Fair point
It did actually say "average aircrew" but I changed it to average normal person because I thought it would descend into a "bloody aircrew blah blah blah" type discussion
Anyway, back home now.......plus ca change......
There I was at 10 feet over central Lyneham, zero knots and my interest is waning faster than a pilot's will to live whilst on JOCC. It's a typical morning sim at Lyneham -- earlier than the Sarah Kennedy Show and I'm yawning like aircrew at an EO briefing.
But that's neither here nor there. This sim is endless this morning - seemingly longer than an unfunny repetitive pprune thread. But it's 2004, folks, and I'm sporting the latest in boredom-combat technology. Namely a Bluetooth phone and a PDA with a web browser – pprune anyone??
Additionally, my 1998 Lockheed C-130J Hercules Simulator is equipped with an obsolete and infuriating computer system. The system conveniently won’t reposition you at Lyneham on the 24 threshold but will happily let you fly through the runway before touching down 6 feet below ground level. Who says I can't set up the elevation?
At any rate, the captain’s finger torch is illuminating the flightdeck like a small green light on a bright sunny day. Still, he likes it. The captain’s an arse. But I've digressed.
The preferred method of approach this morning is the alpha departure to NDB on 3 to overshoot for vectors to the ILS. This non-tactical procedure allows the co-pilot to blunder around the zone in an unpredictable manner, thus exploiting the supposed wisdom of the instructor who has to attempt to work out what in the name of god the co-pilot is actually doing. Personally, I just keep giving them engine failures til they stop coping. It’s about as much fun as you can have, fully clothed in metal box with two other men and that's the real reason we do it.
The localiser goes live at nine miles out, the co drops down to 200ft below his cleared height, still maintaining one hundred and sixty two knots. Now the fun starts. It's instructor desperation time as the co intercepts, descends the mighty metal box randomly and erratically, yet seemingly deliberately, yanks into a sixty-degree left bank, turning the aircraft ninety degrees offset from runway heading. As soon as we roll out of the turn, he reverses the turn to the right a full two hundred seventy degrees in order to roll out somewhere near the Localiser. Some aeronautical genius coined this manoeuvre “establishing on the localiser" Chopping the power in the turn, he pulls back on the yoke to the shaker, bleeding off energy in order to configure the flap for landing.
"Flaps One hundred!, Set speed 135!" I look at the captain and he's giggling like a 2 year old – he loves that finger torch. Looking further back I notice that my bag has fallen over and 7 years worth of detritus has spread across the floor. Finally, I glance at the watery eyed co pilot. His eyebrows rise in unison as a look of horror forms on his face. I can tell he's thinking the same thing I am.
"Outside 2 dots!" the captain barks at the shaking co. "Where do we find these people?" Now it's all smokescreen and bluff. Aviation, ground school, day 1 with the exception that’s he overslept and missed the important lecture on how to fly an ILS.
Naturally, and not at all surprisingly, the sim crashes down on the jack's on
Omni 6 of the right hand side of runway 24: he brings the throttles to ground idle and then forces the props to full reverse pitch, forgetting that one of them is shut down. This morning, the sound of training is that of laughter and of three propellers chewing through the thick, putrid, simulated Lyneham turf. The huge, one hundred thirty thousand pound, simulated BTR gatherer comes to a lurching stop in less than two hundred feet, perpendicular to the runway. Let's see an instructor do that! We enter the runway to a welcoming committee of “so co, how do you think that went?”. It's time to threshold reset, handle in, switch to Run, SYS RESET and try again.
Walking up the steps two hours later with my lowest-bidder, ZX81 sim safely behind me, I look around and thank God, not the pilot leader, I'm finished for the day. Then I thank PMA I'm not on Conversion.
Knowing once again I’ll be home in time for lunch, I ask myself, "What in the hell am I doing in this mess?" Is it Duty, Honour, and Country? Still no. Or could it possibly be for the glory, the route checks, and not to mention, you can NCR people?. There's probably some truth there too. But now is not the time to derive the complexities of the superior, cerebral properties of the Sim Instructor. It is however, time to get out of this ****-hole.
"Hey co-pilot, tea white two!"
“what is it with you JTF w*nkers?!? Get it yourself!”
God, please send me back to Baghdad…
