Three Men And A Baby Boeing

By Bill Smith (4 November 2006)

A realistic home built cockpit simulator must be the ultimate manifestation of FS mania. My friends Gwyn and Dean both have the patience and the technical know-how to achieve their dream of jet simulator ownership and each of them has one parked in their own homes. (I do not have a clue when it comes to computerized paraphernalia so I have to be content with a PC and a joystick.) While, technically, they could construct one for me too, it would have to be built over my wife's dead body.

A labour of love

Gwyn's 737NG cockpit is outstanding. Lovingly hand crafted, it features a fully-functioning throttle quadrant and flap levers that are superb reproductions of the real thing. The Primary Flight Display and Navigation Displays are each on separate CRT screens set in a scaled down 737 panel. There are yokes and pedals for both Captain and F.O. and the radio frequencies can be tuned via a console between the two pilots' seats. The result is so complex and sophisticated that it's almost more than one pilot can manage on his own. That's where I come in.

Last Friday night, Captain Gwyn phoned to invite me to come and check out his latest improvements. Imagine that! The result of thousands of hours of meticulous work was now ready to be entrusted to my semi-capable hands! This promised to be a fun evening.

Now the thing you should know about Gwyn is that he likes to hand-fly his 737, not worrying too much about planning a route beforehand. With his recent experience in "real world" light aircraft, he just likes to zoom around at a low altitude, picking airports at random and trying to land. He has a natural feel for the aircraft but he doesn't use 'real weather' and doesn't even bother with ATC. He finds this kind of flying both exhilarating and relaxing. Not me! I just find it annoying, because I like to make every airliner flight as realistic as possible. And with two pilots in the cockpit to handle the workload, I thought that we might as well do it properly. So I grabbed a briefcase full of high altitude route maps and airport charts to take with me and jumped in the car.

Training? What training?

On the way to Gwyn's house I ruminated on how every sim pilot has a different approach to the hobby. It's not so surprising when you consider that there is no formal learning center for flight simulation. There are no mandatory training manuals, no structured lessons and no certificates of competence are issued. You just need a computer, an FS program and a lot of enthusiasm. You learn at your own rate, and over time gravitate naturally toward the type of flying that suits you. Perhaps the only thing that Gwyn, Dean and myself have in common is that we have all spent far more time flying jet simulators at home than we have at the controls of real aircraft.

By the time I arrived at Gwyn's flightsim shed, I found Captain Dean seated in the first officer's chair. He had already gone through the laborious engine start procedure and was ready to roll. And just as I had anticipated, Gywn, sitting behind us in the jump seat, was impatient to get going so he could show us how all the controls had been assigned real functions in this latest development of his project.

But where were we going to fly to? With the PMDG 737NG program loaded into FS2004, the Garmin GPS is dispensed with, so once you are airborne, there is no nav or airport information readily at hand. Dean and I are much more organised than Gwyn and like very much to know something about the direction and duration of our flight as well as runway lengths and ILS frequencies prior to our arrival. Looking through some of airport charts that I had with me, we chose to fly from Wellington, New Zealand to Auckland (NZWN-NZAA).

My turn:

During the few minutes that it took Gwyn and Dean to program the route into the FMC, I tried to make the mental adjustment from "PC sim-operator" to the pilot of something far more realistic. I can assure you, once the cabin lights go off, with the cockpit illuminated solely by the light from the computer screens, you're convinced that you are in control of a real 737. I was assigned the Captain's role as PIC and Dean assisted with radios as well as providing me with a running commentary on the complex array of information on the CRT screens. At first I struggled with the unfamiliar feel of real brake and rudder pedals but we eventually made it to the threshold of runway 34 without incident. So far so good.

Disaster requires no planning or forethought.

Now remember what I said previously about the ad-hoc training that we sim pilots have? Well you might assume that someone who's been a sim-pilot for as long as I have (eight years) would remember to engage the autothrottles prior to the takeoff roll. But as I have recently converted to the Aerosoft Airbus A330 I have trained myself not to do so. (After takeoff in the Airbus, A/T engages automatically after takeoff, when power is reduced from the "FLEX" to the "CL" setting.)

Blissfully unaware of my error of omission, I got us into the air and a short while later engaged the autopilot. Dean hooked the A/P into L nav and V nav modes. By this time, Gywn was just finishing his second can of beer and so left the cockpit to pee. He therefore missed the panic that was shortly to follow. After climbing above 10,000 feet, Dean was attending to the overhead panel in order to turn off the landing lights and adjust the pressurization. Watching him, I failed to notice that our speed had washed off and for a few moments, neither of us could understand why the stall warning horn had come on.

Looking at the PFD I could see that our speed had reduced to about 230 knots. I pitched down and powered up. Then we selected the A/T "on" and we climbed away once more. Disaster avoided, we climbed to our cruise altitude of 30,000 feet.

Gwyn returned to the cockpit and along the way towards the top of our descent, he regaled us with the intricate details of the engineering involved in achieving the latest incarnation of what has been for him a long-term build project. Of course, most of the detail was lost on me as I have a very small brain.

We commenced our descent and waited to come within range of the ATIS for Auckland before consulting my chart and setting the ILS frequencies for runway 05R. As we descended to 3000 feet, I steered northwest at first, while slowing down and configuring the plane to land. Dean and Gwyn practically bullied me into hand flying the last ten miles onto the runway. It wasn't too difficult to do this as the weather was clear and the winds were calm (a default setting). The touchdown was good enough for me to enjoy watching in replay. I used my Auckland Airport map to find the appropriate parking bay.

Dean's turn:

Now it was Dean's opportunity to demonstrate his skills. They put the programmed route into "reverse", made sure that there was enough fuel for the return trip and Dean pulled on the "pushback" knob on the panel. He didn't seem to be concerned that our check-captain Gwyn was breathing beer fumes onto us from the jump seat.

Just to make it interesting, Captain Gwyn dialed in a heavy crosswind. Dean steered us out to the threshold of runway 05R and had no trouble at all keeping the jet on the centerline of the runway. He turned south and let the FMC take us back up to cruise altitude (FL330).

During the cruise, Dean programmed the FMC's approach path for a ten-mile extension to runway 34 at NZWN. Later, during our descent, we discovered from the ATIS that the winds at Wellington were now blowing in from the south, so Dean turned the aircraft out to the west in a wide descending loop and hastily reprogrammed the track for an approach into runway 16. We later rejoined our approach track at a much lower altitude and Dean eased the aircraft around to intercept the localizer.

Sabotage.

With the A/P switched off, Dean was hand-flying us down the glideslope when we heard the sound of one of the engines running down. This was followed immediately by a cry of "You Bastard!" from Dean. The maniacal laughter from behind us told us that it was Gwyn who had reached forward and shut the fuel off to the left engine.

Using plenty of right rudder, Dean did a fine job of tracking us all the way down for a beautiful flare onto the runway. Unfortunately, with only one engine operating, Dean missed out on the thrill of pulling on "real" thrust reversers.

Gwyn's turn.

You might imagine that after three cans of beer, Captain Gwyn might not remember the correct start sequence for the PMDG 737. But he did! He was keen to show us his newly acquired England scenery set and as he pulled back from the gate at Gatwick, he told us to look out for the grass growing up the boundary fences. Well, that kind of detail may sound impressive but it takes a huge toll on the performance of the FS program. We were taxiing out to the active runway with frame rates of around 5-9 FPS. Dismal!

Frame rates improved a little once we were airborne, but by the time that Gwyn had hand-flown us up the Thames for a landing at London City Airport, the fluidity of movement over the landscape had degenerated into a slide show. As Gwyn turned on final for runway 28, the program crashed and the screen went black.

It was an inauspicious end to an entertaining evening of flight simulation. It was 11:30 PM by the time Gwyn staggered out to the driveway to see us both off. I assume that as soon as we drove out of sight, Gwyn lay down and went to sleep on his front lawn. He was probably dreaming about a RAM upgrade. I wonder what time the sprinklers came on?

Anyway, a couple of close calls and an inebriated check-captain hell bent on sabotage, is a far cry from my usual flightsim experience. For me FS is usually such a solitary, orderly pursuit, that it is almost an exercise in meditation. It made a nice change to have this activity transformed into a night out with friends.

I look forward to the next time.

Bill Smith
Perth, Western Australia
leesmith@ca.com.au