B.I. Sim Complete - Ready for the Jet

<- this is my house here... note the MG still rides


After a fairly grueling two weeks since my last entry, I've finished all my "Basic Instrument" simulator events and am now "opted" for the next syllabus "event," my first time actually flying the Jet.

The Sims here follow the same basic premise as they did back in Corpus for Primary. They not only allow to practice things that would be impossible to do in the actual Jet, say Emergency Procedures requiring ejection for example but also they're used to develop our basic piloting skills without wasting thousands of pounds of JP-8 fuel. We have enormous video screens in front of most of the Sims (imagine your own personal IMAX theater, but with much lower quality graphics). It does allow us to practice landings and other visual procedures... which does help explain how I managed to land twice on my backseat ride.

As an additional benefit, the simulator building itself seems to fill the role of that pasture where many of the country's old and "salty" jet pilots are sent out to. In other words, it gives retirees a chance to stay connected and keep making a difference in Aviation. I would say that the average age of my instructors in the Sim building is somewhere right around the national retirement age, I'd say a solid 55-60. It's actually something of a tradeoff, we all get to benefit from their worlds of experience. Some of these guys have been flying Jets since, well, the beginning of Jets. However, some of those guys won't let you forget it. So when you're on your first few graded events in a jet simulator, with the exception of a good bunch really helpful and level-headed instructors, you've got a good chance of hearing absolute silence in your headset or (and not that I may not deserve it) a continuous volley of shouted or screamed curses and the occasional pounding on the side of the sim itself. Sometimes it's a combination of both, especially if you have one of our "four horsemen"... yes just like back in Corpus, except so much worse.

It'd be a huge understatement to say that this sim is the hardest thing I've ever tried to fly. No offense Matt if you're reading this, but nothing a Cessna ever threw at me was this challenging. I'm better now, but at the beginning I'd turn my head away for not more than a couple seconds, so say, turn the page on a checklist or something and turn back to find myself upside down. Now, I turn my head away to pull a book out of my "pub bag" and I've only lost or gained a couple hundred feet. Changes happen fast at 2-300 kts or whatever I'm flying, in fact in certain configurations, I'd bet that my approach speed (slowest speed I can safely travel to get me on the runway) is faster than the max speed on some airplanes.

It's amazing how much I learned in Primary and how much I'm expected to remember from that. Our textbooks definitely cover the basics and provide a great review, but I was expected to fly an actual instrument approach the first time I got in the simulator. I couldn't fly an approach until I was 3/4 done with Primary, it was the last thing I learned how to do and 4 months later, it's pretty much all I do.

It's definitely cool to have progressed so far but it's pretty exhausting. I've been "double-pumped" in the Sims, which means having two graded events a day, same as in Primary, which equals about 3 hours in the box. If I was lucky there'd be an open sim and I'd schedule practice before my first event so I could get warmed up and get my "scan" moving, or in other words get my eyes used to moving across the numbers and dials almost continuously. It would usually work out to over 4 hours in the box and a 10-12 hour day in total. I'm definitely not complaining, but it makes for an interesting drive home when my eyes can't focus on things anymore.

I'm told the Jet is a lot easier to fly and I'm looking forward to having "feel" back in the controls. It's almost like sailing a boat, the feedback on the rudder is so important when you're at the helm, and the simulator does give feedback on the stick, but it's also the motion of the boat through the waves that helps you keep everything trimmed and with planes it's exactly the same, just in more dimensions. Cars have a lot of the same feel as well, but again in less dimensions. If you want to do a fun exercise, next time you go driving, try to keep your speedometer needle exactly on a particular number, not above, not below and see how hard it is and how long you can do it.

Wow, that's boring, right? Yeah, this is the stuff they don't make movies about, but it's all foundation and totally necessary. What is cool is that in a couple weeks, if I play my cards right, I'll be able to "take the jet on the road." In other words, to complete a lot of my "Radio Instrument" syllabus, I'll get to fly somewhere far away for a weekend... I'm thinking New York. So... if you've read this far, and are in the New York metropolitan area, get excited and look for an orange and white Jet, because I might soon be coming to a town near you!

(yeah, I'm hoping to land at Republic on L.I., but I want to try to do "practice approaches" at White Plains which, if I plan it right, might put me right over Darien and definitely over Greewich/IHYC)