Week 74: Smoke, the scariest thing yet!

We continued to work through failures this week, but with the more modern simulator '599' were able to complete exercises with an increased sense of realism. Starting out we looked at the pressurisation systems, and therefore the sorts of scenario's we'd be in requiring an emergency descent. An emergency descent is what you see on TV when a naf documentary is showing an aircraft in a dive, but they have their details slightly mixed up so give the impression that a door blowing out is what caused the aircraft to fall into an uncontrollable dive. The reality is totally different, and it is the pilots that initiate the fast descent in order to preserve the lives of the passengers and for more suitable conditions (its a rather chilly -50 degrees at 36,000ft!). For the crew it isnt just a case of holding ones breath and hoping you make it down in time, so the (not so) wonderful oxygen masks come out to play. 

For pressurisation we looked at pack failures, leaks, and explosive decompressions (bomb explosion), the common theme being that we had to get the aircraft down quickly without falling into a blind panic. Thats easier said than done, as you only have a few seconds to get your mask on before your body is rapidly put outside its survivable comfort zone, so the simulator detail does its best to mimic these conditions. The real core learning point though was the immediate memory drill actions both pilots have to follow, and these must be committed to memory but readily retrieved as an emergency descent could happen anytime. Worse yet, if one crewmember leaves the flight deck to use the lavatory, the remaining pilot must remember to do both pilots actions, and shouldnt expect their collegue to return to the flight deck until the emergency descent is complete.

We also looked at engine failures, which was more of revision than learning. Thats not to say I was textbook on my first go, but it was good to brush up on something that makes up a substantial part of the LST (licence skills test). I think the main point I have taken from the single engine exercise is that being proactive (more than usual) is the best way to counter the numerous threats that exist in this unusual scenario. 

Finally we closed the week with one of the scariest situations a crew could be exposed with, smoke on the flight deck. What makes the situation so awful is that smoke will be coming from a combustable source, and if it's already burning how long will it take for the fire to be so bad that it burns through vital components. Equally the smoke itself is highly toxic, but worse it can fog vision to the extent instruments are caked in soot and need to be wiped. To help raise the simulation, CT599 being one of the newest sims actually produces smoke which is similar to the dry ice from a school disco (the picture shows me coming to the end of the smoke clearance). It quickly flooded the flight deck so we had to don the masks, and with one of us scrabbling to get the aircraft down the other would be working through the Quick reference handbook (QRH) smoke procedure, followed up by the clearance drill. All in all I have firmly established that I would rather lose both engines and bring my gliding skills into play than have to deal with smoke; you just dont know how long you have a flyable aircraft for, but at least with a double flame out sticking the nose down means gravity's on your side. Obviously neither is particularly pleasant, but it's amazing how what on first inspection is the worst problem actually might be the more manageable!

So I now find myself with only 5 more instructional flights before my big day and the LST. The last two instructional flights I will actually be flying as a pair with Steph, which means we have extra time to consolidate any deficiencies and practice until we are above the standard required to pass the type rating. In less than two weeks it's all over, and ill be finishing one journey eagerly awaiting the start of the next! 

Week 73: some tough scenarios to contend with

Following our relatively gentle start to Advanced, the flights this week have really pushed us to scratch around in the grey matter and work through some fairly hairy failures. The areas of focus were mainly the electrical and hydraulic failures, as deficiencies with either of these systems have some pretty far reaching consequences. 

Starting with the electrics, the Airbus really relies on these systems to be working because of the fly by wire architecture; put simply, if the electrics die, the computers that are responsible for the control protections are gone and things get quite interesting. We looked at the loss of both AC and DC electrics, and in different situation one or the other pilot would lose all their instrumentation, or in one extreme case (lightning strike) everything went dark for a few seconds. Common to most electrical failures there was a degradation to 'Alternate law' which makes the aircraft a little twitchy, but more importantly the normal protections are reduced. 

As for hydraulic, this really is a vital system. Even though computers power the flight control system, they are still sending signals to hydraulic actuator, which will move the desired control surface. Therefore no hydraulics, no control surface movement, and more importantly no ability to control the aircraft. With this in mind the nice chaps at Airbus have designed the A320 with three separate and independent hydraulic systems, with the philosophy that a loss of one makes the aircraft comfortably flyable. That said the loss of two out of three is a fairly bad situation, but the aircraft will still be controllable which fills me with confidence!

The actual failures weren't the only important element of this weeks flights, but the manner in which we dealt with them. There's little point running into a solution when its a load of rubbish, so the ECAM system (electronic centralized aircraft monitoring) gives a foundation for problem solving. But regardless of the failure, if the crew adhere strictly to the ECAM process failures should be dealt with quickly, accurately, and offer solutions without delay. We would also then be able to decide if continuing or diverting was the next step, therefore forcing us to consider ATC, the cabin crew, and the passengers who heard the bang down the back! 

Again failures will be on the cards this week, including rapid descents and engine failures. More worrying, that with 9 lessons to go I only have 19 days until my LST is complete. Get it over quick, I wanna get to the Airbus!

Week 72: Advanced commences

After a nice relaxed week advanced is under way, with the Airbus showing us all the wonderful things that can go wrong! Before we got going i'd enjoyed a week off, so whilst being at home managed a trip to the Imperial War Museum in London, somewhere i'd not been for easily 15 years! As usual the aeroplanes on display grabbed my attention, but pretty much everything took my interest. At the moment there is a Holocaust Exhibition which was really incredible; the fact that the human race were capable of such atrocities is unbelievable, but the tone of the exhibition, level of knowledge I left with, and the many learning aids included left me well-informed, but saddened. Amazingly we consider this to be an isolated occurrence, but history has proven that such nasty acts have been repeated and probably will again.

Coming back to Southampton we had another day in the classroom in preparation for the advanced phase of training, looking into how the operation would change and the areas of focus during the flights. Advanced only consists of 14 flights in which we have many failures to cover, so each flight really needs to count. We also have items that need to be 'signed off' to confirm that we have reached an acceptable standard of proficiency ahead of our Licence Skills test (LST), proving that opportunities to prepare are gently reducing! The focus of our first flight was manual handling, looking at the dreaded circling approaches, non-precision approaches, landings, and take offs. We also had a chance to look at a rather scary manoeuvre, the 'TOGA 10'. It is a low level recovery manoeuvre, normally following a bounce on landing, where the pilot selects go-around power, pitches the nose to 10 degrees and waits. This is because prior to the bounce the power would have been reduced to idle (zero), so the engines will take time to spool up to full power, and when they do the nose may pitch up violently which could lead to a tail-strike. By utilising TOGA 10 the aircraft should stay off the runway, and once it gently begins to climb the normal go-around procedure can be put into action.

Hopefully next weeks post is a bit more interesting as things start to go seriously wrong. Thank God it's all in a simulator!

Week 71: Well that didn't last long!

After only 20 days of instruction, intermediate is already over! Starting on the 9th and finishing last Wednesday (the 28th) with another competency assurance, we managed to fly 13 profiles, all with the motion finally switched on. I'm pleased to say that I completed the CA with no major issues, so am enjoying a week off ahead of the advanced. Fortunately this week roughly coincided with mine and Alice's one year, so we went to Smith and Western for some top notch Texan cowboy style dining. 

To give a flavour of the intermediate CA, with our recently acquired skills in the multi-crew environment we were expecting some sort our failure that would require us to work as a team to resolve the situation. The focus was in fact performing overweight landings, so the three scenarios we were given all pushed us to prep the aircraft quickly and make an approach. These included a bomb threat, an APU fire (which was mine) and smoke in the cabin, with the resultant drills tobe followed in response. 

In all cases we were put into a situation where we were forced to work quickly, but had to avoid the temptation to rush in an effort to prevent mistakes being made. The theory is that if you take your time and do it right, you won't have to do it again! That's not to say you take hours considering every possible detail, but equally you don't need to jump straight in and start a plan which ultimately might be the wrong one. 

With Advanced starting on Saturday with a day in the classroom, I can finally see the end in sight and a  first summer zooming all over Europe. The lads on EZMP01 have been through induction with easyJet, and are now waiting for uniform and their first flights as rosters have started to arrive. It must be so exciting for them, and a demonstration just how close qualification is!