I remember very little about the endless round of Lectures-DF exercises-Lectures-"Mock Control" -Lectures-ATC Tower sessions-Lectures.... ad infinitum. There were
some memorable occasions.
In the CA/DF Simulator, "S" was in the hot seat. His Instructor sat at his elbow. In the back office sat his "pilot" (
'twas I ), pulling the strings (I'm henceforth "P").
I opened the bowling gently enough. P asked for a simple QGH, 18,000 feet, hdg 210. At least my alter ego P
thought he was on 210. But I was simulating the still very common situation where there was just a DG on the panel, and a P4/P6 magnetic compass tucked away down in some awkward corner of the cockpit. Either P had found it difficult to read in the shadow, or he'd not waited long enough for the needle to settle down, or he'd simply misread it.
Whatever, the fictitious P had set his DG on 210 whereas the correct figure would have been 195. There was a 15 degree error built in from the start. The trace came up as 270 and S gave P that as the first 'steer'. P dutifully turned (60 right - yes ?) onto it and said so (but of course he was really now only on 255 - are you following me ? - and the QDM trace
must start creeping clockwise until S twigs what's going on.
At first I simulated P as being a fair distance out; so the trace didn't move much - could easily be due to a normal cross-wind. S sticks five more on to counteract this, but it's not nearly enough and the trace continues its clockwise march.
Why didn't S ask P to check his compass ? (the obvious first thing to do when a homing is going wrong). S was usually a bright lad, I can only suppose that he'd had a heavy night the night before, and was still suffering the effects.
So he carried on "trailing" the steers (to the immense annoyance of his Instructor, who was witholding comment in the hope that light might yet dawn), until the trace had worked round to 355, and it looked as if they were going to finish "going round in ever-decreasing circles" until - well, never mind. At last the exasperated Instructor exploded: "
MOVE HIM !! -
PUSH ! FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE" (or words to that effect).
This finally galvanised S into rattled action:
"Turn right ten onto three-six-five !" he bleated. "WHAAAT !" roared the Instructor. S took this as meaning that he should have done even more: " Terribly sorry", he said in his best Sloane tones: "
steer three-seven-zero !" was his final bid.
The meeting broke up (as the saying is) "in disorder".
Goodnight, all.
Danny42C.
"Every time he opens his mouth, he puts his foot in it !"
