Well, I’m definitely in the
thick of things now. I just completed
my fourth day of simulator training and have this weekend off to relax and
study for next week, which is probably going to be the most important week of
my flying career thus far. No report
last week since I was on a break.
The flight simulator is
designed to teach you how to fly the airplane without having to worry about
crashing it into the ground. It is
ultra-realistic (see my last report) and I think it will do a very good job of
preparing me for the actual airplane.
Steve and I have a 1830-2400 timeslot, so we spend the first hour and a
half briefing with our instructor going over the lesson and what we will be
accomplishing. One of us flies for two
hours in the right seat, then we take a break and switch. During our non-flying slot, we sit in the
left seat and perform non-flying pilot duties which keeps you nearly as busy as
when you are flying.
We started with the basics –
straight and level flight, climbs, descents, etc. We quickly moved into ILS approaches, rejected takeoffs, stalls,
steep turns, non-precision approaches and any number of other flight maneuvers
normally practiced in training.
Everything we do highly utilizes the flows and profiles we’ve been
spending the last couple of weeks learning and memorizing. Your brain is constantly at work.
Probably the biggest
adjustment is learning how to fly with a flight guidance system which consists
of an autopilot and flight director.
There are about 20 different ways to fly with it depending on exactly
what you want to do (it does quite a bit more than just hold a heading and
altitude). Even if you don’t have the
autopilot engaged, the flight director still shows up on your attitude
indicator and tells you where to fly.
Sounds easy, but you have to be on top of it the entire time because if
you set it up wrong it will happily fly you into the ground and kill 53
people. I could write pages about it,
but I won’t.
Then, engines started
failing. This is common in training to
teach you about emergency procedures.
One of the most serious situations a pilot can face is losing engine
power during the takeoff roll. Luckily,
the EMB-145 is such a redundant aircraft that with one engine you can pretty
much fly it normally, but it really messes with your airspeed control and
ability to maintain a normal altitude when approaching an airport. You’re only in BIG trouble when you lose both
engines. Still, losing an engine during
takeoff can quickly mess up your day unless you properly train for it.
Things were going very well
for me this week until yesterday when we had to deal with a hydraulic systems
failure. Losing both hydraulic systems
is nearly impossible but we train for it anyway, and the problem with that is
that the rudders and ailerons are powered by the hydraulic systems, so when you
lose them, it is VERY difficult to fly the airplane. The controls are heavy and not designed to be flown without
hydraulic assistance, so you have to work pretty hard to keep the airplane
straight and level in this situation, which is called a manual reversion. I am less than proud to say I crashed the
simulator into the ground during my manual reversion approach! Well, I’ll have the chance to practice that
one again. It taught me how serious a
flight control malfunction can be, since your most basic skills you learned as
a pilot of how to control an aircraft pretty much go out the window in this
scenario.
Other than the whole
crashing thing, I have felt pretty good about my ability to fly this plane over
the last week. I’m halfway done with
simulator training so I have 4 more sessions to get everything just right before
the big bad checkride on Friday.
In other news, somewhat
unexpectedly our house sold this week and we agreed to a two-week closing
period, so this weekend I am on my way to Cleveland to visit our future home
for the first time. I’ll spend some time
driving around the city, looking for apartments, and of course, studying for my
final week of formal training. We are
out of our house on September 5 but plan to remain in the Portland area for
another month or so, but I have to get an apartment to so all our stuff will
have a place to live in the meantime.
I’m in the airport waiting to board the 737 (just got bumped to first
class, cool) as I write this and I’m pretty excited to see Cleveland. OHIO!
I’ll return to Houston
Monday afternoon to finish up. I can’t
believe I’ve been here for almost two months now. Hopefully, I will be able to write my next report as an official
Continental Express first officer.