Sim Jet Training: Introduction

[ThomasKaira]

This is the first part of this lesson series, and as such it is imperative to warn you: If you are not EXTREMELY confident in your basic flying skills, advanced techniques, are not instrument and multi-engine rated, you are NOT ready to begin flying these planes. They are the largest, most complex aircraft existing today, they do not handle like your normal piston-engined four-seater Piper Cherokee or Cessna Skyhawk, they require you to learn how to fly all over again. Everything about flying a jet, including the ground-spent planning time, requires precision far greater than in your standard propeller-driven leisure aircraft. As such, I have decided to begin the lessons talking about the old jets and how to fly them. Why, you might ask? Because: as I would answer, to fly the 747-200, for example, you actually need to know how everything works. Modern jets have computerized the flight engineer, and as such, less and less pilots are actually learning how an air conditioning pack works, or why the pitot tube is such a vital probe. This is what I am here to teach, and hopefully you are here to learn.

As I said before, jets are not flown the same way as your Cessna. There are many reasons for this:

A: The plane is A LOT larger than your Cessna, you are dealing with many tons of aluminum and plexiglass, fuel, and humanity. This, along with the engine being completely different (and a lot more complex), means you will ALWAYS be flying at least twice as fast as your Cessna Skyhawk can.

B: Air Traffic Control plays a vital part in both types of plane, but there are certain other rules a jet must follow, everything from takeoff to landing requires a lot more interaction with the controller in the tower, and as air travel is now such a popular travel method these days, you will need to cooperate with the hundreds of other airline jets with the same aims as you.

C: Despite the popular belief I have noticed on this forum, flying one of these requires an extremely involved pilot, you will find, once you've broken the barrier of the "lazy-boy autopilot," that without this system, flying your jet would become incredibly stressful, and I am not talking about the 3+ hours you will spend tweaking away at your yoke. The autopilot is the saving grace that allows you to perform everything else you need to do, (managing speed and altitude and letting the autopilot actually fly you there, managing fuel, navigation, communication, and keeping the lunches of the 8 tons of humanity behind you in their stomaches.) A jet requires dedication not because they are boring to fly, but because of how much you must manage at a given time.

There is more, but I'll talk more about differences in the actual lessons. In the meantime, you should now know what to expect.

[stuart1044]

Looking forward to these lessons, i am quite confident in flying jets, but im sure there will be something i am missing and i am looking forward to learning them

[Brett_Henderson]

This is going to be fun, and educational. I don't fly tubes very often, because I know that I'm not doing it realistically. I have enough exposure to real, jet pilots to get the basics...but I've never dedicated myself to doing it realistically. Heck.. I got my hands full flying a C172 realistically (and I fly REAL ones, pretty regularly).

Before I even fire up the sim.. I decide on my "mission" (i.e... how many people are flying with me.. where we're going and how much baggage we'll have)...and then go about it just like I would for real. I check and double check weather (deciding on whether or not to file IFR, where my fuel stops will need to be, etc.). It's a pretty involved process (and keeps me on my pilot-toes).. but flying jets, is that type of mindset, squared and on steriods.. Half of succesfully negotiating one of those monsters full of souls any distance, is done on the ground, before even climbing into the cockpit.

The one area where I really need practice, is planning the route to be filed (since every commercial jet flight is IFR), and getting the whole mission clear in my head before firing up engine 1...

I'm really looking forward to these threads...

[C]

Should be interesting. I'll add a little of my (limited, although more than most!) tube flying experience if required...

[expat]

Should be interesting. I'll add a little of my (limited, although more than most!) tube flying experience if required...

They teach modesty at Cranwell now

Matt

[C]

Should be interesting. I'll add a little of my (limited, although more than most!) tube flying experience if required...

They teach modesty at Cranwell now

Matt

I call 14hrs (ish) limited! (mind you, I'm sure the sim counts too! ).

[Wii]

I'm probably not ready for this because I only know the basics of flying single and double props.

[beaky]

I like what I see so far, but if I may offer a wee criticism: why not start with a trainer-type jet first? I understand skipping over turboprops altogether, a lot of people have no interest in planes with propellers... but since the basic differences between jet and piston flight have more to do with the powerplant and the wing and how they work together than the size of the aircraft or how flights are planned, executed and supported, it seems to me more sensible to start smaller and simpler, then quickly move on to the big "buses".  Any of the military trainers spring to mind, although again, real "tube jockeys" learn most of what they need to fly big iron by staying with pistons into their multi training then learn how to handle fire and airliner-type subsystems behind the controls of a turboprop twin... jet trainers are normally used to teach jet fighter procedures. But it's also a good intro to taming turbines and slick airframes.

Like I said, it's your idea and I see where you're coming from; just a thought if you really hope to introduce inexperienced pilots to simulated jet flight.

[C]

I like what I see so far, but if I may offer a wee criticism: why not start with a trainer-type jet first? I understand skipping over turboprops altogether, a lot of people have no interest in planes with propellers... but since the basic differences between jet and piston flight have more to do with the powerplant and the wing and how they work together than the size of the aircraft or how flights are planned, executed and supported, it seems to me more sensible to start smaller and simpler, then quickly move on to the big "buses".  Any of the military trainers spring to mind, although again, real "tube jockeys" learn most of what they need to fly big iron by staying with pistons into their multi training then learn how to handle fire and airliner-type subsystems behind the controls of a turboprop twin... jet trainers are normally used to teach jet fighter procedures. But it's also a good intro to taming turbines and slick airframes.

Like I said, it's your idea and I see where you're coming from; just a thought if you really hope to introduce inexperienced pilots to simulated jet flight.

To be fair, a lot of people go straight onto jets via nothing bigger than a Piper Seneca/Seminole and a simulator type rating. In my experience the biggest I'd flown before the Funbus was only a standard B200 King Air.

[BFMF]

Trying to compete with the PPL training series...?

Sounds like an interesting combo of having training series' with jets and basic PPL, and not that there is anything wrong with you starting this, but I almost fear your typical 'instant virtual airline captain' who hasn't mastered the basics, and is still posting threads asking how to land is going to skip over the PPL flight training series for this. Probably nothing, and i'm mostly thinking out loud.... [smiley=lipsrsealed.gif]

[FsNovice]

Whilst i have never flown a bit jet RW, but i fly for a VA and as such fly jets in the sim almost daily, as realistically as possible in FS, using vatsim often as well, i'm sure i will learn some neat little tricks from this series as well. I know my proccedures become rather slack at times, due to repetitiveness and the "know it all" attitude that you get after flying them so often. Going to watch this series with interest.

[Brett_Henderson]

Be sure to send those who go blasting into Bravo airspace at 250kias, and try to come over the numbers at 200, or say, "What ?", when asked to hold at a fix, over to the PPL training..  

[beaky]

My criticism aside, it should be a good resource for a lot of new simmers who got into it because they want to fly the airliners... and those of us who rarely do so.

[beaky]

To be fair, a lot of people go straight onto jets via nothing bigger than a Piper Seneca/Seminole and a simulator type rating. In my experience the biggest I'd flown before the Funbus was only a standard B200 King Air.

That surprises me, that pilots would go from pistons to jets without some time in a King Air or similar... but I guess if you get the airline-quality sim training it's not so big a leap.
When I first tried my hand at flying the big rigs in FS9, I was woefully unprepared, mostly because of the care and feeding of the turbines, and the whole issue of energy management in general... but I got the hang of it eventually, so maybe that's not such a big deal.

[ThomasKaira]

The main reason that I started these threads is because of those "Instant Airline Captains." I have had plenty of time in FS with the single-engined props, twin-engined props, etc, I know what I'm doing, I have broke the code, as you would say.

Now, back to the purpose, Instant Airlne Captains do not know the basics of flying, I do, that's why I'm here, and that is why I am starting with the basics all over again, as well as explaining how the systems work so you have a better understanding of how these planes work (and I have just finished the thread on basic flying techniques so you know a bit on how to fly these planes).

Do note, however, that we are not yet ready to try a first flight yet, as I have yet to talk about how to manage that incredible engine power, and how the swept wings work so differently from a straight wing. Whenever we reach a point where we know enough to try something, I will let you know.

BTW: The strategy for starting now is easy referral to Brett's PPL in case one does not yet know what I am talking about, and we will be starting in the cockpit of an ERJ-145 for all checkrides. We must first get that ATP license out of the way.

Brett: once you get the details of shared-cockpit checkrides, I'd like to be able to do the same for the ATP license and jet checkouts.