Flying the Airbus A320 Full Motion Flight Simulator

We piloted the simulator on the left.

This Wednesday I was blessed with the unique opportunity to visit the JetBlue pilot training headquarters at Orlando International Airport, where I took the controls of an Airbus A320 in hand. This rare shot at flying a piece of equipment which has a multi-million dollar acquisition cost and a $400 hourly rate was presented by my former boss, David Zwegers (Read about my job with Embry Riddle here.) This spring Dave vacated his position as Director of Aviation Safety at Embry-Riddle after 13 years with the university to work in the Safety Dept. at JetBlue. Following a 12 month employment grace period, Dave will begin flying for JetBlue on a part-time basis in their Embraer E190 aircraft and eventually the A320. Zwegers invited me and 3 co-workers to the training center where we began with a tour of the facility. Coined “JetBlue University”, I was impressed to learn this is where training of all JB staff occurs, from ground crews to pilots, and everyone in between. The facility housed a partial cabin mounted on hydraulics which is used in training flight attendants on evacuations procedures, as well as dummies for self defense training. The simulator room featured 3 full motion Embraer E190 sims as well as 4 full motion Airbus A320 sims, all of which are certified beyond level D requirements. Level D is the highest standard of full motion flight simulators as classified by the FAA, and is the only type eligible for Zero Flight Time (ZFT) training. ZFT training allows airline pilots to convert from one airliner type to another within the confines of a flight simulator. This means a JetBlue E190 pilot can hop in the A320 sim for type training, and be certified without ever stepping foot in the actual aircraft; something which undoubtedly saves the airline huge money. The simulators, all of which were designed and built by CAE, feature state of the art Liquid Crystal on Silicone projectors as well as speech recognition enabled air traffic control environment simulation. CAE is a recognized leader in flight simulations, and even contributed in the architectural design of the JetBlue University.

Our view of the NYC Skyline

The notion that you are in a simulator is quickly replaced by the feeling of your presence on an actual flight deck as soon as the door is closed behind us. The rigorous standards for certifying a level D sim are perhaps epitomized by the small metal cover which slides in place over the peephole of our door. The peephole, which is needed to ensure the gangway has been lowered before opening the door and taking a fall, is required by the FAA to be covered in level D sims in accordance with the “No external light may penetrate the cabin” rule. Once inside my current boss, Blake Kelly, and I played rock-paper-scissors for the first flight. Our instructor and sim tech, Antonio, was a young 20 something sprite with enough jubilance and knowledge to overwhelm us both. Blake’s lucky throw won him the left seat (next to Antonio) for our first hour as I settled back into the flight engineers seat which was positioned next to Mark, a JB intern from Embry-Riddle who was operating the sims computer. The simulators realism was further felt as we sat on the ramp at JFK’s JetBlue terminal and took 10,000 lbs of fuel on – which caused the plane to settle on its suspension.

In this picture Blake is trying to over-bank the aircraft.

Blake’s flight brought us down the Hudson river where we enjoyed the sites of the New York skyline and reflected on Captain Sullenburger’s experience. Next we tested the fly by wire and auto thrust capabilities of the airliner by demonstrating is inability to stall or overbank. As Blake increased pitch attitude the auto thrust corrected by advancing power settings to avoid a stall. As the plane reached its critical angle of attack (the angle at which a wing no longer produces lift) the fly-by-wire systems began to lower the nose further preventing a stall. Blake didn’t like this, and with the advice of Antonio he brought the airliners speed back and kicked in full right rudder while applying full left aileron to attempt a spin. Reluctantly the airliners wing dipped some 60 degrees while the nose reached 20 degrees negative pitch, but still it refused to stall or spin.

Notice Blake's nose down attitude as he recovers from the (attempted) spin entry

After a few landings in different weather conditions Blake and I switched seats and my fun began. I started with a normal takeoff, rotating at 135 knots indicated airspeed to 20 degrees nose up. If that sounds steep that’s because it is… I was instructed to climb out at 10 degrees nose up but was caught off guard by the responsiveness and power of the aircraft.

Shortly after take-off I found myself desperately searching for the turn coordinator without really processing the fact that this was my first time ever flying glass. With Antonio’s help I located the TC and entered a holding pattern at 2500’ over LaGuardia while he explained some of the aircrafts features. As we programmed the flight computer to hold a final approach speed of 145 knots I began my visual final approach into JFK and was blown away by the simplicity of this airliner. With automated verbal altitude callouts in the cabin beginning at 500’ and ending at 20’ my job of landing was simple.

This is Blake on short final @ JFK

1. Set flight computer 2. Deploy flaps 3. Drop landing gear 4. Set auto brakes 5. At the 100’ callout begin to round out descent 6. At the 50’ callout close throttles 7. Flare and maintain centerline. Due to a slightly high approach I landed long the first time, but had no trouble stopping the aircraft in time. On my next take-off Mark failed the right engine at V1, just 3 knots shy of our rotate speed. At this speed we are committed to the take-off, and can still climb out with a favorable 1000+ foot per minute climb rate. The adverse yaw induced by an engine failure at this speed however was nearly enough to veer us off the runway. I caught the planes sideways movement in a very eventful takeoff which probably had half of our passengers pants wet. As I climbed out over the ocean with one engine I decided why not make things more interesting, and asked for my hydraulic system to be failed. Aside from making the controls mildly sluggish, and a bit heavier this failure was uneventful so we added an electrical failure on top. Now things were interesting… with one engine, no hydraulics, and no electric, my instrumentation was totally blacked out and I was flying strictly on visual reference. I headed back toward JFK like this and had the aircraft returned to normal before setting up my approach. While on approach I lost one engine which aside from the 40 pounds of rudder input needed to keep my nose straight had little effect on the plane. On short final at approximately 200 feet agl I was blessed with a dual engine failure combined with a hydraulic failure. This caused the A320’s rate of descent to rapidly increase as we dropped toward the runway powerless. Full back pressure was required on the stick to flare due to our hydraulic failure, and we hit the runway with a satisfying thud. Braking power was greatly influenced without the hydraulics and I was forced to rely mainly on spoilers and thrust reversers to bring our behemoth to a halt. It seems as if I was leaving the sim just minutes after arriving – a clear indication of the fun I was having! As my co-worker and I carpooled back to Daytona Beach we shared stories of our experiences and excitement for the sims, and how “Gosh, they sure beat Riddles motionless FTD’s”. Flying the A320 was a rare and rewarding experience which I hope to someday repeat, perhaps as an intern for JetBlue?

Have a flight sim experience to share with us? Sound off in the comment box below!

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