IFR Proficiency
Posted by Jeffrey on August 6th, 2009
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A couple weeks ago I wrote about using simulators. You can see the whole article here:
Flight Simulators: A Great Way to Learn and Experience Flying.
But two things have happened since I wrote that post.
First, I had my recurrent simulator training at FlightSafety in Salt Lake City and second, a friend of mine had an interview with Colgan airlines.
First, my simulator story.
If you remember, back in January 2009, I had a Line-Oriented Flight Training simulator session or LOFT. Incredibly useful and dare I say, fun? I learned a lot and still apply what I learned that day when I fly. The most important thing I learned that day was when you have an emergency, do not delay declaring an emergency. Once you’ve declared an emergency, everyone is focused on you and helping you and then you can focus on the task of getting the airplane on the ground—safely!
But in July, I had a regular sim: stalls, steep turns, system malfunctions, a V1 engine failure, single-engine ILS approaches, and numerous non-precision approaches. It went well except the first officer was a bit rusty on the CRJ-700 and had a difficult time controlling the airplane during several maneuvers.
Recurrent sim is always a good time to learn and experience things that hopefully never happen in real life and though it can be stressful preparing for it, most the time you walk away from it confident and ready to fly again.
If you are new to simulators, I strongly recommend that you pick up this DVD: Nolly Successful Simulator Training DVD – On this DVD you’ll learn how to prepare for simulator training ground school so you can get all the benefits it was intended to provide.
The second simulator event involved a friend of mine. He had an interview with Colgan and didn’t pass the simulator ride portion of the interview. It happens! He said that he had trouble with the hold and the ILS which is understandable. During a checkride or interview, the stress and pressure will make you do things that you wouldn’t normally do. Things that you do without thinking in a real-world situation suddenly become very difficult.
So what could he have done to prepare for this interview?
Well to start with he could have found an instructor with a Frasca simulator and spent a few hours flying holds and ILS’s. Or he could have picked up a desktop personal computer aviation training device (PCATD) and practiced that way. Think of it in terms of an investment, instead of wasting money.
Either of these would have boosted his skills and confidence!
Simulators are great learning tools and have the added benefit of letting you experience real-life system failures without having to experience them in, well, real-life.
For instance, we have all been in an airplane when the instructor covers the directional gyro (DG) or attitude indicator (AI) with a Post-It. Surprise! Well, not really. The instructor just told you that it failed. In real-life, at night, in weather, getting bumped around, and trying to look at an enroute chart, if your vacuum pump fails, you may never know until you find yourself in a steep, descending spiral. Put on top of that that you are fatigued and tired, you may not have noticed that your instruments aren’t all agreeing until it is way too late.
What’s the hardest part of flying IFR?
Click here to find out…
In the simulator or PCATD, you can set the system up to fail in a more realistic manner. In the simulator it’s a training event and if you take it to heart, it can be a real learning experience. If it happens while you are flying, it’s an emergency and really, really scary!
Consider some other systems too, like if you have no oil pressure right after takeoff into IFR conditions. Did you scan your engine instruments, including the oil pressure gauge before you advanced the throttle or thrust levers, or did you just move your eyes over the instruments not really seeing them? Again in the simulator you can practice for just these events.
So the next time you haven’t been flying for awhile or you have a pilot job interview coming up that requires a simulator ride, spend some extra money on some simulator time or power-up the computer and reacquaint yourself with flying IFR, instrument approaches, and system failures. It will be time well spent!
To Your Flying Success…
Jeffrey
Jeffrey is a captain at a regional airline and flies the CRJ-200, CRJ-700, and the CRJ-900. He has over 4000 hrs of flying experience in many different airplanes and is a Gold Seal flight instructor to his credit. He has recently written “The CRJ200 Quicknote Study Guide” that simplifies the systems of the CRJ200into a easy-to-understand, downloadable eBook. Click here to get your copy today!
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