Ask the pilot

The gut-churning trials and tribulations of making the grade with an airline.

By Patrick Smith

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Photo by Patrick Smith

The simulator awaits its next victims.

Sept. 5, 2008 | When it was finally over, at the end of Day 3, my sense of relief was exceeded only by a renewed resentment for those who believe that flying planes is easy. If I had a dollar for every time some smart-aleck flier or pundit has remarked that pilots are nothing but "glorified bus drivers," or that modern aircraft "basically fly themselves," I wouldn't need to go through this every six months.

Recurrent training, it's called -- a mandatory, biannual rite of study and stress, culminating in a multihour simulator session during which a sadistic instructor dutifully inflicts all manner of potential catastrophe. Assuming it goes OK, you're signed off and sent back to the line.

I usually start to prepare about 30 days ahead of time. This includes watching a series of company-issued DVDs covering aircraft systems and company operations. I now fly international routes almost exclusively, so I need to brush up on many regulations and procedures that a domestic pilot would not. For instance, how to program "critical terrain routes" into the flight management system; how to execute a proper emergency diversion when flying over the North Atlantic; or going over the protocols of International Civil Aviation Organization position broadcasts, used in regions of the world that do not have radar or traditional air traffic control.

When that's done, I break open my manuals and begin reviewing the systems of my aircraft. "Systems" is pilot patois for a plane's plumbing, circuitry and assorted moving parts (electrics, hydraulics, pneumatics, warning systems, autoflight, etc.). To be totally honest, I am not the most mechanically inclined, left-brained person out there, and staying sharp on the internal nuances of a wide-body jetliner requires a large amount of self-discipline and the careful compartmentalizing of information -- lots of information.

Once at the center, the gist of recurrent training is concentrated into a pair of four-hour simulator sessions. You've seen the sims on television -- those giant, apocalyptic paint shakers with their strange hydraulic legs. And don't let the word "simulator" mislead you. Everyone has heard how astoundingly true-to-life full-motion flight simulators are, and likely you take this with a grain of salt. Don't. A session of mock disaster in "the box" is something hardly believable until you've done it. The ride is an exercise in both mental and physical exertion. A single "level D" simulator takes months to construct, and costs tens of millions of dollars to acquire and maintain.

The sims are surprisingly roomy inside. The forward-most portion is a perfect replica of a cockpit. The aft section contains two or more observer stations, storage areas and computer consoles. The 3-D visuals, projected onto wraparound screens, aren't the most realistic -- the renderings of terminal buildings and landscapes, for example, wouldn't win any computer graphics contests -- but they are accurate where it counts. Runways and approach lights look exactly like the real things. Meteorological conditions, from visibility and cloud cover to winds and turbulence, can be replicated with remarkably accuracy.

A sim session might comprise a series of "snapshot" maneuvers, whereby the sim is repositioned for various drills, or it might be choreographed like an actual flight, gate to gate, complete with simulated paperwork, radio calls and so on. Captains and first officers usually train together, and are tested both individually and as a working team, challenged with a wide array of emergencies and malfunctions. Behind them sits a merciless instructor whose job it is to make them miserable.

To wit, here's a rundown of my recurrent, Day 1:

We begin with a departure from Washington Dulles. At the moment of liftoff, bang, the left engine fails and catches fire. We adjust the pitch and yaw to maintain control, then carefully follow the engine-out climb profile; retracting the flaps and slats on schedule, running the necessary checklists; then fall back into the pattern for an emergency landing. Along the way, we contact our company dispatcher; brief the flight attendants for a possible evacuation; make an announcement to the passengers. For good measure, the instructor has set the weather at bare minimums for a Category 1 ILS approach, and asks that it be hand-flown, sans autopilot. Then, a quarter mile from touchdown, he orders us to go-around. Seems a 747 has wandered errantly onto our runway. "Ah, shit," says the captain. A hand-flown, single-engine missed approach is well within the jet's capabilities, but believe me it's nobody's idea of a good time.

Next scenario: We're at 36,000 feet over the Andes, when suddenly there's a rapid decompression. We don our oxygen masks and commence an emergency descent. Over the ocean this would be fairly straightforward: reprogram for a safe altitude; set in the descent speed; deploy the speed brakes; turn clear of the tracks; and break out the checklists for the rest. (As it happened, this was the same week that Qantas 747 suffered a real-life decompression over the Pacific, an incident covered in this column.) The nearby high terrain, however, means we must also adhere to a preprogrammed escape route and carefully scripted diversion path. It gets busy.

This was followed by a pair of wind-shear encounters -- one each during takeoff and landing -- a series of complicated GPS approaches, and an engine-out departure at Quito, Ecuador, where again mountainous terrain entails unusual and tricky procedures.

And that was just the first day. Practice? Is that the right word? Doesn't every profession require its participants to keep their skills up to par? Perhaps, though I can't imagine that this is how an outfielder might feel shagging flies before game time. Somehow the tension is greater, the stakes higher.

Next page: "Why didn't you warn me just how indescribably, gut-churningly awful simulator training would be?"