Sim Warmup

Air Journey, a Florida-based firm that specializes in escorted flying tours, has vast experience providing excursions to many locales. It even offers an annual around-the-world tour. On these trips, owner-pilots get the flights of a lifetime.

They also face some unusual approaches with traps for the unwary. Yes, there’s a briefing before every flight—but when faced with daunting arrival, approach, and departure procedures, the questions come fast. And later, while flying these procedures, confusion and uncertainty can ensue as pilots come face to face with the curveballs so common in foreign procedures. At the least, these strange procedures can trigger anxiety. At worst, they can compromise safety. You can brief all you want beforehand, but you’re at a disadvantage when actually flying a tricky approach for the first time.

Simcom Aviation Training has come up with a better way to train for those odd foreign approaches and other procedures. At the company’s Orlando, Florida, training center, Simcom offers classroom and simulator-based training that focus on the specific procedures that pilots—like those taking Air Journey’s around-the-world trips—will fly. Now, instead of flying those wonky procedures cold, pilots can fly them on a simulator first.

I attended one such course, where around-the-world-pilot-to-be Jim Baum was put through the paces. Baum owned several Cessna 210s before stepping up to a brand-new Daher TBM 930. Last year alone, he put 400 hours on it. The day I was there, he logged a good five hours in Simcom’s new TBM 930 simulator, flying some of the most challenging approaches he’ll face this summer. The other five pilots in the around-the-world group—all of whom own TBMs—also have been offered this specialized one-on-one training.

Simcom center manager John Warnk led the classroom session, which ran for two hours and covered three different arrival procedures and five different instrument approaches. Later, he would also serve as instructor in the simulator.

First up was the localizer approach to Runway 9 at the Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, airport (BGSF). One look at the chart and you see a big challenge right away: There is terrain directly to the left side of the final approach course. Notes sprinkled around the chart show other gotchas. Category B airplanes (such as the TBM) must use the Localizer Z approach, and end their procedure turns five nautical miles from the final approach fix—which is a whopping 10 nm from the runway threshold. The temptation is to start down to minimums right after crossing the final approach fix, but no. You have to fly another 2.8 nm before descending. And don’t mistake the Sondre Stromfjord (SF) nondirectional beacon for a final approach fix. There are a few more tricky spots, too. The descent angle on the final approach course is 3.45 degrees. The steeper descent doesn’t seem like much, but the view out the windshield is that of diving toward the runway. The missed approach point is 0.9 nm from the runway threshold. And the missed approach begins after you pass over a marker beacon on the runway, followed by a right turn to 107 degrees (to avoid terrain) and a climb to 4,000 feet, then holding at the SF NDB at 4,400 feet, which is the maximum holding altitude.

Yes, the TBM 930’s Garmin G3000 will give you plenty of guidance along this and other approaches. But when the questions come, as they will, your attention will be diverted. And this is no time to get behind the airplane.

Next came the arrival procedures to Paris’ Le Bourget Airport (LFPB). The first standard terminal arrival—PEXIR 7W—was clear enough, and could be called up on the Garmin G3000. Same with the next arrival sequence—MOBRO 4W. But after that procedure’s last fix, at PG528, only a visual track is plotted. Two boxes with lost communications guidance are provided for a series of courses to Le Bourget’s runways should that happen, but a pilot looking for them—or any other further guidance to the approach navaids—on the G1000 or G3000 won’t find it on the list of arrival procedures. Instead, they’re tacked on to the beginning of the approach procedure itself. In Baum’s case today, that’s the Localizer A approach to Runway 25. Better to learn all this in the simulator than in the heat of battle.

Baum flew subsequent arrivals and approaches to Macao International Airport (VMMC), Petropavlosk-Kamchatsky, Russia (UHPP), and Ketchikan International in Alaska (PAKT).

For Macao, the curveball is that you’ll be asked to fly the entire slam-dunk arrival and approach—up to four nautical miles from the runway threshold—at 250 knots. A request for 200 knots might be approved—but still, the TBM’s VLO and VFE (for approach flaps) is 178 knots, so slowing down is a challenge that not all may master the first time around. The danger is that you focus too much on the landing. “Don’t ever ignore a horn!” Warnk practically shouts. He’s worried that the hustle of the approach may be so distracting that a pilot could easily forget to lower the landing gear—even with the gear-up warning horn blaring away.

Petropavlosk-Kamchatsky’s thrills include an RNAV STAR arrival procedure that takes you over the airport, random GPS outages, and a bend in the ILS Z Runway 34L that tempts you into landing on Runway 34R. And as for Ketchikan, based on experience, you will hold over the DOOZI intersection as part of the ILS Y Runway 11 approach, and it will be a healthy descent rate down final. Also, don’t be surprised if the seaplanes at and near the seaplane base on short final generate distracting TCAS alerts.

All of these situations, and much more, can be re-created in the simulator. And Simcom’s wrap-around visual system does a great job of providing every visual cue you’ll need to experience lifelike scenarios—even during circling maneuvers where keeping the landing runway in sight may mean looking as far as your nine o’clock or three o’clock positions. Simcom is Daher’s designated training facility and the company offers simulator training in not just the TBM 930, but TBM 850 and TBM 700 simulators as well. And in a nod to current trends, one of its TBM 700 simulators is currently being fitted out with Garmin’s G600 primary and multifunction displays and GTN 750 touchscreen navigators.

Planning on some international flying featuring airports with complex procedures? It’s worth asking Simcom if they can tailor a course for you. You’ll minimize surprise factors and earn an instrument proficiency check while you’re at it.

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