Mike Ray's The Unofficial A320 Simulator And Checkride Procedures Manual

ike Ray's checkride manuals are well-known to Boeing type-rated ATPLs as indispensible aids to getting re-accredited, because his manuals are authoritative and fun to read. When the books first appeared a few years back, the series proved hugely successful and it wasn't long before the big-iron end of the simming world got to hear of them and began ordering copies for their own use. If my memory is correct, the Boeing 757-767 and 737 300-400-500 manuals first hit the scene six or seven years ago and they were originally available from the University of Temecula Press, which meant that getting hold of a copy if you lived outside the US was kind of difficult - but it was well worth the effort. Mike is a retired UAL captain and not only does he have a talent for getting his point across, the words are reinforced with fine (and at times, howlingly funny) cartoons.

The other reason why Mike's manuals have done so well is that there isn't really any alternative, apart from the almost indigestible books of words that come with the planes themselves. The authors of the official manuals have the single aim of communicating facts to the reader and aren't afraid to use a thousand words where a hundred will do, on the principle that people's lives depend on getting the concepts across and the knowledge that their readership is fit enough to lift the weight. So if you are a real ATPL, the official guides have to be read, but it is a penance, rather than a pleasure, and lots of strong coffee is generally advisable if you plan on avoiding hearing the thud of your forehead hitting the desk on a regular basis. Mike, on the other hand, has the luxury of being able to write for people who are already familiar with the manufacturer's copy, but want to refresh their knowledge without having to wade through thousands of pages of text.

From a simmer's point of view, the manuals neatly fill the gap between where the manuals for high-end simulations end and the desire to fly real-world procedures begins. I use the phrase 'high-end' advisedly, because using Mike's manuals with simple aircraft simulations like the default jets is liable to leave you with little more than an abiding curiousity to know where all the missing switches went. So if you are a turn-and-burn simmer and like to start hot on the threshold, ready to fly, these books aren't really for you, although they do give a fantastic insight into what it is like to fly the real planes - and how much knowledge you need to have on tap to pass a checkride with an experienced trainer who knows the plane like the back of his hand. The manuals are written for pilots and what they don't do is take you through an entire 'tutorial' flight in a plane and neither are the Boeing ones totally exhaustive - so you can't use one instead of the product literature - but put the two together and a little imagination is all you need to go to the next level of simming.

If you flick your eyes back to the title, you can see that Mike is breaking a lot of new ground with the A320 manual - not only is it not about Boeings, it is downloadable. The zip weighs in at a little over 170 megs, which makes for a reasonably quick download, and it is copy-protected by a password which is emailed to you on purchase. Decompressed you end up with a 387 full-color page pdf, which looks as good as it is to read.

A quick flick through the contents list is enough to highlight another change of emphasis, because unlike the Boeing manuals, the A320 volume covers pretty much everything you need to know about operating this complex airplane, which accounts for why it is longer than any of the other books Mike has published. According to Mike, '...the text is written so that an entry level pilot will be able to follow along without undue reference to "other" source materials' which makes it ideal for simmers like you and I.

The manual is divided into two parts, the first being a basic description of the systems, some useful 'ground school' and a wedge of preflight material; this section is orientated towards passing the checkride oral examination, but simmers will find it a useful introduction to the A320. The second part describes how to ready the A320 for flight, pushback, engine start, taxi-out, take-off, climb, cruise, approach, descent, landing, taxi-in, parking and shutdown - so Mike takes you through every phase of flight.

What I am going to do is to walk you through enough of the manual that you will be able to understand whether it fits your needs and for you to get a grip on Mike's philosophy. For what it is worth, my opinion is that he is one of the most inspiring and talented teachers on the aviation circuit, but the A320 checkride manual is a heavyweight item and I would like to be sure that potential purchasers have a clear idea of what they are signing up for, because for all that it is written in a light-hearted fashion, it is packed with facts. A superficial glance at the screenshots gives little clue to how much depth of analysis there is in these pages - there aren't many wasted words and even the page devoted to how the switches in the A320 work covers a couple of gotchas. So pay attention!

Mike divides the A320 panel into fifteen sections and goes into each in detail in the section on systems. All the switches in each sub-panel area are identified and their functions fully described, along with any important points about their operation, usage in the event of failure and checkride gotchas, so by the time you have worked your way through, you should be completely familiar with the operation of the panel. One of the interesting things about this part of the manual is that although one tends to assume that all Airbus cockpits are identical, they are not and there are some important differences between different 'generations' of the same model in some cases. Where it is relevant, Mike adds information that is relevant to the procedures described later on in the manual, which can be very useful when you are trying to figure out exactly how a system should operate - a good example of this is the riveting information that the two APU test buttons perform completely differently, operating the one on the auto-extinguishing panel actually shuts the unit down! Another useful part of this section is an explanation of the 'laws' that goven Airbus operation; you may have heard these bandied about in the forums, now you can find out what they actually mean.

Once Mike is through describing the switch sets, he moves on to the glass, which is a section that simmers will greatly appreciate, devoting thirteen pages to the Primary Flight Display (PFD) and four to the Navigation Display (ND), the other instruments all getting their share. You get a useful description of the thrust lever engagement zones (baffling if you are used to Boeings) and then Mike moves on to the second part of the manual, describing the flows involved in getting the plane started from a cold and dark cockpit, into the air and back down safely again. Some of this is highly amusing, particularly the section about making sure you have boarded the right airplane, a mistake that pilots make all over the world, ever day - some of them have even been known to get airborne before discovering their mistake... This section is profusely illustrated and walks your fingers across the panels through all the procedures until each task has been accomplished; at each stage you can see what needs to be done and which controls need to be operated to do it, while all the while Mike is drawing your attention to how things can go wrong and where the checkride captain will try to catch you out. There are several dozen pages about the operation of the MCDU, which highlight 'no-go' situations at every stage - MCDU programming being described in such depth that even a novice simmer (if determined enough) ought to be able to figure out how to program one from scratch and even learn how to manually enter a route. At this point the text is best described as rich in acronyms, but there is a very useful glossary at the start of the book.

At page 186, you get to do the walk-around. Told you it was complex - pushback doesn't happen until page 205. Some time around now, the less persistent simmers will have gone back to the default Boeings, but the hardcore will reached the section on 'phases of flight' which is one of the most helpful parts of the book, giving as it does an overview of how the A320 needs to be transitioned from one climb to cruise to descent and so on. In here there is a good deal more discussion of the laws and alpha floor, stuff that is a key part of Airbus operation, but rarely seems to make it into any addon manuals and with just over a hundred pages left, Mike moves on to the practical side of the checkride, which is where you actually get to fly the plane, rather than just go through the theory. This section covers not only the correct procedures to be used in each phase of flight, but also how to respond to virtually any emergency that might occur (which they do, on checkrides, of course). There is lots of useful stuff in here about things which are hard to get any hard information about, such as noise abatement takeoffs, what to do if you enter cruise with the flight algorithm still in climb mode, how to enter course revisions in the MCDU, how to get in and out of holds... the whole shebang.

What else can I say. The A320 checkride procedures manual is a tour-de-force. OK, I wasn't expecting any different from Mike Ray, but from a simmer's point of view, this is the best thing he has written yet and if you want to fly an A320, you have to own it.

Andrew Herd
andy@flightsim.com

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