Recurrent Rehash

Well Lear 60 recurrent training at Flight Safety has ended. This time around my sim instructor sort of specialized in the FMS or Flight Management System. He was a wiz at working the magic box. The training had all the usual stuff, including stalls, steep turns and assorted emergencies.
The emergency training included engine failures before V1 and after V1. Basically prior to V1 you try to stop on the runway and after V1, you're going flying.

During one session I had an engine failure right at V1 on a slushy runway and windshear. That was plenty challenging. Having a thrust reverser deploy on takeoff (treat it as an engine failure) can be a fun experience as well.There was of course the high,hot,and heavy departure from Reno.

The Reno departure is interesting because of the steep climb gradient and, of course, the tall rocks nearby. And sim instructors, being black hearted creatures, have nasty things planned for you to take care of during the departure. In fact. the instructors have plenty for you to do during all phases of flying. Their job is to prepare the student for the unexpected, and they do it well.

On the way to San Francisco from Reno ( and yes the entire flight takes place ) the crew experienced a loss of pressurization at FL320 ( 32,000 ft ) and an emergency descent was warranted. The crew has to don the oxygen mask and try to communicate all while trying to attend to the simulated passengers and run the appropriate checklist. It's demanding.

However, for this recurrent session, the most demanding thing for me was the elevator jam while trying to fly the ILS to minimums. The pitch of the Lear 60 is very, shall we say, touchy when thrust is applied or removed. Having to land using just slight power adjustments and trimming was definitely not easy. In the end, I was able to put it on solid concrete, touching the ground at a descent rate of 700 ft per minute. So it worked out.

There were other challenging things, as you might imagine. Dual generator failure, total hydraulics failure and others. Of course, the weather was always crappy ( see blackhearted comment above ) now matter what kind of approach was going on. I performed ILS, VOR, and GPS approaches throughout.

I had a great time and I really like Flight Safety. Looking forward to the next recurrent training date.

Recurrent Day 1 Complete

The ground school and Sim session went pretty much as advertised today. No super cool things happened during the actual sim ride. Started with an engine starting malfunction, then a RNav departure, a GPS approach, a go around, an engine failure, a single engine approach and an ILS approach. Just a standard sim ride. More fun coming my way tomorrow.

Here we go

Well I finally leave for recurrent today. My schedule is fairly busy for the next four days as you might imagine. My ground courses each day start each day at 0730 and run through 1115. The schedule looks like this:

Day 1
0730-1045
Intro/Fuel System/Power Plant/Aircraft General/Lights/Master Warning
1045-1115
Specific Situations/System Integration
1530-1600
Sim #1 Briefing
1600-1900
Sim # 1 Full Flight Simulation ( Flight Safety's Lear 60 is a Level D simulator )
1900-1930
Post Sim Briefing

Day 2
0730-0800
CRM
0800-1045
Electrical System/Hydraulic System
1045-1115
System Integration
1530-1600
Sim # 2 Briefing
1600-1900
Sim #2 Full Flight Simulation
1900-1930
Post Sim Briefing

Day 3
0730-1115
Avionics/Flight Controls/Pneumatics/Pressurization/Air Conditioning
1530-1600
Sim # 3 Briefing
1600-1900
Sim # 3 Full Flight Simulation
1900-1930
Post Sim Briefing

Day 4
0730-0800
Performance/Weight & Balance/Flight Planning
0800-1115
Ice & Rain Protection/EXAM
1530-1600
Sim # 4 Briefing
1600-1900
Sim # 3 Full Flight Simulation
1900-1930
Post Sim Briefing

As you can see they pile a lot of stuff in short periods of time. You'll notice that on the last day there is only 30 minutes available for performance, weight & balance, and flight planning. It might take slightly longer than that, but believe me it moves rapidly. Lots of info to absorb and re-absorb. The simulator portion of this training holds most of the stress and work. The instructors can and do throw multiple scenerios at you during the flight. I think the thrive on putting the students through pain, but that's their job.

My "favorite" sim flight happened to me during my last recurrent session in 2008. The instructor put the aircraft in Reno on a hot day ( of course ) and the aircraft was right at gross weight ( of course again ). After rotation, at about two hundred feet, our aircraft encountered birds. The right engine spooled down and the left engine caught fire. It was asses and elbows as the co-pilot and myself worked on restarting one engine, then shutting the other down, all while trying to keep the aircraft from hitting high terrain. Did I mention that the airport visibility was at 1/2 mile and the ceiling was 200 feet. After we got the aircraft stabilized we had to position ourselves for the ILS. As we were coming out of the 200 ft overcast there was an aircraft on the runway ( of course for the third time ) which meant that we had to do a single engine go around, again avoiding terrain. This was a busy part of that flight. That's right, we had to do other things during this flight, including windshear ( microburst ), stalls, and steep turns. It was great, although not at the time I was doing it.

Believe me, at Flight Safety it's always a "good time". The instructors and equipment are great and I can't wait to get started. I might not be able to sleep tonight.