June 1, 2014

Reducing the gap between reality and simulation

I welcome you back as well as the summer, I've missed you both!

The last month has been packed with simulator lessons. They have been primarily in Oslo, and a few in Copenhagen why I've had to travel a lot from my home in Uppsala. With free commuter tickets and paid hotels it has worked quite well.

In total we as MPL students at TFHS/Lund University have 24 sessions in Boeing 737 simulators. Most of them, 21 sessions, are in full motion flight simulators, which means they move according to control inputs, acceleration and turbulence etc. and it all feels extremely real. The instruments in the simulators are of course practically identical  to the real airplane. Three sessions were in a fixed based simulator, which means they work the same except they are stationary.

Each session is 4 hours with 2 hours of briefing before and 1 hour of debriefing afterwards. During the first two hours of each session one of the two students is pilot flying while the other student is pilot monitoring. The pilot monitoring communicates with ATC, monitors the pilot flying's actions and configure anything the pilot flying asks for. After two hours there is a short break and then the pilots switch place. Since we're training to be first officers (co-pilots) the pilot flying always sit in the right hand seat, while the pilot monitoring sits in the left hand captain's seat.

After having done 20 sessions now we've experienced and practiced practically all normal and non-normal procedures that we need to know. On the 23nd session we'll have a final progress check reviewing the most important parts ahead of the skill test a few days later. The 24th session will just be some more repetition on aircraft handling doing 14 approaches and landings manually.

During the skill test which for me and my colleague will be on June 11th, five days after the last simulator session, we'll be paired not with each other but with a stand-in captain whom we've never met before. As I've understood it, we'll only be tested on our role as pilot flying and the captain who we'll fly with is supposed to act as in real life, giving us all the help we ask for. This means the skill test will only be roughly two hours for each of us. Some skill test contents are mandatory, like a fully manual approach ("raw data") and one engine inoperative approach and landing. Many other items may or may not be present on the skill test, and the instructor from the civil aviation authorities will decide. Taking the skill test costs around 7500 SEK, taking it once more if we got a "partial pass" costs around half of that.

After the skill test we need to do one more thing to get our certificates, and that is to fly an empty Boeing 737 without passengers and perform 12 landings. Typically a few students, probably 3-6, will board a plane in Oslo or at another large base, fly to a smaller airport like Västerås or Kristianstad and then take turns in completing our 12 landings. When everybody are finished the plane will be flown back to its base. The landings are done as touch-and-go landings which means we'll take off immediately after touchdown without stopping and do a narrow visual circuit around the airport. The whole process takes roughly 1 hour for 12 landings, and will surely burn off a lot of fuel and cost a lot of money...

Having got our certificates we're supposed to start flying normal airline operation from the beginning of July. We'll then be scheduled to ride passively two full days in the cockpit just observing routine operation, and then on the third day fly as first officers. During the first few days we're actually flying there'll be a so-called safety pilot (experienced pilot) sitting in the cockpit ready to take control in case we feel unwell being nervous or so.

Photos:
A left-over group photo from one of the very last days in Ljungbyhed, in front of a Piper PA-31 Navajo. Also one of the last opportunities to use our school uniform, next it'll be Norwegian's flight crew uniform!

 
Two more left-over group photos, from the hangar during the company course in Oslo in March-April.

Three happy student pilots on their way to some intense simulator training in Oslo.

A Norwegian Air Force Hercules on short final runway 01L at Oslo Airport. The hotel we're staying at in Oslo is adjacent to the runway why we naturally do some flight spotting now and then. The second photo is from the threshold of runway 22L at Copenhagen airport.

The cockpit of the newest simulator with cutting edge graphics in Oslo: A Boeing 737-800WSFP. By the way there are two Boeing 737NG (NG means 737-600/700/800/900) simulators in Oslo, one in Copenhagen and one in Stockholm. All are located in simulator centers owned by the Canadian company CAE at respective airports. The Stockholm centre is the largest and the one in Oslo the smallest, but the aircraft types available differ a lot.

 
The SAS museum is also located nearby our hotel. I'm curious how Norwegian's museum will look like in 50 years from now!

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