Beautiful skies above Tucson
I had the pleasure this past week of attending recurrent CL-604 training at FlightSafety International in Tucson, Arizona. The location was a plus; some of my colleagues were attending training in Delaware, where the first day of class was cancelled due to a large snowstorm. Not to mention the thousands of flight cancellations that occurred in the Northeast.
Recurrent training is something professional pilots undergo every six, nine, or twelve months, depending on who they work for and which training program they are approved for. My wife teases me that I should not have to study and prepare so much for something I have been doing for decades. I know she likes to “tease” me, but I don’t think she understands the level to which we are trained and tested at each recurrent training session. There are few things as arduous as a two-hour oral exam and four hours in the flight simulator with your training partner under the watchful eye of your examiner.
Our Bombardier Challenger training started on Monday morning with eight hours of ground school or classroom training on airplane systems. The following two days were a mix of two and one-half hours of ground school, four hours in the flight simulator, with an hour and a half of briefing and de-briefing. Our ground school was delivered masterfully by our instructor, who has been instructing for thirty years. He was able to add important details and nuances that most instructors have not captured. Topics consisted of engines, fuel, electrical, hydraulic, pressurization, bleed air systems, as well as limitations, performance, weight & balance, and on and on.
On day two, our simulator instructor took us to Boise, Idaho, KBOI, and Hailey, Idaho, KSUN (in our simulator make-believe world). It was great fun doing “cold weather operations” in the mountains. On day three, we were training on what instructors call “high, hot and heavy” on a hot day in Colorado Springs, CO, 6,000 feet above sea level. The “high, hot and heavy” refers to higher airport elevations, higher-than-standard temperatures, and loaded heavy with payload and jet fuel. All these things significantly decrease the performance and handling characteristics of the jet. This is where we performed emergency descents, simulated engine fires, windshear, and CFIT escape maneuvers.
Day number four was down to simulator training only. We had the 8:00 pm to midnight sim slot. And of course, my body was still on Eastern Time. Our simulator instructor was relatively new but had a wealth of flying experience. She had us review normal, abnormal, and emergency operations. The sim, of course, is a great place to do things that would be very dangerous to do in the airplane. Some of these include rejected takeoffs, V-1 cuts, where the engine fails just as you obtain flying speed and need to continue the takeoff on a single engine, single-engine approaches, and single-engine missed approaches.
Our instructor also reviewed normal procedures such as SIDs and STARs, a variety of instrument approaches, and a sampling of abnormal and emergency systems failures covering all the systems on our airplane. She also quizzed us on emergency procedures and limitations until she was sure we were ready for our Checkride/Practical Test. Our instructor had done a great job, and we felt confident for our Checkride the next day. I’ll add that although both of us felt very confident and prepared for our Checkride, there is always that anxiety where “I hope I don’t do anything stupid” during the evaluation.
On our final day, we met our examiner, who greeted us warmly. He had a wealth of experience even before becoming a FlightSafety instructor and examiner. He was a former fighter pilot and had flight experience in our make and model of airplane as a corporate pilot. The oral portion of the checkride consisted of a detailed review of all the aircraft systems. Our four-hour simulator session began with a typical “hot start” engine problem on start-up. The rest of the sim profile consisted of the typical maneuvers required by the ATP Airman Certification Standards, including low-visibility takeoff, rejected takeoff, V1-cut, SID, STAR, stalls, unusual attitude upset recoveries, and four instrument approaches including a circling approach and the single-engine hand-flown ILS approach.
Pilots who only fly FAR Part 91 operations may be able to do what is called a “progressive check” or “consecutive check.” To utilize this option, your simulator instructor must be a Training Center Evaluator, or TCE, for all the simulator lessons. In addition to instructing, the TCE is verifying or evaluating that you can fly each maneuver to ACS standards. If a TCE is not available, your last simulator training session must be with a TCE who will provide a “stand-alone” checkride. This may occur if you have been assigned a newer instructor or someone who is not qualified as a simulator examiner. A “stand-alone” checkride is always required for any pilots who fly charter (FAR Part 135) or airline (FAR Part121) operations. There are variations of this for FAR Part 121 Air Carriers who are approved to train under AQP or the Advanced Qualification Program. They may have an evaluation called a Line Oriented Evaluation or LOE.
During my years of flying, I’ve had the privilege of being a simulator instructor and TCE for several years. I remember how frustrating it was when students would show up unprepared for training. As a line pilot again, I always study hard and practice hand-flying skills before I head to recurrent training. I want to make the decision easy for my evaluator to pass me each time.
