asked to do a steam gauge sim for interview?

[Monk]

I go down next week for initial sim training on the 9.

 

[Autothrust Blue]

Copilot side wouldn't even capture heading. We used the big roll knob. Roll into a bank, roll out when you get to your desired heading. Same with altitude. Roll in the vertical speed, roll it out when you get to the desired altitude, fine-tune every five minutes or so. The USAir 9's were modern compared to the AirTran 9's (former Turkish Air and British Midland). They had the old green and black radar and some didn't even have HSI's but rather this odd instrument called a PDI - pictorial deviation indicator (like an HSI with no numbers).

I actually used the turn knob the other day.

 

[z987k]

Like the care and feeding of motorcycles, there was a Zen to flying the DC-9.

A gentle caress of the turn knob, a little bit of muscle memory with the vert speed wheel, and some minor tweaking of the power (%70 N1 was the golden rule), and she'd reward you with a very nice flight with no fuss, muss or bother.

No frantic button pushing. No panicked moments switching runways. No pursing of the lips when there was a skill --> FMS disconnect. No "what's it doing?" of the Airbus (which gets upgraded to "look, it's doing that thing again" once you get more Airbus time).

The NWA DC-9s were quite nice. The troublesome systems were all replaced in the 1990s when the birds were rebuilt from the ground up. Electronic replacements for the battery charger, pressurization, radar & EGPWS, ADCs & altimeters made it a darn reliable ride with minimum fuss. The only quirk was there were MANY variations of engine intermixes, and so a little piston time helped in syncing the engines. With some of the more interesting engine mixes, you could fly in trim, or you could fly in sync, but rarely both at the same time.

Richman

Perhaps a book titled zen and the art of dc9 (or one of its affectionate nicknames) flying should be written.

 

[BE19Pilot]

I saw a DC-9-10 in CLT last month, but I forget the cargo outfit that was flying it...Might have been USAJet...Always one of my favorites! I remember watching them going in and out of DAB operated by Air Florida...

 

[SpiceWeasel]

Every time I gush about wanting to fly the 9osaur, CAs tell me they wouldn't want to do "all that work".

 

[e6bflyer]

Went from flying this:

To instructing in this:

Moral of the story...even when you are flying something that flies itself, it is never a bad thing to occasionally click everything off and go raw data just for practice. I am glad that I stayed proficient enough to rock two needles in the turbo weenie after a few years of flying Boeing glass.

I am back flying the Gucci stuff, but feel confident I could step into a classic aircraft or sim and fly it well after getting my scan warmed up.

 

[ERfly]

Went from flying this:

To instructing in this:

Moral of the story...even when you are flying something that flies itself, it is never a bad thing to occasionally click everything off and go raw data just for practice. I am glad that I stayed proficient enough to rock two needles in the turbo weenie after a few years of flying Boeing glass.

I am back flying the Gucci stuff, but feel confident I could step into a classic aircraft or sim and fly it well after getting my scan warmed up.

What is the one up top? Is that a KC-135 with a retrofitted glass cockpit? It looks like a 737 cockpit with 4 engines.

 

[ASpilot2be]

What is the one up top? Is that a KC-135 with a retrofitted glass cockpit? It looks like a 737 cockpit with 4 engines.

I am going to guess its an E6.

 

[e6bflyer]

Bingo. Take a 1990's cockpit and jam it into a 1950's airframe and walla! It works great until it doesn't feel like it or until you push the VNAV button.

 

[T-Gates]

I'm not going to lie, I almost had a stroke trying to figure out what that picture was. Very cool, I had no idea they had retrofitted a cockpit like that into a E-6!

 

[Maximilian_Jenius]

I am going to guess its an E6.

Bingo. Take a 1990's cockpit and jam it into a 1950's airframe and walla! It works great until it doesn't feel like it or until you push the VNAV button.

Okay. So what was the plane in the second picture?

 

[ASpilot2be]

Okay. So what was the plane in the second picture?

My guess is T6.

 

[e6bflyer]

Okay. So what was the plane in the second picture?

T-34. The Navy replaced them with the T-6B. There is still one squadron left to transition.

T-6B:

A slight improvement in technology. Even with all the bells and whistles, they are still teaching flying the needles.

 

[e6bflyer]

I'm not going to lie, I almost had a stroke trying to figure out what that picture was. Very cool, I had no idea they had retrofitted a cockpit like that into a E-6!

It was to bring it into compliance with RVSM and RF immunity as well as allow us to navigate better in a nuclear trans or post attack environment where all the navaids would presumably not work anymore.

 

[falconvalley]

Went from flying this:

To instructing in this:

Moral of the story...even when you are flying something that flies itself, it is never a bad thing to occasionally click everything off and go raw data just for practice. I am glad that I stayed proficient enough to rock two needles in the turbo weenie after a few years of flying Boeing glass.

I am back flying the Gucci stuff, but feel confident I could step into a classic aircraft or sim and fly it well after getting my scan warmed up.

WOW I had no idea anything like the E-6 suite existed!

 

[Justin S]

Turn ten twist ten! Don't forget the 90 degree turn!