Last Call: Your pilots are fortunate to have received such realistic training scenarios, and let's hope that many other airlines (and military squadrons) now include, or will include, these events in their high-cost simulator periods. Years ago, simply due to cost, some major airlines had no FMC trainer, which could have prepared pilots for each morning's fixed-base sim period in a certain Boeing FMC aircraft, in contrast to pilots showing up after no preparation. The people responsible for training pilots to face the newer type of flying later realized that after many years with many problems, they could then 'justify' the development of a desktop training device, to their "people upstairs". Some FOs at a major US airline actually spent about $5,000 out of their own pockets at Boeing for a course on the same aircraft, having little faith in a certain training department at their own airline. Back then, the company believed in pilots training themselves, to a large extent, don't ya know?
Many valuable simulated events can be done for training, without necessarily being graded by check airmen, if initiated by the Training/Program Managers etc, and allowed by the supervising authorities. Sometimes, the less such situations are graded as "pass/fail", the better the training results, and the lower the stress (better rest) for the pilots when they arrive for an 0500 briefing (
).