Simulator #4 -- Windshear, Missed Approaches and V1 Cuts

5:45 AM - Monday, Oct. 17, 2005
Simulator #4 -- Windshear, Missed Approaches and V1 Cuts

I think… well, it’s hard to imagine…. but, uh, I think I’m finally starting to punch back! I most definitely still have a black eye, but I’m starting to defend myself a little better and actually to fight back!

Actually, on second thought, here’s how I’m going to look at it from now on. I’m not in the boxing ring with the sim. It’s more like I’m on the back of a highly sensitive, overly spooky dressage horse. She’s flighty, she’s touchy and she’s still better trained than I am. But I’m getting there, and rather than being adversaries we’re starting to become friends. Okay, maybe we’re more on a “what was your name again?” basis, but we’re getting there! And, as with any new acquaintance, it takes a bit of time to get to know each other, to smile at the good things and to breathe when the not-so-good things appear from time to time.

So tonight I got reared up on and had to deal with a few bucks once in awhile, but I didn’t get flung off this time. Whew! After last night’s “ride” I was getting worried, but I’m now suspicious that it’s going to turn out a-okay in another 10 days….

Poor Steve, bless his heart, managed to fly us right into the ground on approach to the runway when we got hammered with a wicked windshear. Yes, we got the Dreaded Red Screen Of Death. We were told the shear was going to happen, but we’d never actually had to deal with it in this plane yet. Sure enough, about 300 feet from the ground we lost massive amounts of airspeed, and sank quite deliberately right into the field at the near end of the runway. And with our vertical speed I’m sure we didn’t leave much other than a smoking crater…. And, I was helpless to be able to save us, as he had the controls and it was a lesson he needed to learn. I kept calling out that we were sinking and he needed to pitch the nose up, but I’m not sure he heard a word. Thankfully it was just a sim -- though we may have bruises underneath our shoulder harnesses tomorrow!

Then my turn came to fly (I was his “pilot monitoring” to start, and then we switch seats, allowing us to fly from the right seat for 2 hours each). But I’d learned from his mistakes and took matters into my own hands, not waiting for the command bars to guide my flight path. I didn’t get the autopilot kicked off as quickly as I’d have liked, but I did get our nose pointed up and got climbed out of it way before we made grass contact! It wasn’t excellent technique, but it worked! And we’ll have time to tighten it up tomorrow night.

The good news tonight was that I was enough ahead of the temperamental little plane (yeah, it only weighs 53,000 lbs) that I am starting to feel like by the 26th we’ll be riding together like old pros. Well, okay, not THAT comfortably, but we’ll at least know each other well enough to get the job done. And we’ll do it with as much grace as one would expect after a mere 16 hours of time on her back….

I will admit that my most challenging struggle tonight was the “V1 Cuts”. In the Citation they weren’t much of an issue. But this plane is funkier when it looses an engine on take off. It’s not happy. And it tends to careen off the side of the runway, making death imminent. My first cut, though I knew it was coming, was survivable but not pretty (I destroyed all 5 tires). WAY not pretty. People would definitely been puking back there. I nearly departed the runway on the ground, not using enough rudder to counteract the zigging motion from the dead engine. And then when I finally got us airborne I nearly induced a Dutch Roll, which also could be fatal at low altitudes. But I didn’t, somehow. As long as I remember to breathe every few minutes up there, I’m starting to get the feel for how much control input is enough and how much is too much. In the CRJ-200 that line is very, very blurred. At least at this point in my training. Sometimes I realize that I’m so tense that I haven’t moved or breathed or even blinked in minutes! And I wonder why I almost get tossed off with each buck and rear?!

So, one of the beauties of the simulator is that we can be slewed back to any position over and over again to get a maneuver right. I had to do the cut 3 times, each with more rudder input but still not enough, before I got it on the 4th try. The Citation was cake compared to this sucker! But I had my usual small-dog-with-tasty-large-bone attitude and when Keith asked how I was feeling and if I wanted to get it knocked out tonight, my response was something like “Hell yeah, I’m not leaving this chair until the passengers can’t tell that we’ve just lost an engine!” And though my 4th cut wasn’t quite that smooth, it was within parameters and with that we called it a night. If I had had my way, we’d be in there until the sun rose!

But it was definitely a good way to put the sim to bed, with a pat on her back and a “thanks for the lessons” nod. And a deep breath….