A piston-engine pilot takes Simcom King Air training
What can you expect during your initial training for a Beech C90 King Air at Simcom Training Centers in Orlando, Florida? Engine fires, hot starts, overspeeding props, blown doors and cracked windows at 25,000 feet, engine failures, electrical failures, fuel-pump failures, landing gear failures, and asymmetrical flap emergencies that can flip a King Air on its back, that's what. After Simcom training, you're not only ready for emergencies, you're almost hungry for them. Bring 'em on.
Simcom, now owned by PanAm International Flight Academy, offers training in a variety of piston, turboprop, and jet aircraft. The Orlando location employs 31 full-time and 19 part-time instructors, but Simcom also has facilities in Miami and Vero Beach, Florida, and Scottsdale, Arizona. By summer's end, Simcom's Orlando facility will move to a new two-story, 65,000-square-foot building just north of Orlando International Airport.
The transition from average GA pilot to King Air pilot for this 2,200-hour piston-engine pilot was one of extrusion, like a cartoon character that is pulled through a knothole to emerge on the other side in a different shape: It was a DNA-altering experience. Simcom does the job as painlessly as possible in five days, offering a 30-hour course for $5,900. Included are 15 hours in the classroom, five hours of pre- and postflight briefings, and 10 hours in the stationary C90 simulator. A wraparound, color, day-and-night visual display offering realistic images of weather, airports, and runways is projected on large screens ahead of and to either side of the simulator.
Training began on a Monday, and by Friday I had a high-altitude sign-off, a fresh instrument proficiency check, a flight review under the FAA Wings program, and an in-depth knowledge of C90 King Air systems. The C90, a six- to 10-place pressurized twin turboprop, is the smallest of the King Air line. The new logbook entries were earned, not given; by the end of the training I was shaken, not stirred. Sometimes badly shaken. I asked instructor Charles Parker why Simcom's C90 — built from the cockpit of the real thing — throws its students so many emergencies. "It's a rental," he quipped.
Parker, literally an instructor's instructor, could teach a rock to fly a King Air. He has had a long and distinguished piloting career, flying for companies in North and South America and Africa. He has not only flown a wide range of aircraft including jet transports, but also has trained pilots to fly them. Most recently he helped to establish the national airline for the Gambia Republic and trained its pilots. He also trained most of the instructors now at Simcom.
What follows is a painfully honest account of my actual training — that means you get to watch me suffer. I didn't go unprepared: Sensing an enormous challenge ahead, I took a three-day instrument proficiency course in a Cessna 172, flew two refresher flights in a Piper Seminole at the local airport, and read part of The Turbine Pilot's Flight Manual by Gregory N. Brown and Mark J. Holt. (I meant to read the whole book, but ran out of time.)
Clueless on Monday
It's day one and I don't know where any of the switches are. I don't even understand their names.
I join other students in the break room where coffee and fresh English muffins await. There, fellow student John Ellengberg asks, "Ever crash? You're about to." With that sobering comment, I head for the classroom.
During the first class session I lean heavily on information culled from The Turbine Pilot's Flight Manual. In the simulator, it takes me 55 minutes to complete the checklist and fire up the engines. (All simulator sessions are preceded by classroom instruction.)
The flying consists of VFR maneuvers — steep turns, stalls, turns to headings, and airspeed control. Simple enough. I fly an ILS approach and land successfully. Then, and for the next five days, things get interesting.
The simulated weather goes to 200 feet and a mile, and Parker orders a takeoff into the soup: The fun begins. Parker always calls it fun. "We're going to have a lot of fun," he'll say. Oil pressure starts to drop, going lower and lower. I don't see it. Then the primary propeller governor fails and the prop begins to overspeed. I watch it somberly without taking action. Parker prepares a wake-up call. From his computer console at the rear of the cockpit, Parker illuminates a chip detector light, meaning that the oil-hungry engine is now eating itself alive. "I need to monitor that," I announce confidently. I still don't shut down the self-destructing engine. So Parker gives me an engine fire. "We better secure this engine," I finally suggest. I shut down what is left of the flaming molten mass and fly a single-engine ILS approach, dripping liquid metal along the final approach course, no doubt.
Parker plays the simulator's computer keyboard like a Steinway piano. With it, he can remove your brain, dangle it on a string, spin it, and when he feels you need inspiration, flick it. Any pain you feel is knowledge entering the brain, replacing memories of family and home with detailed King Air system schematics. The aircraft's electrical diagram now occupies memory space that once housed my high-school education.
At 5 p.m. I'm bushed and head for the hotel. Before doing my nightly reading assignments in the Simcom C90 training manual, I head for the pool: Like the virtual King Air, my brain is overspeeding and over temperature — close to a brain fire. The swim is delayed by the need to get change from the registration desk for the hotel's washer and dryer. Getting in the pool now is my new emergency. Banging my fist on the registration desk with every other word, I explain, "I've got to relax." I meant it as a joke and the clerk understands, agreeing to keep the quarters for me so I won't have to take them to my room. As my head enters the pool the water boils.
Better on Tuesday
It's day two and I don't know where many of the switches are. I'm not sure what some of them do.
Bad day at the office. The engines display a variety of programmed problems and refuse to start at first. Finally started, a takeoff is attempted but a propeller governor fails, leading to an abort. On the second attempt an engine fails, and I abort again. Third takeoff's the charm, but an engine fails as I raise the gear. I'm committed, and I follow Parker's direction to just hold the heading and worry about nothing else — for now. It works. The weather is lousy as I return to the airport on one engine, make a VOR/DME approach, and circle to land because of unfavorable winds.
Parker orders another takeoff and my luck is no better. The right engine fails just after rotation, resulting in my returning to the airport and making a single-engine ILS approach. Another takeoff, and an engine fails as I bring up the gear handle. This time the weather has improved and I land visually. My brain is, as it was on Monday, showing warning lights — a chip detector warning. It is disintegrating. Parker is enjoying my facial expression — one of sheer disbelief that the simulator can provide such realism. My sweat is actual, not virtual.
Overall, my performance is improved from Monday. I slowed down my reaction to each engine failure to make sure I shut off the correct switches. Parker takes me aside and says my professionalism is showing. I should do pretty well on Wednesday.
Crashed on Wednesday
It's day three and I have difficulty finding a few of the switches. I know what they do — I just can't find them. The student in the right seat prompts me with, "Autofeather is the one you can never remember." Oh, yes, that one.
I perform the checklist in 30 minutes and, with a wary eye toward Parker, tell my fellow student, "Prepare the climb checklist in the unlikely event that we get a normal takeoff." Parker chuckles from the back. I am usually on the emergency checklist shortly after liftoff.
The first engine-start attempt results in a hot start. It's going to be a long day. Engine temperatures rise rapidly toward the limit of 1,090 degrees Fahrenheit; I have two seconds to shut off the fuel and save the engine. The flight after that is the usual mix of calamities until, following a missed approach in lousy weather, I depart from a holding pattern for a VOR/DME approach.
The problem occurs when I extend the Fowler flaps (they extend out and down from the wing) — one goes down and sticks, while the other continues to deploy. The airplane and its pilot go crazy. I flail at the flap lever, trying to bring the good flap down just enough to match the bad flap. Full deflection of the controls and full opposite rudder can't stop the roll. In instrument conditions, there would be no visual cues to help. I'm going to die. Parker stops the simulator and inquires about my attitude. I skip the gory details of my mental attitude and tell him that the aircraft is banked past 90 degrees. Score a crash for the student: Simcom 1, Student 0. The maneuver is repeated, and I find the matching flap position before going inverted: Simcom 1, Student 1. Following that adventure the trim runs away. I fight it manually, not noticing the spinning trim wheel at first. Then I kill the autopilot and all is well.
It's time for a merciful lunch break, and I return to my hotel. While sending e-mails back to the home office I discover that my arms are shaking. Legs, too. Rough morning. Are we having fun yet?
Fire on Thursday
It is day four and the cockpit is beginning to make sense.
By now I know the drill. I am getting good at securing engines, or so I think. An engine fails on takeoff and I abort. Do a good job, too. The next time it fails at rotation and I continue to fly, holding heading with the rudder and worrying about nothing else. Just another disastrous day in the sim — no big problem. Ho-hum. Complacency sets in: I'm hot. I restart the engine and practice a manual gear extension. Then it's off to do an NDB approach.
I had overheard Parker say before the simulator session began that there would be no engine failures on the NDB approach. Something about "It's hard enough already." Or maybe I imagined it, because it turns out not to be true. Inbound on the NDB procedure turn, one engine erupts in flames.
"What's that light?" I casually inquire. "An engine fire on an NDB?" This isn't supposed to happen. Then a propeller overspeed occurs. "And the propeller is overspeeding," I say — still dumbfounded. This was supposed to be a worry-free NDB! Finally, a chip detector light comes on, and so does a light in my brain. "I think I need to shut this engine down," I mutter. The approach continues single engine and ends in a missed approach.
An attempt at a VOR approach results in a missed approach. Finally, I get vectors to an ILS, make it, and land. Except for my initial inaction when the engine burned, I get an "excellent job" kudo from Parker.
Vigilant on Friday
Got any questions about where the switches are and what they do? I can answer them all.
I pop up to 25,000 feet, and now everything Parker can do to me is in my scan. I expect engines to fail, generators to blow, trim to run away. All trust has disappeared. We practice high-altitude emergencies such as smoke and electrical fires, cabin temperature failures, and cracked windshields.
A cabin door blows, causing rapid decompression of the aircraft. Aware that there are just seconds of consciousness left, I don an oxygen mask first, then yank the power to idle, slam the prop controls forward, set flaps to Approach, and drop the gear. A 3,000-foot-per-minute descent is made to 10,000 feet at the gear speed of 156 knots. That emergency over, training in unusual attitudes and partial-panel flying begins. The yaw damper fails, the static air source becomes blocked, and we head for another ILS approach in icing conditions. Naturally, the deice equipment malfunctions. But I land safely.
The course is over. And the Simcom doors open, the sun shines brightly, the birds sing, and I walk into the light, a free man. But the test is yet to come. How realistic was the training? I'm about to find out.
But can he fly?
Five days after completing my training at Simcom, I arranged with Frederick Aviation, doing business as Majestic Air Service in Frederick, Maryland, to take a training flight in the company's Beech C90 King Air charter aircraft. I wanted to find out if a pilot can go to Simcom, listen to all of the classroom lectures, make a best effort in the fixed-base simulator, and then fly the real thing.
My previous time in an actual King Air cockpit of any model was 20 seconds, time used to take a picture of me for this article.
The training worked, and worked beautifully, in the real airplane. Paired with C90 check pilot Chris Medd, I found I was right at home and able to stay ahead of the aircraft. I conducted the brief flight from engine start through taxi and landing without intervention.
I was especially pleased with my level of understanding of systems and procedures. For example, when Medd started to explain how a check of the propeller governor is conducted during runup, I was able to finish describing the procedure from memory.
The flight consisted of a takeoff and climb to 3,000 feet, steep turns, slow flight, a stall, and a return to the airport for landing. The landing was not a greaser, and was left of the centerline, but was still a good landing. "Not bad for a first time," Medd said. Just call me turbine pilot from now on.
Yes, the training was like drinking from a fire hose. It had to be to get all the material in. But now that it's over, you know what? It really was "a lot of fun," as Parker promised.
E-mail the author at [email protected].
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