Simulator #5 -- It Happened - I got the Red Screen of Death

6:20 AM - Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2005
Simulator #5 -- It Happened - I got the Red Screen of Death

Not that I’m going to get cocky or think that the sim and I are super-buddies or anything, but tonight went very well again. I am getting a better handle on how things run, though I still make dumb mistakes from brain overload from time to time (like forget to descend to the runway while in the solid clouds only to see the runway pass beneath us on the GPS map!). My missed approaches were better tonight, my V1 cut was better and my instrument letdown to a visual circle-to-land was even good. It’s a captain thing, but we have to have a clue about how to handle the situation, so since Steve and I are both F/O’s in training, one of us has to fly the captain-only maneuvers. Tonight I got the circle-to-land at JFK and he got the no-flap landing. We both did them well, especially considering that they’re captain-only maneuvers.

The place I got a bit behind the aircraft was on my first non-precision approach into New York’s JFK. There wasn’t anything particularly difficult about the approach, but I just got a brain-clog. I forgot to descend right away from one altitude to the next step-down, and then I had to get configured for landing more quickly than usual and got wrapped around the axle about a call-out or two. We got it handled, but I was flustered and Steve was busy covering for my mistakes that we both didn’t realize that it was time to start down from 1500 feet to the minimum descent altitude, and flew right on past it. And you know, it’s hard to land from that altitude!

So we regrouped, and then I got a windshear on my next take off. Actually, I got a failed engine and a windshear at the same time, which… uhhhh, though I hate to admit it and my ego is still a bit bruised, caused me to get The Red Screen Of Death. It happened so quickly that at first I was in disbelief that we’d actually crashed – I was sure it was a simulator malfunction! (Oh good, an excellent trait for an airline pilot – denial!) I kept the plane on the centerline of the runway on take off, and when the engine failed we started to drift a bit, but not too badly. I got airborne, got the max power set for the single-engine climb out, and then we got the windshear warning. I started to yaw the plane a bit (wiggle from side to side) struggling with the single engine rudder inputs in the shear, and then to compensate I used too much aileron (which banks the plane left to right). I didn’t think the roll was too bad, but then The Dreaded Screen appeared. “Crap!” (though that’s not exactly what I said) In addition to learning a lesson (that windshear on take off immediately after the loss of an engine is bad), I only killed a maximum of 53 people. I look at it this way – I could be the First Officer in one of those new Airbus 380’s, which would allow me to potentially annihilate an entire town with one dumb move! It’s good that I’m only in the CRJ - minimizes the damage….

On a serious note, we were sad to say goodbye to Keith, our sim instructor. He’s been excellent and the 3 of us have a good rapport. It’s amazing to us that we’re his first crew as a new sim instructor! He admitted that little fact after we were done with the de-brief at 0430 this morning, and we could hardly believe it. If he was this good now, the crews who get him a few months and years down the line will be superbly trained. We can only hope that John, our next instructor, will be as competent and will key into our temperaments and personalities like Keith did. Keith was great at teaching to our different levels and to finding a way to get each of us to the breaking point each night, to hover us there, and then slowly allow us to get the situation back under control. He was very, very good and he really knows that airplane. I so look forward to the day that the CRJ fits me like a glove the way it fits him….

More good news – we have tomorrow off, so I plan to catch a jumpseat out of here (when I wake up this afternoon) to spend a night in my own bed in Richmond! Of course I’ll take copious amounts of books as we’re in the final week’s countdown until the checkride on the 26th. But Jeanne’s proven herself as an excellent study buddy and I have made a few hundred flash cards so a non-pilot can help me study the systems specifics and limitations. While she’s at work all day, I’ll sleep so as to keep my vampire schedule, and then we’ll study all evening before she hits the sack, and I’ll stay with the books until the wee hours of the morning. It won’t quite be normal, but it’ll sure be nice to get home and be with my sweetie, visit my cat-son and sleep in my own soft, non-hotel bed and eat something other than dehydrated food particles! Ah, the little things, eh?