Welcome Aboard: Worldflight 2016

By Bill Smith (6 December 2016)

It's like a dream sequence from a movie: 45 flights over 7 days of complex cockpit procedures, unfamiliar airports and rapid-fire radio communications.

This is a first-hand account of it's really like to be a member of an official Worldflight team. It has to be every flightsim fanatic's fantasy: to be one of a crew of nine sim pilots whose mission is to fly a highly realistic, full scale 737-800 cockpit simulator in a "tag team" effort, around the world in just one week, but what is it really like?

Well it's an absolute blast of course, but it's also disorienting and tiring. Waking up to early morning alarms and adjusting to international time zones takes its toll. By the middle of the week, brain function diminishes and mistakes are inevitable. Before I go into detail however, I'll give you a very brief overview of the cockpit simulator, the crew members and the Worldflight route for 2016.

Worldflight Perth Teams

Worldflight Perth Teams: Comprising two authentically replicated full-scale Boeing cockpit simulators, located several suburbs apart in Perth, Western Australia. "VOZ738" is based on the 737-800NG and "Giant1471" is based on the 747-400. Both are privately owned, non-commercial fixed-based simulators. The crew that I flew with is captained by Gwyn Perrett, the owner of the Boeing 737-800 simulator. Gwyn's passion for aviation drove him to build this highly-authentic cockpit simulator, first completed in 2014, just in time for November's Worldflight tour. For 2016, the 737 simulator experience has become even more immersive, with the addition of a 4.5 meter wide curved screen giving the crew a superb wide-screen view of the world beyond the cockpit windows.

Given the fanatical level of detail that has gone into the building of the sim, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Gwyn, the owner of this home-built project, would be a fairly "intense" individual. You might imagine him to be a difficult person to deal with, perhaps exhibiting a lack of social skills bordering on a defective personality. But you'd be wrong! Having known Gwyn for 15 years, my own observation is that, throughout the build, Gwyn just approached every seemingly impossible aspect of the project with a calm determination, fuelled by his favorite brand of beer. Where necessary, he sought technical assistance from other enthusiasts who were keen to see him complete the build. When it was finished he was very happy to share the results of his labor with others who can truly appreciate what he's managed to achieve. This is one of the reasons that it was so easy for him to find eight other enthusiasts willing to front up for regular Monday night training; eager to commit to the discipline that's necessary to form an effective Worldflight crew.

Worldflight Perth's 737 Crew (Callsign Velocity 738)

Gwyn's 737 crew is comprised of nine individuals, each of us rostered to fly ten Worldflight sectors; five as first officer and five as Captain. (You do the math: 9 crew members in command of 5 flights = 45 sectors). 2016 was the third year that VOZ738 has operated as an official Worldflight team and the crew members for 2016 remain unchanged from 2015.

We are all flight sim enthusiasts and our ages range from 25 to 59 (I am the oldest). Most of us have some real-world flying experience and some even have current pilots licence status. None of us, however, has ever flown an airliner. Each of us came to the team with different areas of special interest and levels of competence. I must admit that to begin with, my knowledge of 737-800 operations was gleaned entirely from flying the PMDG 737 add-on for FS2004, and until Worldflight 2014, I had no experience handling radio communications on the VATSIM network. (My flight training back in the 70s included radio communication of course, but we only ever switched between the tower and ground frequencies and I had never in my life filed a flight plan.)

The holes in our crew's collective knowledge needed to be filled in with a training regime that aimed to bring us up to speed with correct radio procedures, flight planning, reading airport charts and, most importantly, dividing the duties of Captain and First Officer.

All sim pilots reading this article are familiar with flightsim as a solitary pursuit, handling all aspects of airliner operations entirely on your own, at your home computer. To become an effective Worldflight team member, it is important that you abandon this "solo operations" technique and instead perform only the functions dictated by your position as Captain or F/O. We've now had three years to practice this and, all things considered, we have done really well. The fact is, no matter how we are paired up, we always complete each sector with the minimum number of "stuff ups" and we're pretty pleased about that.

Worldflight route for 2016

The crew members all donated $300 to the Royal Flying Doctor Service for the privilege of flying as part of the team. We each nominated 10 preferred flights and waited on the result of a ballot. As luck would have it, I was awarded most of the flights that I wanted. By Sunday morning, November 6, we had Gwyn's hangar fully stocked with drinks and snacks and were as ready as we'd ever be.

If you expect me to now give you a detailed account of all the places I flew into, you are out of luck. Sleeping in short bursts at odd times, crossing the international dateline and experiencing dramatic weather changes over the course of each day resulted in a perpetual state of disorientation for most of the Worldflight participants. (This is especially true for anyone of advanced age like me.) In all honesty, the details of the week of Worldflight are mostly a blur, but certain events stood out and I will try to recall them as best I can.

Day 1: WF1601 (The first flight) Sydney Australia to Queenstown New Zealand.

It's always a scramble to get route clearance from VATSIM on the first flight with more than 90 aircraft trying to leave Sydney all at the same time. This flight was captained by Gwyn Perrett with F/O Josh Cliff assisting.

I made a point of being in the jump-seat* during the final phase of the flight because I knew that things would start to get hectic as we approached the top of descent. As anticipated, the VATSIM controllers refused permission for Velocity 738 to descend from our cruise altitude due to the overwhelming number of aircraft approaching NZQN, which demands a slow, steep approach through mountainous terrain. When Captain Gwyn Perrett was eventually cleared for initial descent, VOZ 738 was already 10,000 feet above our descent profile. As a result, like many other aircraft on this first sector, they were diverted to Dunedin and controllers were on hand to receive them there.

*I used the term "jump seat" earlier but I should clarify: Gwyn Perrett's cockpit simulator has a row of three very comfortable ex Qantas 747 business class seats installed immediately behind the cockpit which provide visitors with an excellent view of the crew's operations.

Day 2: WF1608 (My first flight as captain) Cold Lake, Canada to Duluth, Minnesota.

Let the disorientation begin: Outside Gwyn Perrett's shed it's a warm spring afternoon while in the alternative reality of the simulator it's near-freezing night in Cold Lake, Canada. The thing that stuck me most during the final approach phase of this flight was that the nose of our aircraft was pointed away to the left of the runway as we "crabbed" forward toward the runway threshold. That's when I looked at the wind direction and strength shown on the navigation display and was a bit startled by what I saw. I looked over to my F/O Giles (the kid) Hacon and felt the need to confess to him that I'd never before landed in a 27 knot crosswind! I let the autopilot do its thing all the way down to the decision height before disconnecting it and kicking the aircraft straight with a bit of rudder upon touchdown.

Day 3: WF1615. Santo Domingo to Bridgetown, Barbados

I remember feeling hungry and unhappy at the prospect of missing lunch completely as I called for route clearance to TBPB. Once again, luck was on my side because we had a guest on board who had a surprise for us. He was a mad-keen flightsim fan, who had made a donation to the RFDS and was sitting behind us, observing operations. He watched us take-off and then, during the climb phase he broke out the takeaway pizza! It was very much appreciated by Captain Giles Hacon and his hungry F/O.

Day 4: WF1619. Palmeira to Tenerife South

I was scheduled to fly us out of here at 02:55 (Perth Time) but my F/O was a no-show. (We found out later that he's slept through his alarm). So even though Luke Bruce-Smith had just completed a 4 hour Atlantic Ocean crossing from Natal he volunteered to step in and assist me with this flight.

WF1621. London (Gatwick) to Munich

Acting as F/O for this flight, I called for clearance to EDDM and heard a term that I had not encountered in any previous Worldflight sector. Clearance told me "slot 0350" and I duly read that back to him without understanding what it meant. Captain Kirk Christie explained that it was the time (3:50 AM Zulu time), that we had been allotted for push-back from our gate. (Those British VATSIM controllers think of everything!)

WF1622. Munich to Tivat, Montenegro

This was a bonus sector for me. I was relaxing out on Gwyn's patio, thinking about the big lunch that Gwyn's wife was preparing for us for the three hour break that marks the half-way point for the week of Worldflight. Gwyn was scheduled to act as F/O for this flight when he received a message about a family matter that needed his urgent attention. The call came for me to stand in for him, which I was happy to do, unaware of the complex approach procedure that was to mark the end of this sector. Lucky for me Captain Thomas Dellenbach had meticulously planned this flight which made my job so easy. Thomas handled the visual approach between the hills like an expert. He had the added pressure of the entire 737 Worldflight crew watching him because everyone had gathered in the shed in anticipation of The Big Wednesday Lunch Event. Not only does Gwyn's wife Leonie put up with a crowd of Gwyn's mates invading her home for an entire week, she caters for them as well, which makes her one of those genuine sweethearts who only come along once a in lifetime.

Day 6: WF1635. Kansai, Japan to Taipei, Taiwan

At last, we were back in a time zone (GMT+9) that was similar to our local time and we'd be flying into daylight. This was only my second Worldflight sector with Captain Ken Brand and I was looking forward to another intense and interesting conversation, such as the one we'd had the day before, during our flight from Colombo to Delhi. However, as we were cleared to line up and wait for take-off clearance, the cockpit's Mode Control Panel died. It just went completely blank! I asked Captain Brand if we should clear the runway before attempting to address the issue, but he assured me that this was something that could be fixed "on the fly". We were cleared for take-off; thundered down the runway and into the air, headed for the first waypoint in the STAR. Just prior to entering the first low-altitude turn to the left, Captain Brand asked me to take the controls while he departed the cockpit to try to reconnect whatever piece of equipment had fallen off its mounting. I made contact with Departure Control and let them know that we had a technical issue that would prevent us from climbing higher than 14,000 feet. (The initial altitude that has been set on the MCP before it inconveniently died.) OK, so all I had to do was follow the flight director through a series of turns until we reached 14,000 feet. Then I lost the flight director! It just dropped out. I remained calm.

I could still follow the track on the navigation display and I still had a working Rate Of Climb indicator. When we got to 14,000 feet, I just kept a slightly "nose up" attitude to maintain level flight. A few minutes later, Ken had the MCP running again, and I was able to inform Departures that we could now resume our climb to cruise altitude. The rest of the flight was uneventful if you don't count the fact that we had to change landing runways at the last minute when Captain Brand realised that our standard scenery set did not include the runway that we'd been allocated. Oh, and we somehow dropped off the VATSIM network during our final approach phase. Other than that, it went well.

Day 7: WF1641. Denpasar, Indonesia to Alice Springs, Australia

My final Worldflight sector for 2016 was also the best. With Jason Beringer acting as my F/O we departed WADD at 1:00 AM local time and soon became engaged in another fascinating conversation about life, aviation, family, aviation, politics and aviation. You have to understand that it's only Worldflight training nights that brings the crew members together. For the rest of the time we don't hang out together, so a 3 or 4 hour flight offers a rare opportunity for getting to know each other. Unfortunately, we were so engrossed in our early morning conversation that we failed to turn off the center fuel tanks when they were drained of fuel. More fuel was now being drawn from the left hand tank which created a noticeable imbalance. We had to address this by opening the cross-feed valve and shutting off the left hand fuel pumps but this is typical of the kind of mistakes that happen when we're over-tired. Our eastbound route took us ahead of our local time zone, into central Australian time. The dawn approach into the red dirt hills surrounding Alice Springs was spectacular. Jason jumped out of his seat to take some pictures as I flew an RNAV approach into runway 30. We landed at YBAS, exhausted but happy and ahead of schedule and I went home to catch up on my sleep.

I returned to Gwyn's shed in the late afternoon to watch the final leg of Worldflight (WF1645) land back at Sydney. The 737 crew enjoyed a barbeque at which we were joined by the crew of the 747 team, headed by Greg Hateley. We celebrated the total amount of money raised jointly by both teams: AUD $7213. The whole 737 crew turned out in team colors to pose for a photo.

I still can't quite believe my luck that I'm on this team, in fact I'd never even imagined that such an intensely solo pursuit such as flightsim could ever become a team sport. Let's face it, nerds enjoy their own company and tend not to join teams but I'm so happy I joined this one.

Bill Smith
YPPH
therealbillsmith@iinet.net.au