Are most things covered during TR and/or airline 6 month checks?

[z.khalid]

Hey guys.

Recently completed TR on the 320, and though I understand a TR will not cover all failures, since there are so many, but will cover a lot of the important ones.
I'm wondering if we will be surprised with these failures in one of our 6 month checks? Or was my TR program not such a good one?

For example. Never got an engine dual failure, or landing with abnormal landing gear, VERY briefly did unreliable airspeed.

Thanks!

[flying apple]

i recently did a tr on 737 and our program didn't cover those things either
i did fly without engines but that was a little bit of playing time we got left at the end of my session
and in the end the instructor gave me an apu an dual engine fire (although i didn't got any thrust left) and recovering from a side slip without any hydraulics is not that easy :\

[mad_jock]

There is a reason why they don't do some of the failures.

Basically the sim's flight model can't do them.

Especially anything to do with ground handling of the aircraft is pretty poor.

As for the all engine flameout yes you might get it later on as part of a LOFT session but as such its not required for either the LST or LPC/OPC in europe. I don't know what the FAA require.

[ZFT]

There is a reason why they don't do some of the failures.

Basically the sim's flight model can't do them.

Especially anything to do with ground handling of the aircraft is pretty poor.


A sweeping statement and somewhat unfair on FFS manufacturers. Might be more correct to state that the aircraft manufacturers supplied data packs do not contain adequate data to permit the FFS manufacturers to accurately model these areas?

[Checkboard]

Generally the more remote failure, such as gear/dual engine failure/ditching etc etc are covered in a company's simulator program over a rotation of several years. A written brief for study is made available for the pilots before the sim session, and it is handled as "training" rather than testing.

[A37575]

[i did fly without engines but that was a little bit of playing time we got left at the end of my session]

It is a fact of life in the airline training industry. Most of your recurrent training will be on the same old sequences of engine failures, ILS and occasional non-precision approaches - mostly using the autopilot of course. Conversion courses same thing. For LOFT exercises you will get a whole panorama of highly improbable combinations of scenarios that require pages and pages of reading the QRH and huddle sessions on the flight deck on the intercom, seeking the views of everyone in the crew while the simulator logs the hours droning on to its destination or alternate. Most of these talk-fest scenarios could be adequately covered in the classroom. Valuable simulator hours are wasted and more important priorities are ignored. The Air France A330 debacle in the South Atlantic is a tragic case in point.

These priorities should real hands-on flying in the simulator designed to increase pure flying skills on such vital sequences as high and low level stall recoveries, 35 knot night crosswind landings, ditching on instruments, realistic unusual attitude training, black hole approaches to marginal airports, loss of thrust on all engines followed by forced landing and so on.

For those (most pilots) bound by company operations policy to make maximum use of automation during line flying, the above sequences are important for handling confidence - yet are generally regarded by instructors as five minutes of `playing time` at the end of a session, instead of serious training.

[GlueBall]

Our sim training scenarios usually change every 6 months; changing profiles, changing airports and changing systems failures. This way we get exposure to a variety of challenges that could not all be realistically compacted into a single 4 hours session.

As to the original question on this thread; If "most things" are being covered during a TR or a single 6 months' recurrent check: Only the most important things, but not all things.

The presumption is that you already know how to fly, and the objective of a Type Rating or a 6 months' recurrent sim check is NOT to teach you to fly, but to ascertain if your demonstrated performance meets acceptable standards. :ooh:

[mad_jock]

Nope ZFT ground contact, crashing and braking is nonlinear as hell, takes up huge amounts of computer resources and to be honest even if they threw huge amounts of CPU resources at it, it would still be ****e and unrealistic. Which is why you get a a slight model on braking which usually ends with tyres being blown and then a slightly altered linear deceleration with lots of shuddering.

MJ who used to do engineering computer models of things crashing together with bits breaking off. And never saw a single experimental test that was anywhere near what the model was saying as soon as we got to the sliding along the ground bit with lumps coming off. The impact and energy absorbtion worked a treat it was just when chaos theory started rearing its ugly head that things went a bit squiffy.