Stupid Sim Tricks

[rchcfi]

All,

Curious as to some stories of precarious, brainfartish, or funny sim stories you might want to share. I'll start:

Last week at Flight Safety I was doing the ole' LOC 27 circle to 18R at KMEM. My instructor put a L CHIP light on outside the FAF. As that is an amber light I continued the approach and while circling, kind of forgot it was illuminated. I was a little too high on the circle, and since I wasn't going to land in the TDZ I elected to go around. (What was I thinking!) Back up in the clouds and in my left 270 to re-establish myself outbound on the missed, he failed the left engine. As soon as it happened I remember the old saying: "If you give your instructor the opportunity, he will be more than happy to fail something". And rather than continuing with the syllabus, he had me fly all the way out and do the VOR back to 18R on that SE. I think he failed something else, but at that point I was already pissed at myself for letting that happen.

Also, just after taking off form KOKC, he failed my hydraulics. I asked to return to the airport, and no surprise it was now below landing mins.! Then on the way to KDUC the HSI and heading indicator mysteriously failed. So now I'm flying looking at the co-pilot's instruments. I asked to be vectored to an airport that was VFR, but it seemed as the entire country was IFR. So I had to shoot the VOR into KDUC with no flaps and possibly no brakes partial panel. Many beers were consumed that night!

Let's hear 'em.

 

[Flying Illini]

A couple years ago in the Falcon 10 sim at SimuFlite. We had some sim time remaining and asked our instructor to get tough on us at KASE. My partner and I swapped seats on each scenario. On the third one, he was flying. To depart KASE. Snowing, high winds, bad stuff...stuff you would never depart into in reality. Well, we brief it, take off with engine anti-ice on, wings on at gear-up. Instructor fails engine shortly after V1, partner flies it great. He fails something else, I don't remember what. Well, with all anti-ice on we were just going to make second segment, no room for error (see where this is going?). Well, the second thing that he failed, he did so right as I put the gear up...which means that I was distracted by it and failed to turn on the wings (story is getting ominous now). We are climbing OK, can make out mountains as they come into view through the snow (we are also in mod turbulence)...but the VSI needle keeps falling...1000fpm, 800fpm, 500fpm, airspeed is staying the same...mountains are getting closer and it doesn't look like we will clear them anymore. That's when I say, OH SH*T, THE WINGS!! and flip them on. Too late. VSI is saying -300fpm now...we're about to "become the mountain." So, as casual as everyday conversation, I said, "well, might as well put the gear down," and I did (you know, to absorb the impact!). 10 seconds later we impacted the mountain and it is now known as Falcon Peak. Pretty obvious, I forgot to turn the wings on and we iced up and died. It sucked...the instructor finally managed to get us to kill ourselves. My partner and I learned a valuable lesson that day.

 

[SCT]

Funny and true sim story told by a certian TUS FS instuctor.

He was giving a recurrent to two experienced 604 pilots that had been thru the program several times. They had requested the sim instuctor make the recurrent very challenging.

The crew was at altitude doing airwork or something. All morning the instructor had said he had been feeling bad. And as the sim session progressed the worse he felt. He said he felt clammy, started to have chest pains and numbness in his arm. He was going to stop the sim but collapsed onto the floor infront of the console. Meanwhile the two pilots are concentrating on the task at hand and they don't even notice him on the floor. He finally reaches up and puts the sim on freeze. The crew look over at each other and then back at the guy on the floor grabbing his chest. Being the highly trained crew that they were, they immediately excess the situation has a passenger w/ a medical emergency............and they initiate an emergency descent with the sim and start running the checklists and notifying ATC!!

The instuctor finally gets their attention and tells them he is not faking. The crew then jumps out of their seats gets on the emergency phone to notify the front desk to call 911 and then stops the sim.

It turned out it was not a heart attack and the FS guy was ok after going to the hospital. Funny story, in that the crew thought the instuctor was just running a scenario!

My story: At recurrent, flying a single engine ILS to minimums. Coming up on DH, the tubes black out and the whole sim pitches down 30-40' degrees suddenly. I imediately think that I've set the wrong DH, crashed the sim and flunked my 135 ride! But it was just a thunderstorm that knocked the electric out to the building.

 

[ozpilot]

Years ago when I was doing my recurrent ride at Comair, we finished the ride about 20 minutes early.

The instructor asked me if I wanted to try something with the remaining time. I asked him to put us over Cincinnati and then throw everything at us! About 10 minutes later as we were shooting the approach, my cell phone rang. I though what the 'ell and answered it.

It was a friend of mine who happend to be a FA at Comair. She asked "Whats up?", and of course I replied "Well right now where on final for 18L. The left engine has failed, the right one is on fire, we have no hydraulics, the co-pilot is frantically trying to pump down the gear and all our electrics have failed!"

Not knowing we were in the sim, she simply asked "Am I calling at a bad time?"

:laugh:

 

[rchcfi]

My funny story comes from Simuflite last year when I was going for my CE500 type.

Anyway, I was in the left seat and lined up for departure. I started the takeoff roll. Co-pilot announces V1, rotate. I gently start to pull back, but nothing. The aircraft is firmly planted on the runway screaming along passing 120 KIAS. I state "Abort, abort, abort" and reject the takeoff thinking he failed my flight controls. Well, as I am aborting, the sim instructor leans forward and says "Why are you aborting?" He hadn't failed anything. The sim just broke.

 

[91100 100 set]

During upgrade training on the Dash a few years back, the instructor threw us the Horizon accident. If I recall, what happened to those guys was an improperly installed fuel filter (it was put in backwards?) caused an explosion and engine fire that dumped both hydraulics systems. Additionally, the explosion blew the engine nacelle open, so the fire bottles essentially could not do their job (the agent was just blown out before it could snuff the fire).

We were at the end of our session with a few minutes left. Just flying around, with VFR weather, a few miles from Philly with my partner doing the flying. Left engine fire. Alright, I've done this enough times the last few days, lets do it again. As I'm starting the memory items, my partner says, "having a little trouble here...". He's got the wheel almost full right, struggling with both hands. I look down at the PFCS, no rudder deflection, no spoilers, then glance at the hydraulics, nothing there either.

Our instructor had said in passing a few days earlier that he might throw this scenario at us if there was time, but I completely forgotten until this point, so I was pretty surprised.

So I get the engine secured and of course the fire bottles don't work, so we are fighting an airplane with one engine, and only ailerons to counter it. It took about 10 degrees of bank to hold heading without the rudder, and those ten degrees took way more muscle without the spoilers. And of course, 10 degrees is really hurting the performance, so it took that much more power on the good side to keep us flying, which only made the control issues worse.

We have to get the plane on the ground. There's 27R and 27L, about 10 miles ahead. FO is still flying, but he's got to do the manual gear extension on his side, so we switch. It took both hands on the wheel to control to heading. He gets the gear down and I'm sorta lined up with 27L. Get it down on the pavement, but now we have no directional control. No hydraulics, so there is no nosewheel steering, no rudder (no cable backup on the Dash), and no differential brakes. We were actually able to kinda keep it on the pavement with a little power and beta from the good engine, but it wasn't pretty. Got it stopped with the parking brake accumulator, but I managed to blow some tires doing it.

So we get it stopped and slump down in the seats. The instructor says "WELL?...". "$hit, we've still got an engine on fire! We need to evacuate out the floor level exit on the right side...".

Kinda interesting, and very educational.

 

[91100 100 set]

Another one, shorter this time.

A few years ago, again on the Dash, we jump in the sim for recurrent. Off we go. Climbing out, the VSI starts to drop. Airspeed dropping. Max power, pitch for V2, as I'm thinking the instructor is a real ass for not even letting us get our "sea legs" before throwing us a ringer. And we crash.

The instructor says he didn't do anything, must be a sim problem. So we go do it again. Same thing, we crash.

By now, the instructor is zipping through menus on his panel. We hear a muffled "sons of bitches..." from behind us. Apparently the previous crew boobytrapped us with an impossible windshear that he didn't catch.

 

[Lilah]

The instructor says he didn't do anything, must be a sim problem. So we go do it again. Same thing, we crash.

EXACT same story here (including the crashes), somebody left the Pan Am NOLA scenario loaded.

Lilah

 

[Flyerjosh]

A few years back I was doing recurrent in the CRJ and the instructor caused a runaway trim right after rotation. It was a nose down runaway, and for whatever reason, hitting the trim disconnect didnt' work. Sucker ran the tail the whole way into the nose down position.

It's flyable, but only with both pilots pulling (we actually had the non-flying guy put his feet up on the foot rests... Certainly wouldn't want it to happen in real life, but a good opportunity to utilize CRM and coordination.

 

[Lostdog65]

Shorts 360 Sim at FSI LaGuardia.

My leg, we rotate and the whole thing pitches forward left then back left. We are, literally, facing up. I look back over my shoulder and the instructor, a very heavy weight kinda guy, is sprawled against the back trying to reach the phone.

Finally get a hold of maint and they come out. Hydraulics had failed as the instructor had set up a V1 cut. Went out at the exact same time as I rotated and the engine quit. I asked if we'd been hit by an RPG and was this the Baghdad One Departure (this was after 9/11 and our attack on Iraq). Instructor thought it was funny...maint wasn't amused.

Eric