FTD Session 4. Houston Training Center November 2013

“Seannnn…. Get in the Game! You really have no idea what is going on do you Se-aann?, the airplane is burning, you  and 52 other people are going to die here today cause you can’t remember what you’re supposed to be doing. Goddammit get in the game” he was screaming at me. Six inches from my ear, nattily dressed, pleasant cologne and his minty fresh breath, screaming at me. At that point it took every ounce of self restraint to keep from telling him to take his nonpaying job and stick it right up his ass, but I had already invested six weeks into this program and didn’t want to go home empty handed. Besides I really wasn’t sure how I would get home or what I would do for a living if I quit now.

It was FTD session 4 at the training center. The FTD or flight training device is an actual cockpit of an Embraer 145 that had been totaled during a runway mishap a few years earlier and the company had engaged CAE to develop it into a procedures trainer. Essentially they took the flight deck off of the airplane, replaced the windshields with frosted Plexiglas and built interfaces between the switches and controls that simulated a real airplane. All you couldn’t do is taxi or land it. They had two of them in small data centers at the training center with a whole host of computers sitting around them on raised floors. You climbed an industrial metal platform to access it and there was room for the crew flying, the instructor/operator and another crew who got to witness their classmates being tortured in the device.

Session 4 was emergency drills and was part of the buildup to simulator training.  It wasn’t a training gate so the session was instructional in nature not a measuring event, meaning it was non jeopardy. The instructor was a guy about my age who showed up late because of traffic commuting into work. Travis and I were initially relieved that he was late as it gave me more time to review. And frankly, I really needed the review.

Captain Johnny Rocket met us in the employee cafeteria. He showed up in a pair of pressed black slacks a professionally laundered starched white shirt open three buttons from the top and a light grey patterned silk sport coat and expensive polished tan loafers.  Wearing a watch the size of a golf ball, he apologized for his tardiness, got himself a diet coke and led us into one of the briefing rooms. Introductions led the discussions with Captain Rocket telling us about his career at the airline, his prior work as a police officer and military service. He liked what he heard from Travis a fellow southerner but largely due to his prior experience flying a Dash 8 for Piedmont. He didn’t seem to know what to make of me. A fifty three year old New Yorker dressed similarly to him, launching a new career into a field mostly populated with guys in their mid twenties and early thirties.

After six weeks of introductions I had my elevator pitch about my experience fairly well honed so after the pleasantries we launched into the briefing of what we were intending to accomplish over the next three hours.

We talked about what was going to happen,  which built on what we had been working on to date. The first part was review and reinforcement. We would have to work through all of the on the ground flows from the “hello and happy to meet you” safety inspection, followed by the power up, receiving flow and checklist, the before start flow and before start/pushback checklist. Engine start would follow where we would then perform the after start flow and checklist. Then we would do the taxi checklist, which could be either a two engine taxi or a single engine taxi. If it was a single engine taxi we would have to perform a delayed engine start flow and taxi checklist, which at this point in my training could have been a condition for meltdown. We would have to be ready for takeoff within 45 minutes from sitting down with the airplane configured correctly and ready for take off.

A takeoff climb out and vectors around for an ILS approach would be next and we’d do this a couple of times then he would introduce the emergencies which was the meat of the lesson. The primary procedure we were to experience was smoke in the cockpit from some failure induced by the instructor.  We had spent the past six weeks reviewing the memory and immediate action items so we were quizzed on them. Today we were going to expand on them by experiencing them in the cockpit of the trainer, going thru the procedures we had only memorized actually touching and actuating the knobs dials and switches as we worked through the Quick Reference Handbook donning the oxygen masks, smoke goggles in the process.

Travis volunteered to go first, so I would have the opportunity to see where my knowledge was thin, learning from my partner a current 121 pilot. The briefing ended after an hour and we adjourned to the FTD room and got a fifteen-minute break. I put my gear in the left seat and called Judy and she wished me luck and did her best supporting spouse routine. After six weeks of tolerating me living in a hotel away from her and the home, her encouragement was about as polished as my experience elevator pitch. We squared our gear in the FTD and set about ‘building our nests’ to try to get a jump on the tasks soon to be encountered.

The instructors usually had the prior crews leave us “Easter Eggs” to find. This was where they would put the switches and knobs in inappropriate positions pulling circuit breakers and the like to verify that we were actually going through our flows and setting things up as required, so getting there early was imperative. Travis set about doing his thing while I watched trying to remember everything we had been studying up to that point and getting nervous as hell. 

Captain Rocket was talking to someone on his cell phone and hearing the one side of it I could tell we were a lot alike by the things he was saying. He talked about where he was going to meet this person after he got off from work, how the food and drinks were good and all about how gorgeous the friendly barmaid who served them is. For some reason this relieved me as I thought about his life and how he knew it would continue in three hours with a drink and some food flirting with pretty women, three of my favorite things to do. 

In contrast, my mindset was nothing like that. Like a deer in the headlights,  I was behind the eight ball and at that point all I was concerned with was getting thru this session still employed.

“I can only piss on the fire that’s closest to me” was my mantra up till this point in the program and I wasn’t deviating from it today.

Jeremy B52 had said that to me one night over a few beers, and it stuck. He was from Shreveport LA married with a three year old son. A B52 commander for the Airforce Reserve he had a job with the squadron that paid him three times what he would be making at the airline, so he looked at our new job as a way to get a restricted ATP and some civilian experience so when his reserve bid was finished he’d be snapped up by Delta, United or Southwest.

We started, and as I was in the left seat I was the Captain or the non-flying pilot so I got to use the checklist to do my flows, as we hadn’t learned left seat. I watched as Travis expertly worked through the FO flows picking out a few Easter eggs and correcting them as Captain Rocket watched, still having his conversation with his friend in the real world. The FTD process is used to introduce pilots to line flying, the process and procedures of getting a transport category airplane off the gate and out to the runway. Travis had been working at Piedmont for a couple of years and he had quit to come to the airline to get jet time. He had done it in the real world daily, on a more difficult airplane than this one.  “Good catch Travis” came from Cap’n Johnny as Travis righted the wrongness. Myself, as usual, I was drowning in fear with a head stuffed full of a lot of disassociated knowledge-not knowing what I was supposed to be doing, when or why I was supposed to be doing it.

The drills were as expected, we got thru the flows and checklists and were miraculously transported to the end of runway 15L in Houston. We had to run the before takeoff flows and checklists plus the takeoff call outs that are required when leaving the earth in a 25 ton aircraft.

This was one of my weak spots as I never connected all of the studying we were doing to practical application. Things need to be checked and said, operations performed in a sequence after certain criteria is met. Having no exposure to this type of flying, all of my learning was to this point was disjointed, accomplished solely to get past the next fire. It all started falling apart during the first takeoff roll.

Jetlink 4999 cleared for take off climb runway heading maintain 4000 Captain Rocket called out. I respond 4999 cleared for takeoff runway heading 4000 while Travis finishes the before takeoff checklist by verbalizing “ Runway 15 verfied, exterior lights on, before takeoff checklist complete then advances the thrust levers while saying Set Thrust. I say “Thrust set 85.5 percent” replacing  his hands on the power levers. As we motor in the blind down the runway I say 80 Knots to which Travis responds Cross Check. Our speed increases down a runway we cant see as we accelerate I call out V1 rotate. Travis pulls back on the control column as I call out Positive rate and he replies with Gear Up, Heading, Low Bank. I reach across and lift the gear handle. While my hand is moving across to the flight control panel I stumble for a second and ultimately press the correct buttons but forget to press the yaw damper button. At 1000’ above the surface I forget my call “Acceleration Height” and Travis is motioning to me to say it trying his best to remind me that I am fucking up without calling attention to it in front of the Rocket man.

V2 + 15 is the next call out and I miss that one too. Johnny is starting to notice all is not well with my pilot not flying skills and he pauses the simulation.

“Sean your partner is waiting for you to tell him things so he can do other things. When you don’t respond in the anticipated manner you are putting him and the passengers at risk. He has to wonder whether you are part of the crew or whether you are incapacitated. So just say it, he’s waiting for it. Its like a handshake, he’s got his hand out and you’re leaving him hanging”.

I know I’m fucking up, and I glance quickly at my watch to see how much more time I have to deal with before I can leave, have a few drinks, food and look at a pretty barmaid.

We’re squarely in my weak spot now because no matter how many times I study this stuff, without having an understanding of when and how it is used, it just doesn’t click. Flying the airplane I have no problem with, shooting the ILS down to minimums or holding a speed and heading during the climb leveling off and maneuvering is a walk in the park when we get around to it. The mechanics of flying are of no concern to Captain Johnny. Unfortunately for me, all of those skills are assumed, you’ll get no credit for that because after all, we’re all professional pilots with ATP ratings or at least the prerequisites for the rating.  The things I am good at count for nothing here.

We’re repositioned back to the runway again and we go thru the drill again, with no better results which is clearly irritating our instructor. Travis is doing his best to cover for me, but each screw up is pissing off the instructor and taking my nervousness up an order of magnitude.

Travis performs perfectly, he started this training three days after leaving his previous job. He’s seen an EICAS and annunciator panel before and knows which buttons to push to silence the master cautions and warnings. Myself the largest airplane I had ever flown was a Piper Seneca and I had a rough time with that.  During the preflight briefing the flying pilot has to run through the litany of what we are going to do in the case of an emergency. This was another item that was briefly touched on while I was fighting the fire closest to my dick so naturally I was listening intently as Travis did his so I could remember what he said and repeat it.  Naturally this was an additional item added to the things I was worried about already, things I was deficient in during my partners stellar performance.

All this is rattling around my head as we’re flying getting ready for all hell to break loose.  

The non flying pilot’s role to fix any problems that occur while the flying pilot takes care of flying.  I didn’t  really understand this when I volunteered to be first in the hot seat. Actually I was so far behind the ball, I had no idea I was in the hot seat. I was having difficulty just remembering what I needed to know when things worked correctly, my head and hands full enough with the procedures, knobology, callouts of a typical day.

When things go bad  the pilots first turn to “memory items” . These are items that we were drilled on from the second day of ground training. run the immediate access item checklist then transition to the Quick Reference List which, though it sounds brief, it’s a wire bound book about an inch thick.  

Ding – The flight attendant call button was pushed so I press the corresponding button on the overhead panel.  It’s captain Johnny but he tells me its “Bubbles” in his best bimbo voice. “Captain there is smoke in the cabin it’s starting from the back of the plane and is halfway to the front”. I say “standby” and “we’ll get back to you”

Travis and I start with our memory items. Oxygen mask don, 100%, smoke goggles don, recirculation fan off, crew communications establish is the procedure. I put the mask on uneventfully and went into the bag where the smoke goggles were stored. I was wearing my glasses, which are no line progressive trifocals, in the frantic dash to get the goggles on they knocked my glasses sideways so one side was about a half inch higher than the other. This drill had been conducted with every new hire pilot since these devices were built  and as such the smoke goggles had considerable scratches and while transparent enough to see through with my glasses on sideways reading would be challenging.

After the memory items were completed I am loudly reminded to run the Immediate Action Items Checklist. As the non flying pilot I was to be the guy who fixed the problem. The IAC essentially details what we had already done as memory items and is finished with “memory items complete do to page 1-217” in the QRH.

We’ve been informed by bubbles that it is Lavatory Smoke so I start looking for page 1-217 to find out what we need to do next. The QRH is an orange book and I am frantically paging through it trying to find the information that I need to fix the situation.

With the scratches in the goggles and my glasses askew I’m having a hard time focusing on anything. Getting shouted at by an ex cop doesn’t make it any easier.

I’m supposed to be locating circuit breakers and pulling them. The breakers are identified by alphabetical rows and numbered columns and naturally that is a detail we learned in ground school that has slipped my mind in the heat of the moment, plus I really cant see or read anything. The shouting continues. Finally our instructor realizes it isn’t going to get any better, we’re nearly out of time and the next set of victims are waiting outside.

We make it through the session primarily because Travis is on the ball and we’ve allocated all of the time we can use in the FTD. We don’t make it through the complete program but Captain Rocket deems we’ve done enough to warrant calling it a session.  We’re told to pack up, take a short break and reconvene in a briefing room upstairs.

I get there first and the first thing out of his mouth is “Se-aann are you a nervous man?”  I know where he’s going with this and now that I’m out of the airline element my business experience takes over. “Not typically” I say and leave it at that. He’s baiting me for an excuse or something he can use to run me down some more but I’m not biting.  “Well what are those pills you got in your flight case?” I carry an arthritis  bottle of Advil and a container of Tums everywhere I go, always have no matter where I’ve worked. I simply respond “Advil and Tums” which annoys him further. Captain Rocket enjoys putting people on the spot and views it as his mission to weed out the unqualified or candidates that don’t fit his worldview on what a potential airline pilot should act like. The company already knows this so that’s why they usually assign him to preside over the non-jeopardy sessions. Pilots are in short supply since congress mandated first officers must have an ATP rating prior to flying for a air carrier, and they spend a bit of money recruiting and training them so they don’t want cowboy instructors sending anyone home after six weeks of hotels and per diem have been paid out.

“Well somehow you’ve got to learn to calm down, maybe taking a few of those Advil’s would help you out?”

Travis walks in and interrupts the tirade as the Captain sneers at me. The debriefing continues but my part is largely done,  and Travis did well so the balance goes uneventfully. All done we pack up and head out to Travis’s truck.  My thinking was he would be upset with me for turning in such a shitty performance. As soon as we clear the building he turns and say’s “did you believe that guy? What an Asshole” we laugh about this for the ride back to the hotel, we have a day off before we have to come back for our next session so we grab some food and drink a few beers.  I’m still alive and ready to piss on the next fire, the barmaid isn’t cute but she is friendly. Two out of three isn’t bad.