Fresh back from Simuflite

FL270

New Member
In the simulator, I actually got the following scenario:

KDEN, takeoff at MGTOW, 35C day (that's 95F), approach flaps takeoff, engine failure at V1 with an autofeather failure.

Talk about a handful! Fortunately, I had a good FO who sucked the gear up right away (before I could get the words out), manually feathered the prop, and alertly shut the bleed valves off. Bleeds may not sound like much, but the extra 100# of torque gave me just enough performance to accelerate to V2+15 and get the flaps up. After that, a 200 FPM climb and return for landing.

In the actual aircraft I'd never takeoff from a 5400' airport at 35C with flaps ... but this is the simulator where we demonstrate the impossible!

The same sadistic (and yet bright and very helpful) sim instructor who gave me the above scenario also gave me an engine fire ... cleaned it up, blew the bottle, and went in to land (200-1/2 of course). He set it up so the fire would re-ignite on landing to see if we'd remember to evacuate the airplane and call ATC to advise them (since it's 1/2 SM vis and they probably can't see the runway from the tower!).

Six more months and I'll get to do the same fun all over again.

FL270
 
What type aircraft?

Sim instructors are hilarious. Once we were practicing a engine failure during takeoff roll. We were above V1 and "BOOOooo...." engine failure!

I'm doing my best to accelerate to VR speed ,but it's not doing it as we're running out of runway -- and we're on a 11,000' runway. So I figure I'll comprimise between running off the end and rotating a few knots prior to VR so we don't smack into the terrain/hotel at the end of the runway.

I get it airborne and about 80 feet, the thing levels and I'm doing my best to play the speed/climb game and it hit about 100' AGL and we hit terrain.

My sim instructor immediately starts the 'speech' about maintaining airspeed, yadda yadda yadda then goes "Oh, wait... Oh, I had you about 100,000 lbs over maximum gross takeoff weight. Scratch all that. You'll be on 'position freeze' at the threshold, let me know when you're ready for takeoff'.

Waaaaaaaait. Where's my apology?!
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Sim instructors are hilarious.

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Do you have any idea of how boring it gets sitting in "the box" watching people make the same mistakes over and over?

We had to come up with creative things just to stay awake. At Simcom we could actually walk outside the sim (it's a cockpit sitting in a projection room) and do funny things like run along side the airplane, simulate bungee jumpers as they went under the bridge, or my favorite, "hi-speed jet traffic right to left" and throw a paper airplane past the window.

The motion sims at FSI were harder to improvise in but we managed.
 
Doug, it was in the King Air 200.

John, my last trip through Simcom my simulator instructor would simulate an engine fire by standing outside the sim and holding his cigarette lighter up to the window! It was a riot ...

Yeah, most sim instructors have their little quirks, no doubt about it. At Continental, we had a DC-9 instructor ask us to do a single-engine takeoff! The point was to get used to the rudder forces required to maintain directional control on a V1 cut ... he put us at the end of 15L (well 14L back then) and said, "you'll run off the end but just keep accelerating through the trees until rotation." The funny thing is that it actually did help my sim partner ... he never had a problem with V1 cuts after that!

FL270
 
We had red lights along the wall w could also use to simulate engine fires. Sounds like you flew with Paul. He used to light a match in teh cockpit and say, "Do you smell something burning?" immediately followed by alternator failure.
 
[ QUOTE ]
What type aircraft?

Sim instructors are hilarious. Once we were practicing a engine failure during takeoff roll. We were above V1 and "BOOOooo...." engine failure!

I'm doing my best to accelerate to VR speed ,but it's not doing it as we're running out of runway -- and we're on a 11,000' runway. So I figure I'll comprimise between running off the end and rotating a few knots prior to VR so we don't smack into the terrain/hotel at the end of the runway.

I get it airborne and about 80 feet, the thing levels and I'm doing my best to play the speed/climb game and it hit about 100' AGL and we hit terrain.

My sim instructor immediately starts the 'speech' about maintaining airspeed, yadda yadda yadda then goes "Oh, wait... Oh, I had you about 100,000 lbs over maximum gross takeoff weight. Scratch all that. You'll be on 'position freeze' at the threshold, let me know when you're ready for takeoff'.

Waaaaaaaait. Where's my apology?!
smile.gif


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OMG! You must have had the same instructor as Bill at his recurrent in 2002! The instructor was being checked by another check airman, who was in turn being checked by an FAA guy. Pretty crowded sim! Anyway, they were doing V1 cuts, and then they switched to a landing simulation. Well the instructor throws some wind shear at them, (Bill is the one flying btw), and the decent rate is not improving, finally Bill has to say "going above engine limits" or something like that, basically over-stressing the engines, but that's what you gotta do if it comes down to slamming the plane into the ground or hurting the engines. They were like, 50 feet off the ground and finally the decent rate stops, the airspeed slowly creeps up, and they're 'in the clear'. Then the instructor says "Oh, hey, wait a minute guys, I forgot to re-set your weight! Ooops" They were doing this 'landing' simulation at max takeoff weight. (I think that's how the story goes, anyway the weight was something like 100,000 lbs more than it should have been.) Bill and his CA look at each other like, "ass". Then the Fed says to Bill "Hmm, nice job, you flew that perfectly". So he got a compliment
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Sounds like you flew with Paul.

[/ QUOTE ]Actually it was a guy named Nick Costea. Pretty good guy, and knew his way around the King Air. That was about a year ago now.

FL270
 
I once had a sim instructor who got sidetracked and forgot to restart an engine after a single engine landing ... so I told the other guy to be quite and did a single engine take off just for the fun of it ... we pilots get bored with training every once in a while.
 
...Or how about being told to hold short of the runway for landing traffic, about 30 seconds later a Flying Fire Truck appears thru the fog and makes a perfect landing!
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This is the one I'm waiting for. The sim guy throws a smoke grenade in the cockpit to simulate electrical fire and smoke. Then you have to put on the goggles and mask properly to stay alive. Then, if you're still alive, you shoot an approach to minimums using only the standby busses.
 
I had a guy who would whip out his cigarette lighter and a piece of wire with the sheathing still on in the sim.... He's light the wire on fire to give the smell of electrical smoke... I'l be damned if it didn't get the heart rate going abit more!
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Might have been the same guy. He was also the same person who my captain wrecked the sim on his first day of MD-88 training and instead of screaming at the captain about maintaining airspeed, it was "How could you allow the captain to get so slow? It's your job to blahbitty blah blah..."

Never underestimate the pleasing sensation of staring straight ahead and secretly rolling your eyes when you're being berated by the sim instructor!
 
Okay, allow me to make a little clarification to MQAAord's report of my sim ride!

We were doing wind shears, we had done the CAs windshear, which was a take-off scenario (at 149,000lbs). My scenario was a landing wind shear (the DFW L-1011 one). And when he reset the sim to a previous snapshot (for my approach) he did not reset the weight.

So with engines firewalled we were riding intermittent stick-shaker and the CA calls "200 decending....100 feet, decending.....50 feet, decending" that's when I told the CA "I'm going above the PLI". So that meant I had 22 degrees nose-up and steady stick shaker for 15 seconds, and we were 15 knots below bug. The book says you may have to accept higher than normal pitch attitudes to avoid ground contact, so that's what I did!

We flew down the runway at 50 feet, finally started climbing as we passed the far end of the runway, and flew out of it successfully.

That's when the sim instructor says "Oh, guys, I'm sorry, you just flew that at 149,000lbs". That's 19,000lbs above max landing weight. That's when the FAA guy sitting 8 inches behind my right shoulder says "Really? Oh, wow!". The fed was the one who said in the post-flight briefing "you flew that perfectly, had that actually happened on the line, you would have flown out of it".

It's nice when a sim instructor's goof makes you look good, but DAMN, I don't need that much excitement! I'd rather just roll it on.
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