Monday, October 10, 2011

There's precision and well.....not

Day 3 was somewhat easy. Precision approach day....errr night.

When I arrived the sim was down. It had been down all day. The previous crews were now a day behind. We did our briefing hoping it would be fixed. Literally 3 minutes for our sim session it was fixed. Nice.

APU fire at the gate. We went thru the checklist and the mechanic MEL'd it. Bottle start.

Captain took off. Normal takeoff. Climbed to 11,000 feet and he did he airwork.

We both have to do a clean stall, takeoff stall and arrival stall. Only the Captain does steep turns.

Of course we don't fully stall the plane. We do approach to stalls. At the first sign of a stall we recover. The first sign is a buffet, stall clacker or pusher.

I was kinda glad he went first. I'd been reviewing the stall profiles but seeing them demonstrated helped a lot. One good thing about this plane...the stall profiles are much easier than my last.

After his maneuvers we were vectored for a STAR. Once in the area we were vectored for an ILS.

One great thing about the sim. The same approach can be shot over and over again.

The first was a coupled approach with the autopilot on. The instructor took a snapshot of the sim 3 miles before the FAF.

After going missed the instructor snapped us back to the snapshot. Much faster than flying back around.

The Captain then did a coupled approach hand flown then a total raw data approach.

He shot the same approach at least 5 times. Finally went missed. Held. ran low on fuel and had to shoot an approach to mins with 1800 RVR. Break.

My turn. My first two stalls were awesome. On the takeoff stall I had a brain fart on the recovery and had a very nose high attitude and gained 300 feet. Bleh.

Same kind of approaches. I'm still getting used to the site picture. I'd be spot on during the approach until I went visual. I had a tendency to pull back on the yoke and level off when I looked outside. That momentary level off, literally 2 seconds, resulted in me going nearly full scale deflection on the glideslope.

Subsequent approaches had me doing the opposite as I would push the yoke forward then look outside...being low. My final landing was the best. I decided that when the Captain called the runway in sight I would lock my right arm in place and then look outside. Since the plane was already on glideslope I shouldn't move anything. It worked.

Two more nights of sim then I get two days off. My check ride is next week on Tuesday.

3 comments:

  1. Obviously, you are "Getting it," and congrats.  I chuckled at the note suggesting that (the Captain's?) fifth approach was on the money.  Thaat's the whole poin of the sim time, right?  To get it right.  I am duly impressed by the learning that is happening here.  Next week's check ride will be a breeze. -C.

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  2. Well the Captain shot 5 approaches only because we had time. He has 3000 hours in the plane and did each one very well. The more prepared we are in the sim, the more approaches we can shoot in the time allotted.

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  3. Thanks for the note. In every case, better is BETTER. I am delighted for and celebrate your success. That sim time is time valuable – to you. Please keep up the great posts!!
    Cedarglen

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