Sabena Boy. Thank you for placing that first class article into Pprune.
I was an observer in a 737 full flight simulator today. The other two pilots were check pilots. Over pre-flight coffee they decided to enjoy themselves by flying a few normal circuits and touch and go landings. Weather was perfect, Wing Commander's weather in fact. Wind light and variable and CAVOK. No crosswinds for our two 737 heroes. Dry runway, too.
The engines were still running from a previous trip. Next thing both instructors dived into the FMC and started to plug in the myriad of computer key strokes. Silly me - and I thought they were going to shoot a few touch and goes. Instead it was about type - type -,type - confirm, enter and now go to page two put in the Cost Index, select an altitude, type in the runway - how about a five mile runway extension, old boy? Nah! Three miles will do and which accel altitude would you like, old son? May as well put in the company escape route while you are about it.. type - type - type... Long time since I done circuits, Mate. Should be more of it.
All the time the clock was ticking away and our thirty minutes valuable sim time booking not looking too healthy with another crew in the queue.
Time to roll, with flight directors on, autothrottle engaged, circuit altitude on the MCP panel and standby for the stop-watch.
What are these two on about, thinks the casual observer in the jump seat - when all they want to do is a few visual circuits and T&G's so why waste time with FD and AT and MAP modes and stop watches.
The captain for the "leg" hits TOGA and that starts a rapid fire stream of "support " calls from the bloke in the right hand seat - N1 - TOGA - airspeed alive - throttle hold - looks good - oh
missed the 80 knot call - soreee mate, VI Rotate, Positive rate - watch yer body angle..Speed speed, altitude altitude - BANK ANGLE mate, keep turning old son - Jeez! watch your speed mate you've go 80% N1 in level flight - ALTITUDE Maaate.. You want heading select now? Spin it around to runway reciprocal. Want the after take off checks? Forget them its too late. Give us the descent and approach checks quick - Wots the Vref mate - get into Init Ref..
You can pick the automatic monkeys by the way they dive into the FMC before they've even adjusted the seat position, rudder pedals and fastened the crotch strap. Gotta get the priorities right, Mate...get the stuff into the box first.
Raw data circuits? You mean no flight director? No AT? You have to be kidding. HSI mode up? You must be kidding. You can kill yourself doing that..