We tried the event in the sim during recurrent and if you didn't IMMEDIATELY snap the throttle to idle and shut off the fuel…you didn't make it.
As you said, no time for any book or even thinking about any book.
This says a great deal about today's training in some airlines. Glad to hear there is some imagination in some airlines. I was so tired and fed up of the repetitive trivia served up in LPC's & OPC's. It was mind numbing and not very educational after the umpteenth time of a mandatory item. RST's tried to inject some variances, but the emphasis was on CRM, QRH, FDM & SOP's. There was not a lot of thinking outside the envelope. Guys are terrified of having to solve a problem without a checklist: terrified of acting immediately, as the scenario dictates, as a pilot. Their first thought is "what does the SOP say?" Then there is a huge ? mark as they realise there isn't one. OMG, what to do.
I was in RST's given by 2 year F/O's SFI. They had the script. It was quite interesting to remember the times they commented, "I haven't seen anyone do that before, but it worked. Hm?" That was from the enlightened ones. The others just chimed in, "you weren't supposed to do that." Oh dear.
I used to really enjoy the education gained by designing scenarios where there was no checklist; and often derived from real events that went wrong. Sadly, that was stamped out by those who thought it taught a bad attitude.
How many accidents have happened because the crew failed to follow the QRH correctly? Not many. It is the WTF factor that fuddles the brain and needs a knowledge of the a/c & aviation to solve the problem that trips up the majority. The NTSB investigators are sometimes quite bemused as to 'why the heck did they do that'. Often it was because they didn't know any better, but they should have.
In my some of my previous outfits they had one OPC/LPC program and one RST. You could ask your mates what happened and what the sequence was and what they did. Not very educational or confidence building. RST's should be real training and fun. Find out about yourself & the a/c and the way you behave under certain conditions. Checking should be more realistic and less repetitive trained monkey stuff. Ah, but then too many might fail and need re-training and that is disruptive to the roster, especially in the summer. Tick the boxes and smile. XAA happy, CFO happy. HOT? that depends.