Stupid Sim Tricks

[great cornholio]

Flight Safety Beech 1900 sim. Instructor thought it would be fun to put us above KDEN at 10,000ft and lock up our controls and had us try to land with just diff power. It was kinda tricky but I managed to hit the grass inbetween the runway and taxiway. Other time I was a few thousand feet above KLGA and sim instuctor starts yelling stuff and pulls both T-Handles (Cockpit door usually open on the 1900 so he was a crazy pax). My sim partner was first and we ended up crashing into the approach lights of 22 and into flushing bay. In real life if we werent dead then being in flushing bay would have made us want to be dead. Reset the sim both engines still flammed out so now its my turn. I had towed and flown gliders and messed with the props they would come in and out of feather (not sure if it would work in real life) so I used to props like spoilers and managed to hit the runway.

Nothing too crazy happened while I was in the EMB 145 or the J-41 sims.

One sim instructor told me a story about a guy who jumped out of the sim once. I guess he messed up on something and thought he was gonna fail his ride so instead of doing that he (while still on motion and "in the air") unbuckles his harness jumps out of his seat runs to the back of the sim opens the door and jumps out. Story is he kept running till outside of Flight Safety and the sim instructor never saw him agian.

 

[91100 100 set]

Another one...

We were doing some initial training on the Dash at FlightSafety in Toronto. Sitting in the briefing room before session one, we were discussed some of the particulars and differences from that sim to one in Charlotte. Just as we were finishing up, we hear a huge bang from the sim bay. We get up, and half expect to see the sim laying on it's side, busted off the jacks, sparks flying and hydraulic fluid squirting everywhere. It was loud enough that I thought the sim had to have come off it's mounts.

At that, the instructor adds, "oh yeah, make sure your belt is tight for real and don't leave the rings open on your Jepps unless you want to play 54-plate-pick-up..." Apparently that sim had to tendency to crash.

 

[Gorilla]

As mentioned already, hydraulic malfunctions (of the SIM, not the scenario) can be spectacular. B777 sim, I think it was Seattle, and the instructor was doing the standard safety brief - "here's the rope ladder, fire extinguisher, emergency stop, yada yada..." We ignore him as usual... who needs to know that stuff?

At some point, the "airplane" begins to buck like a mechanical bull at Billy Bob's or some other country bar. "Holy S---! What is this, a turbulence scenario?" We look back at the instructor; he is pale, and hanging on for dear life. The sim ends up 40 degrees nose low, and we evacuate via the emergency door. Another crew on the outside witnessed everything. "that's quite a scenario - I hope we don't get it!"

 

[rfresh]

Sometimes we sim instructors are amazed:

I was instructing in an MD-90 simulator and we were doing a TO with the Captain flying. Right after liftoff I gave him a left engine fire. The aircraft was about 50 feet high with the LEFT engine fire handle illuminated and at that point the Captain commands the F/O to pull the fire handle. So, the F/O reaches forward and grabs the RIGHT engine fire handle and pulls it all the way out!! This is an un-reversable action as the engine is now shutdown and cannot be undone. I guess in a panic, the F/O realizes his error and pushes the fire handle back in (as if the engine will restart again) and then, trying to make good on his first error, reaches over and now pulls the LEFT engine fire handle out!! Even with the left engine on fire, it is still producing some thrust. So, at about 100 feet altitude, both engines have now been shutdown and the Capt lets it sink back down to the runway in a controlled crash!!

Yeah, hard to believe this really did happen!!

 

[Gorilla]

Just curious, aren't the pilots taught at your carrier to get oral confirmation from the other guy that "Yeah, that's the affected fire handle/fuel lever" before actuating it? I thought that was pretty much standard these days. Or was it just a nervous, shoot from the hip FO?

 

[con-pilot]

Once during recurrency on the 727 my partner and I had finished early on the final cession and had some time left. As it was too early to go to the bar we decided to have some fun.

So the instructor placed us at 10,000 feet over the outer marker (FAF) for 26L at LAX, clean and at 250 kts. Then he said land, no turns, just straight in and gave us a couple of minutes to talk about how to accomplish the impossible.

Well, we did the first time, it wasn't pretty but we landed about half way down the runway with a little excessive speed and did stop before the end.

(Gear down, spoilers out and left out, flaps/LEDs out at max limits. Oh yeah, all three engines in reverse.)

The sink rate was rather high , however, we planned for that, which was the reason we landed long.

Wouldn't want to try that in the real world.

 

[rfresh]

Just curious, aren't the pilots taught at your carrier to get oral confirmation from the other guy that "Yeah, that's the affected fire handle/fuel lever" before actuating it? I thought that was pretty much standard these days. Or was it just a nervous, shoot from the hip FO?

Yep...confirmation from the other pilot is what is susposed to happen. This FO was pretty far in over his head - he was low time, no jet time, trying to get trained in a jet as an F/O.

Airline pilot training assumes a lot of jet knowledge already. For example, we don't actually teach *how* to use the Flight Director system; you're expected to know this already. We don't actually teach you the basics of pressurization, or the basics of hydraulics - you're expected to already know this. I had one pilot who couldn't get a handle on abnormal engine starts at the gate. Turns out he didn't know the engine starter was pneumatic - he thought it was electric like on his car.

Back to this F/O, he wasn't getting a type rating so I did the best I could to get thim through the course - he was always miles behind the airplane - and behind the learning curve because he had not flown jets before. The course on the MD-90 (was McDonnell Douglas now Boeing in Long Beach, CA) is 5 weeks long and assumes prior jet experience.

The course is not written for a jet novice. Even with that, to get through it, I tell my students to plan on spending 12 hours a day learning this machine, 6 days a week, for 5 weeks - because that's what it's going to take to get through it. If you're coming to learn a plane like this, be it a MD-80, MD-90 or 737, if you have no prior jet systems experience, you can't imagine how difficult it is to get through the course. It can be done but what a steep learning curve.