BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
I wrote this up for my site, but I figure maybe somebody would want to read it over here. I had a PC a few days ago. I dunno if this is the standard for PCs or not (my first one that wasn't associated with training).
As promised (although a day late)...
Basically, as part of continuing training every pilot must go through a sim session to prove "proficiency". Captains have to go through every 6 months and FOs every year. The sessions alternation between a "training event" and a "check event". The training event requires more maneuvers and profiles, but you can't really fail it. The Proficiency Check can wave some of the items, but if you screw more then 2 things up you fail it and there is a failure on your record plus you are likely to be pulled off line for some additional training. Lucky me, this time around I was due for a PC.
I ended up getting to the training center a little late due to scheduling messing up my schedule, but I had already talked to the director of training and he said he was ok with it and would let the sim instructor know what was going on. Once there I met Chris, the captain I would be doing the PC with and we got started. Some people buddy bid sim so they know who they are working with, and it is really something I would consider doing down the road. This was the first time I went through sim with a captain as opposed to just having another FO in the left seat playing captain. Over all I felt it was easier as we didn't have to swap seats at all, and all the flows and what not were natural for him over there and for me in the right seat.
We started off by the sim instructor, Brett, checking our manuals and plates. After assuring everything was up to date we moved right into the oral. Pretty much anything is fair game here, but all we did was go through a powerpoint of pictures taken during a preflight walk around of the airplane. Brett would point to something and we would alternate answering what it was and then he would ask some sort of systems or limitation question (what are those? the windshield wipers. How fast can we go with them out? 220knots. moving on...) We both spaced on a few things, but over all we trucked right through the slide show. Brett also took the time to teach a few things that neither one of us knew as well as answer somewhat unrelated questions we had as we went along. After about 45 minutes we finished up and headed over to the sim bay to wait for the previous crew to finish up in the sim.
The CLT training center has 2 sim bays. I've never been in the other one, but ours has 5 simulators in it. From the far left over there is a CRJ 200 that Air Wisconsin now uses, although it is the one I did my interview and all my new hire training in. Next to that is a mainline 757 box followed by another 757/767 convertible (I think) and then our CRJ200/700 convertible and then a Dash8 that PDT uses. Each sim sit 20 or 30 feet off the ground on legs so it can provide motion. There are all sorts of wires and hoses attached to the base and they look a lot like a Lunar Lander. There are bridges that come down from the sim and connect to the catwalk for access to them. When they are in use the bridge pulls up and the box is a freestanding monster.
After our sim cleared out we headed in and started the nest building process. We had already agreed to do the training out of Charlotte so I pulled out plates and got stuff set up for a take off out of CLT. We decided not to use headsets although we did simulate radio transmissions with the actual frequencies set in. Brett played ATC, Company, our Flight Attendant and anybody else we had to talk to. Once everything was squared away and we had the weather and a clearance we pushed back off the gate (there is a little animated marshaller dude who has wands and everything) and got started.
First up were engine starts. A turbine engine is spun up to a certain speed either via an electric motor (if they are small) or an air turbine starter and then has fuel and ignition applied. As long as there is sufficient airflow through the engine the the fuel flows through like it should and the ignition is applied like it should be, everything works out fine. But of course in the sim world NOTHING happens like it should so on my first engine start the ITT (internal turbine temp, basically a measure of how hot it is inside the engine) started climbing much faster then normal. Our limit is 900 degrees, but I shut off the fuel as it blew through 650 degrees. As the engine spun down the temperature slowly came down as well, and we ran a quick checklist to ensure we did everything we needed to to fix it. In the real world we would have called MX for them to come out and take a look, but this being the sim it was considered good to go and I started it again with no problems. The captain took the other start and couldn't get the starter to cut out. A few seconds of button pushing fixed the problem.
From there we headed out to the runway. The sim taxis a little strange. There is motion on the sim that does a remarkable job of simulating how flight feels but some times on the ground it is a little jerky. A few people get motion sick as the sim taxis around. Fortunately it was a pretty short taxi to 36L so we got out there without any problem. We ran the appropriate checklists and after a few problems (flight controls not reading the correct position, which I didn't actually catch) we took the runway and Chris put the power up for the take off roll.
In an ideal world you are always hyper vigilant during every take off (and every part of flight really) but in the sim you are even more so. You KNOW something is going to break and most of the time you know when. However, it is still almost always a surprise when it does happen. Heading down the runway, accelerating through 120 knots I wondered what was going to break first. I called rotate at around 140 knots and we started climbing. A positive rate call got the gear up and the plane accelerating. At about 400 feet just as I was about to select heading mode for Chris, the airspeed started to drop off. I called it about the same time the plane issued a HI-LO tone followed by everybody's favorite "WINDSHEAR WINDSHEAR" aural and a max pitch angle limit bar on the display. Immediate response is for the flying to pilot to request max thrust, which I gave him, and then to pitch up into the flight director but not stall out the airplane. As the aircraft approaches a stall several things happen. The continuous ignition light comes on as both igniters in the engines light off to ensure engine power. If the airplane continues to approach a stall the stick shaker (basically a big vibrating motor in the control column) starts shaking to alert the pilot they are about to stall. Then if the stall continues to approach the stick pusher will actually push the yoke forward in an attempt to get the nose down and increase the airspeed and lower the angle of attack. Of course, during a windshear recovery, the last place you want the nose going is down, so there is a very fine line of riding the shaker in the climb out, but not getting the pusher. As pilot monitoring my job is to call out our altitude above the ground using the Radar Altimeter and whether we are increasing or decreasing our sink. It was a near thing. At one point I called 240 feet and decreasing. Around 210 we stabilized and then starting climbing again. As we exited the shear and started climbing Chris reset the power and I continued on with the after take off checklist.
From there we climbed up to 10000 feet to do maneuvers. Possible maneuvers include steep turns, clean stalls (no flaps out) maneuvering stall (flaps 20 and gear out) and a landing stall (full landing configuration of flaps 45 and gear out). We went right into the stalls with Chris doing the maneuvering stall in a left turn and then having the auto pilot fly into the landing stall. He managed to do both and recover with out to many problems and then it was my turn. To save time we both did the maneuvers while at 10000 feet and then Chris finished his portion of the ride. Both stalls went ok for me. I managed to lose just about 200 feet during each stall which is a little more then I would have liked, but it was acceptable. One funny thing is that the maneuvering stall is hand flown the whole time but the landing stall is flown by the autopilot until the actual stall at which point the AP disconnects and you have to recover it. Well, as the aircraft gets slow with no power in the autopilot trims the airplane VERY nose high to keep it flying. Then, as you recover and throw in max thrust the nose tends to want to come up very quickly, which could lead right into a secondary stall. It takes a whole lot of pushing forward on the yoke to keep the nose down while you trim just about as fast as you can to get the nose back down.
After the stalls Chris took the plane back and we headed towards CLT for some approaches. First up was a normal ILS which went ok except we were told to go around short final. On bringing up the flaps during the climb out we got a FLAPS FAIL message at zero degrees which led us right into a flapless landing. This time we got a localizer only (meaning no vertical guidance so we had to step down as we crossed certain fixes. Also, with no flaps, the plane, which normally lands pretty fast, lands VERY fast. Our approach speed was 176 knots (about 205 miles per hour). The approach was pretty hectic as the only thing we had to get us down was the gear. The gear came out just as we started descending to our minimum decent height (the last step down altitude of the approach). I called the runway in sight and Chris did a very nice job of setting the plane down. Of course we were going REALLY fast and in order to stop he needed max brakes and thrust reverse... but wait... what's this? No reversers? Yeah. I forgot to arm them because in our haste to get down and land we forgot to do the before landing checklist. Fortunately the runway was uphill so we managed to stop in time.
After that we reset at the end of the runway and prepared to take off again. Of course this time, just short of rotation there was a loud thumping sound followed by a whole bunch of red lights flashing on the panel. The plane started yawing left just as I called rotate and off we went with just one engine turning and the other burning away. Chris did a nice job keeping it going straight and tracking straight as we climbed out (barely) and went through the engine failure on take off procedures. After leveling off at 1000 feet and accelerating we started climbing again and I went to work on the QRH (quick reference handbook, basically our emergency procedure checklists). We eventually got the fire out after blowing a halon bottle into the left engine and then set up for a return back to Charlotte for a single engine ILS. We briefed the approach and were just starting down the glide slope when the autopilot kicked off. Chris started hand flying but was having trouble keeping the plane under control. In THEORY the CRJ can be flown single engine by just using the rudder. He was over controlling with the yoke a bit, but did manage to keep it on the ILS all the way down to mins where we didn't see a runway and initiated a single engine go around. I didn't help things during the go around by pushing the thrust lever too far forward and over temping the engine (the only one we had!) Fortunately I caught it pretty quickly and it didn't do any damage. Still hand flying, Chris managed to head for the hold before getting the autopilot back.
From there we briefed the GPS approach back into Charlotte and again, just as we came onto final the autopilot died. Chris did a much better job this time and the runway came into sight just at our visual decent point. The single engine landing was right on the 1000 foot markers and as we rolled out the sim came off motion and paused. Part one was done.
After a 15 minute break we got back in the sim and with me as the flying pilot we blasted off again. On the first take off we hit the same windshear as before and I managed to fly out of it with out hitting anything. From there it was vectors around for an ILS. Coming down the ILS to mins didn't get us a runway so around we went with the same flaps fail message. My flapsless landing was pretty sketchy. I landed a good 4000 feet down the runway. All three of us agreed that I was trying to land the plane like a 700 (which I had flown the 4 legs before my checkride). I managed to stop it before going off the end, but in real life I don't think it would have stopped in time. From there we reset for the V1 cut.
The right engine died out on me just after V1. I managed to get a nice rotation out of it and only lost about 5 degrees off the runway heading. From there it was turns for a single engine ILS. Of course the captain called mins about 1/2 a second early so I went around just as the runway lights came into sight. Brett gave him some grief for making me go around again and my leg (pushing down the rudder is a lot of work) didn't thank him either but there wasn't much I could do about it. This time we came back around for the GPS approach. Due to the engine being out we only had flaps 20 and once again I did the 700 landing where I kept the power in and flared early. Around 4000 feet down the runway I decided to go around. We got tight vectors for the localizer only approach which I managed to get down just a little long this time.
After that we repositioned to Philly to do a PRM approach (basically, 2 ILSs right next to each other). A plane on the other side started wandering into our side so we had to break off the approach and go missed. We each got one (although I did 2 because the first time he gave me the break out instructions I was still trying to figure out why the autopilot wasn't capturing and I got the breakout instructions backwards and turned the wrong way).
After that we were done. We had a few extra minutes so I requested to see a thrust reverser deployment on rotation. It wasn't nearly as exciting as I had been led to believe. Chris wanted to see the door open on rotation (this actually happened once on the Dornier) but the sim doesn't actually open the door, it just pops the latch so there was no aerodynamic drag or anything. Finally we did an engine failure on departure in icing and ended up stalling because the dead engine side wing picked up ice due to not being heated by the dead engine. Stuff to think about.
After a 30 minute debrief we were done. Over all it wasn't too bad. I made some really dumb mistakes, but that is pretty normal I think. At least I'm done for another year.
