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required for a smooth(er) transition from academia to the simulator were glossed over (or completely deleted) – until we complained that is.
One deleted ground school event, typically conducted in the stationary simulator, is called “systems integra- tion.” It basically means using the knowledge gained from ground school and accomplishing the entire normal procedures checklist in a functional cockpit in order to become proficient at (or at least familiar with) finding switches and completing checklists – including the “expanded” items and loading/programming the FMS. This allows students to see, hear and feel the response of the switches and con- trols. Another topic deleted, then re- added near the end of the program, was a two-hour systems review using several dozen interior and exterior walk-around pictures.
FlightSafety is known as the pre- mier training center, right? Lest you think this is not the case, let me make this excuse for them: Combine the worldwide employee shortage of 2021 with high demand for training (bizjet sales are up 15.9 percent, turboprops 40.6 percent, and piston/turbine he- licopters combined up 48.3 percent), some simulator downtime for mal- functions, the overscheduling of the simulator, and you have a “business de- cision conundrum.” There was simply no simulator time (except 2 a.m. to 5 a.m.) available for systems integration, and some instructors were already at their duty-day limits anyway.
Quitter
I called my chief pilot on day eight of the course, which was day two of the sims. I told him that even though my f lying ability and crosscheck were fine, I felt completely buried by my lack of proficiency with switchology and the checklist – and that I would be on the 0840 flight home the next morning. Remember, four months ago, I was at a 4,000-hour comfort level in the 737. A recently retired 747 captain and a transitioning King Air pilot in my class had similar discomfort levels. My chief pilot didn’t much like the idea of losing his $19k investment for the airline tickets, 15 hotel nights and the type-rating course – and oh yeah, my
An all-nighter caught me up on switchology and the normal procedures checklist.
Scheduling the sim in late hours of the night was needed to relieve the client overload.
salary. Speaking of which, Captain, your resume certainly doesn’t ref lect a history of quitting. He didn’t really say that, but I imagine he was thinking it.
But like a good chief pilot/coach, he discussed the training issues and had one of our line pilots call me. “Trust me; you’ll love the jet,” they both es- poused. That evening I reminisced about my New Mexico hunting trip and wondered why I was getting a type rating instead of deer hunting in Michigan. But they had persuaded me to try sim number 3 the next af- ternoon. So, I spent most of the night and half of the next day in preparation,
learning switchology and the normal procedures checklist. And then I f lew the sim. Those familiar with fatigue terminology recognize this as the be- ginning of a sleep debt that cannot be repaid while in the simulator por- tion of initial training. Suffice it to say that my training schedule changed five times – all but one of them was not my fault and involuntary. We’ll get into what happened next shortly, but in the meantime, long time T &T readers may remember these excerpts from “Flying The Box” (October 2010) and “Scent of a Simulator” (November 2015) in which I recount some of the rigors of simulator training.
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