Co-pilots May Sim instead of Fly to Train

This is not something that happens in real-life practice sessions
because we don't actually shut down the engine.

It happens when you practice partial panel with instruments covered up -

Yes, but then you =know= you don't have the AI. If it's a surprise to
you, you may follow the failed AI into the ground. (Ok, chances are
good you're visual, and if you're not, you're in doo doo anyway)

Jose
--
"There are 3 secrets to the perfect landing. Unfortunately, nobody knows
what they are." - (mike).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

I didn't notice if you mentioned this to our Albatross (my eyes tend to
glaze over even when his crap is just being quoted...) but AFAIK, to this
date, no one has been able to bring the Al Haynes scenario to as successful
a conclusion as Capt Al did...

In A Simulator...!

Go figure.

Jay Beckman
PP-ASEL
Chandler, AZ

Simulators are used for everything, from designing bridges, to
skyscrapers, integrated circuits, airplanes and spacecrafts. Simulators
are even used for making other simulators. I doubt there is anything
done in this world today without first doing a computer simulation. In
aviation, FAA has its own definition of what a simulator is, but that
does not make every other PC based simulator just a game. We have a
ancient piece of crap at a local FBO in which you can legally log
simulator time. If it weren't for that fact, no one would pay a dime to
sit in it. But people pay $25/hr for the priviledge of using it.





BDS wrote:
"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...

There's no such thing as magic.

No, but until humans can function completely separate from emotion and
stress, and the psychological impact they have on performance, experience in
a simulator will never be equal to the real thing. Confidence in one's
ability to perform a task comes from prior experience under similar
conditions - the conditions in a sim are nothing like real life.

You will never have any credibility on the subject until you can speak
from
a background of experience in both areas.

You speak only for yourself, of course.

No, I believe I speak for quite a few people here. But, even if that
weren't true, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that someone
who is talking from a background of zero experience doesn't have much
credibility in the subject matter.

BDS

BDS writes:

No, but until humans can function completely separate from emotion and
stress, and the psychological impact they have on performance, experience in
a simulator will never be equal to the real thing.

That's why it's called a simulator.

However, a simulator doesn't have to provide identical experience in
order to accomplish its purpose (which, in this case, might be to
train airline pilots).

Confidence in one's
ability to perform a task comes from prior experience under similar
conditions - the conditions in a sim are nothing like real life.

They can be made as close to real life as required. Try it.

But, even if that
weren't true, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that someone
who is talking from a background of zero experience doesn't have much
credibility in the subject matter.

Anyone who depends on credibility is already making a serious mistake.

--
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BDS writes:

Do I think either of them could do it for real just because they did it in
the office on the sim - nope, not a chance. What does this tell me? - just
because you can do it in the sim doesn't mean you can do it when it counts.

No, it just tells you that you don't believe they could do it for
real. Without actually trying it, you'll never know.

There's a good chance that they could do it for real, depending on
their personalities.

The sim has its place for sure, but it will never replace actual experience.

Saying that over and over doesn't make it true.

I did my first skydive quite awhile ago before tandems were popular. I
remember we went over everything on the ground at the airplane before going
up. The jump master explained everything and we went through it
step-by-step; now the door opens, now you shift yourself partially out the
door, now you hang from the strut, etc. We did that several times so
everyone felt comfortable. We all knew we were ready - it seemed pretty
simple really. Then we took off and climbed to altitude. Let me tell you,
when that door flies open and the wind is rushing by and you have to shift
yourself out the door with your foot being blown back and the ground down
there 3500 feet below, it was all quite a shock and a rush compared to that
"simulation" we did on the ground.

That was you. But not everyone is like you.

--
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Kev writes:

I "gut feel' the same way, but I'm guessing that future sims will do so
a lot... partly because actual experience doesn't let you play out a
lot of dangerous scenarios. For example, I was surprised several
years back when I tried an engine-out in clouds in MSFS just for fun.
Guess what happened as I glided down? The AI slowly spun down and
tipped over, because of no engine vacuum! Holy moly, eye opener.
This is not something that happens in real-life practice sessions
because we don't actually shut down the engine.

That's a typical scenario for which sims can provide life-saving
experience.

--
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BDS writes:

It happens when you practice partial panel with instruments covered up -
obviously the engine is still running but if you are lousy at partial panel
all that may do is get you to the scene of the crash faster.

If you want real-life practice, shut down the engine, and make sure
that it is not restartable. Otherwise it's just ... simulation.

--
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Kingfish writes:

You're nitpicking here, Haynes was PIC and coordinated control of a
crippled aircraft. As nobody had ever dealt with this severe of an
emergency before they were using their experience & CRM and "thinking
outside the box" to save the plane. You are wrong when you say
real-world experience was irrelevant as it saved most of the people on
that plane. Steering a jet with thrust control only was probably never
taught - it was the airmanship of Capt Haynes & crew that kept all from
being lost.

Nobody had ever done what that crew did in terms of flying. None of
their real-world experience helped. The cooperation and
professionalism of the crew had nothing to do with flying.

Okay, you have just showed your total ignorance on this subject.
Without technical skills, CRM alone wouldn't have kept the plane from
becoming a lawn dart.

The technical skills required were not especially great.

Luck was absolutely a factor, even if you can't quantify it. The bigger
factor IMHO was the "103 hours of experience" (not sure where you got
that metric from) of the flight crew. That experience could not have
been gained in a sim because nobody (then) ever thought it possible
that all three hydraulic systems could be lost on a DC-10 so I suspect
it was never part of the sim profile.

It was never part of real life, either. Nobody had any experience
with it, period.

That's what being a professional pilot is about - keeping your cool
when things aren't going exactly by the book.

That has nothing to do with flying. A great many professionals in
other domains are exactly the same way. The situation would be the
same during brain or heart surgery, with no airplane in sight.

--
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This is an interesting point, but I think incorrect. There was a very
interesting book about the DC-10 that came out a number of years ago. The
Sioux City incident was not the first one where control was lost, albeit for
different reasons. The locking mechanism on the cargo door of the DC-10 was
electromechanical, not hydraulic like on others. An electric motor was used
to pull toggles over center to lock the cargo door to the fuselage frame and
floor. That meant that when the locking mechanism jammed (and the locking
lever was capable of being jammed when forced to close), the fuselage
underwent an explosive decompression when the locking toggles failed,
rather than having the hydraulic mechanism gradually "overpowered" by
pressure differential. The control cables for the empennage were routed on
the underside of the floor, and when the fuselage underwent explosive
decompression, the floor buckled and the cables jammed. I think the first
incident happened over Windsor, Ontario. There was another in Ermenonville,
France. After that the DC-10 pilots actually practiced, in the sim of
course, flying the airplane by using differential thrust.

So, I agree with the premise, but I think the detail is wrong. I recognize
that in Sioux City the reason for the failure and the extent of control loss
was different. Captain Haines is one of my heroes.

The best example I can think of is United #232 (Sioux City, 1989). I
doubt Al Haines was ever trained to control a DC-10 without hydraulic
power to the flight control surfaces. Yet he managed to steer the jet
with differential thrust to a (scary) landing without the loss of all
aboard. There will never be a replacement for experience IMO.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
BDS writes:

It happens when you practice partial panel with instruments covered up -
obviously the engine is still running but if you are lousy at partial
panel
all that may do is get you to the scene of the crash faster.

If you want real-life practice, shut down the engine, and make sure
that it is not restartable. Otherwise it's just ... simulation.

Maybe so, but it's a far cry from the type of simulation you are doing
sitting in front of your PC. The level of stress is much higher and the
pilot gets experience performing under stress. This doesn't matter if
flying a sim is your goal in life, but it helps if flying in the real world
is.

BDS