J at T. "Playing the Wurlitzer" I love that. I wonder how many of the younger set would know what the Wurlitzer really was?
Old Smokey. A little gimmick that I occasionally introduced during "playtime" at the end of a session had a surprising ending once upon a time. This was to leave the simulator and take one student with me for a cup of coffee, leaving the other pilot to carry out a solo circuit with no one else in the simulator. Of course, the simulator was placed on no motion while we were away.
Outside the simulator it was easy to hear the sound of the gear being extended downwind and to hear the sound of reverse thrust after touch-down. We would open the door to the simulator in time to see the solo student applying the parking brake on completion of the landing run.
We (the second student and I) would give the solo student a hearty round of applause and a hard copy of the track on the instructor's panel would be printed and given to the solo student as proof of "First Solo".
The reaction of Asian students to this was quite heart warming as their normal impassive reserve broke into smiles all around.
And then one day I was running this little show again (it takes all of ten minutes and is worth every second in confidence building as a pilot incapacitation exercise) with a couple of highly experienced former Bae 146 pilots, one of whom was a tough looking bloke and seemingly quite cocky during his type rating.
Off he went on his first 737 solo while his F/O and I had our cuppa outside and listened for the landing. That done, we changed over and sent his mate on his first solo. As the tough bloke and I walked to the coffee room with the printed copy of his solo circuit in his hand, he turned to me and shook my hand which caught me completely by surprise, and said "Thanks for that solo - you have completely restored my love of flying with that experience of flying by myself."
He explained that he had been slaughtered in the 146 simulator in his previous company and was dreading failing the 737 type rating. In fact he had flown the 737 quite well during our sessions leading to the solo playing - but apparently underneath a gruff exterior he had been all nerves.
Maybe there is a moral to this tale, but one thing is for sure - and that is the solo circuit was never in any syllabus of training - but it was worth it for one bloke, anyway.