Last week I was sent to FlightSafety International in Wichita to complete a recurrent training session in the LearJet 45. I had completed my initial training in the aircraft 8 years prior so my anxiety was high, and I was feeling like I was already behind in my knowledge and aircraft familiarity.
I wanted to write a PIREP on the ways to take care of yourself during training since it is not unusual for pilots to get sick afterward. In my case, I developed an inner ear infection on the way to training. So after my training was finished on Day 1, I went to urgent care and left with a steroid shot in the butt, a prescription for ear drops, antibiotics, and cough syrup. So now I was in full protection mode. I rested most days after school, I ate lots of salads and salmon, I took lots of vitamins and immune-supporting herbs, I turned off my brain when able and tried to get some good sleep.
Simulators operate about 22 hours a day so getting a logical sim time is one of the best things that can set you up for success. Here is what my 9 hour day of training day looked like:
Brief 0500-0600
SIM 0600-0900
Debrief 0900-0930
Lunch 0930-1030
Systems 1030-1400
A typical sim schedule looks like this:
Day 1: Engine start malfunction. Low visibility taxi and takeoff, steep turns, stalls, unusual attitudes, and then a circle to land approach.
Day 2: Aborted takeoff. Lots of V1 cuts, (which means taking off with an engine failure) and then flying a procedure turn to a non-precision approach without auto-pilot. Engine fire, bleed air failure, generator failure, etc. so it’s a lot of checklists and systems integration knowledge.
Day 3: Icing conditions followed by hot and heavy situations with more V1 cuts. Flight data computer failure then approaches in reversion mode.
Day 4: Low visibility departure, flight from point A to point B, and then a rapid decompression, engine fire, single-engine landing and then an emergency evacuation.
Day 5: Checkride to include all of the above.
So needless to say it is mentally exhausting being beaten up in the sim for a couple of hours each day. The stress factors in the body and fatigue are real. But so is your grit that has been tested. I can’t think of many professions that test your limits like this level of flying. It feels good to walk out of the sim after successfully testing your mettle.
After many training events in five different airplanes I have come to enjoy flying the simulators. The trick I have learned is to turn it into a game. You are flying a full-motion video game, not an airplane and it will feel different than the real plane. So I push my lower back into the seat, do my belly breathing, tell myself “I can do it” and ask my co-pilot to do everything else for me!
