Bananas

I got back to Corpus on January 2nd and about midday on January 3rd (less than an hour after I'd brought home a brand-new TV I'd bought tax-free at the exchange) I learned I had my first simulator event in an hour and a half.

It was only a warm-up but it prepared me for the pace of the next 10 events that I've completed between then and now. I went through 7 (8 including the warm-up) Basic Instrument simulator events, in a week, being double-scheduled last Friday and Monday.

A Basic Instrument simulator event is about 3 hours of pain spent on base with about the same required for preparation and study. Unlike the Cockpit Procedure simulator events which I did back in November, in Basic Instruments (B.I.) we are actually flying the simulator. It is a lot like a fancy flight-simulator video game, just minus the video. They put us into the model cockpit which is mounted on hydraulics and close the blacked-out canopy so we're locked in a strangely moving black box. Then we're expected (and graded on our abilities) to climb to altitude, complete a number of turns (at constant rates and angle of banks), climb and descend (also at constant rates and airspeeds), go through a number of approach manuevers (like how your typical airline captain is able to set up for a landing in the fog) and finally practice "partial-panel" flying.

Partial panel flying is probably the most challenging of our tasks. Flying on instruments alone (like the airline pilot flying in the fog) is made easy because there is a gyroscopic istrument that tells us exactly where we are in relation to the horizon. It even has a miniature airplane super-imposed on a model of the horizon with a blue part for the sky and a black part for the ground. In Partial-Panel flight, they turn off the "artificial horizon indicator" and the heading indicator leaving us with airspeed, turn indicator, altitude, vertical speed and a magnetic compass (like the ones on sailboats, it's filled with fluid and wobbels constantly). In fact, this combination of instruments is exactly the same as what Charles Lindberg (who I have so much more respect for ...) had in the Spirit of St. Louis on the first transatlantic flight.

The challenge to all of this is that all of these instruments have a delay to them, whether from pressure differences to gyroscopic precession, they all lag behind reality and make it extraordinarily difficult to maintain level flight, turn, descend, etc. It's almost like a constant guessing game of where your plane has decided to go in the time until the instruments catch up. In fact, they tell us that if we ever experience that type of emergency, while in "Instrument Conditions" (the clouds) we're one small step from bailing out.

I completed all my simulators with all their challenges and am still the furthest ahead in my class group (only by coincidences of weather and schedules of course) and on Thursday it was time to try all of this out in the plane.
The way they instruct instrument flight in the plane is pretty interesting, they put us in the rear cockpit, the instructor takes off and then tell us to reach behind our heads and pull what is essentially a lighter version of my car's convertible top over my head between me and the canopy. It is then velcro-ed in front of the instrument panel leaving me up in the air with no view of the outside world. At that point, I strapped on my oxygen mask (because we were climbing to above 10,000' not just because it gives that cool Top Gun fighter-pilot look). It's actually very uncomfortable, having a cold rubber contraption strapped to your face and turning the act of breathing into a cheap Darth Vader impression. Another little-known fact is that your breath condenses to the inside of itself, creating a little pool in the bottom that makes for a nice surprise when you take it off after the flight.

However, it definitely gives that cool fighter-pilot look (which is pretty much what I'm going for here) so I was fine with it and the fact that once it was on, we weren't allowed to take it off until we were established below 10,000.

I had two days of flying "instruments," Thursday went fine and I met course standards on all of my maneuvers. On Friday, I had a really great instructor who was totally enthusiastic and offered to stay up in the air long enough for me to complete the last 2 of the 3 B.I. flights instead of just the one we were scheduled for. It was great, it was exhausting and at the end of it he said I did a really good job and I was graded "excellent" or 5/5 on a number of my maneuvers.

As a reward we removed the hood and he offered to do some "P.A.s" or "Precision Aerobatics," and so as the fighter-pilot wannabe, that I am, I totally encouraged him and egged him on as best I could. I did such a good job of that that he flew 2 barrel rolls in quick succession and then offered to teach me how to do an "aileron roll." A barrel roll is like a corkscrew horizontally in the air and an aileron roll is a quick roll along the longitudinal access or as if you stuck a stick through the propeller and out the tail and then rotated the airplane on it. It's quick and violent, you raise the nose and use both arms to forcefully throw the stick to one side of the airplane. After the demo I tried it and I rolled the plane so fast I have no idea how I managed to stop the roll and end up straight and level, but apparently it was pretty good for my first time. It was so good that he asked if I wanted to one to the right.

Throughout the flight he'd periodically ask me how I was feeling. I, the sailor, the guy who never gets carsick (except for that one time...dad), the guy who never gets seasick (except for that one time in Cape Cod Bay... and I didn't throw up, mind you) and the guy who never, ever got airsick.... thought those questions were ridiculous, until he asked me how I felt after I completed my aileron roll.

I didn't feel right, I didn't feel bad, but something just wasn't right, my head was out of whack and my stomach was starting to feel the same way. I caught my breath, we levelled off, I drank some water and focused on the horizon until I felt fine again. I took controls and did the last event on the syllabus, the "Penetration maneuever" which is a pattern in which we lose roughly 10,000' or so of altitude in about 3-4 minutes, putting the aircraft into a controlled dive at a steady 180knots. It was fun, I did it well and felt fine.

However, at the bottom, my IP (Instructor Pilot) took controls and maneuvered the airplane to set up for a "Ground Controlled Approach" demo. It was cool, the controllers told us exactly what we had to do and essentially flew us in, just like your typically airline pilot.
The problem was that from the backseat, I no longer had the controls, couldn't see in front of me and had no warning aside from a controller's command of when my IP was going to throw the aircraft into a 45 degree bank. I could make a lot more excuses too, like how I'd had spicy acidic food the night before, had a few glasses of wine (but not within 12-hours before my brief as per regulations) and didn't get enough water that morning, but I did do one thing right. I ate a banana for breakfast, which is exactly what they tell you to do, because, as I found out about a half mile from the runway, they taste exactly the same going down... as they do coming up.