FFS1 & 2

We had our first full flight simulator sessions with motion on Thursday and Friday.  Both sessions involved lots of manual handling to get the feel of the aircraft.

In the first session, we got to do steep turns, flight director ILS, visual circuits and climbs/descents with heading changes.  We also went through exercises in stall recovery – first in the clean configuration and then in the landing configuration.  We practiced takeoffs and landings as well.  The next session, we practiced more takeoffs and landings but with the addition or raw-data ILS approaches.

The takeoffs are not as simple as it looks on paper!  The technique we were taught was to start pulling back on the control column for rotation and once the nose wheel is in the air, relax the pressure a little to avoid rotating to quickly, and then anticipate the “dead band” at around 10 degrees, which is where we pull back more firmly to continue the rotation.  The “dead band” is where the aircraft starts coming out of ground effect, and so needs further help from the stabiliser to rotate.  We discussed the risk of tail strike at length since the 737-800 is quite prone to this, and a tail strike is possible if rotation is too fast, and it happens at 11 degrees nose up.

The controls can be quite heavy initially, but much better once trimmed.  We have to exercise patience when flying the 737 since changes we make with the power setting or control column won’t take effect immediately due to the inertia and spool up time of the engines.  I’m really enjoying the manual flying, and the 4 hour session does go by really quickly.