Week 81: A320 Type Rating Week 20

As of today, it is my third consecutive day of training in the simulator, and I'm set for another two consecutive days of training for the next two days after today. That makes it FIVE consecutive days of training! Already feeling a little tired today with all that travelling to&fro school plus four hours of training in the sim. Hopefully I'll be able to perform under such intense schedules, will update again on the level of fatigue on next week's update.

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Session #1

After having a taste of AP/FD with precision approaches last week, this session will teach us how to fly CANPA with FD. The biggest difference was the use of TRK/FPA instead of HDG/VS. It took some time to get used to as it looks way different on the PFD which makes it a little harder to follow.

For training, we will be flying the CANPA in a Select/Select mode, meaning to say Vertical Select and Lateral Select. On approach with either VOR or ILS without glideslope, the APPR button on the FCU will not be pushed. The ND view mode will have to be appropriately selected especially for VOR approaches. Using the TRK/FPA with FD, be fully configured for landing in an early stabilised approach. The FPA knob will be dialed to -3.0 degrees 1nm and pulled at 0.3nm before descend point respectively. This will move the Flight Path Director(FPD) into the -3.0 degrees descend flight path, and the pilot will manual fly by following it, which my instructor refer to as "fly the bird into the hole".

Check heights will be called out at respective distances and adjustments can be made to the FPD if the height is way off what it should be. Visual landing will resume upon hitting minimum and touch down will proceed as usual.

With the airline having attained approval from the authorities to fly CANPA in Managed/Managed mode, this will be much easier with the APPR button pushed.

Having a try at Managed NPA. This is how the FPD looks like.

Session #2
A very special training session with our first night flight with one engine in-operational. The difference in feel can be felt from the moment I stepped into the simulator. Just like night flights I had in Ballarat, working in dark environment is a new set of challenges.

First thing, the dome light has to be switched on for the pilots to do the paper work and other cockpit preparation efficiently. Next, the flood lights and screen panels will need to have their brightness adjusted for best night vision on the outside of the aircraft, or you might blind yourself.

Taxi speeds remain the same even in night conditions, additional light needed is the Runway Turn-Off lights. These lights shine the side of the taxiway at an angle to assist you in turning into a different taxiway. These sort of things can't be experienced during daylight. Everything is almost pitch dark once the aircraft leaves the gate with only the blue taxiway lights and runway lights visible.

Taking off, an engine failure was given by the instructor, with the usual things to do before heading back for landing. FD is being used and it was a single engine ILS approach. I was worried about landing at night as I have experienced in Ballarat, but my worries were not a concern when I saw how different it is landing in an international airport with the lights and Radio Altimeter assisting me with the flaring.

Night flight and this is how it looks

Simulated sunrise after a night flight. Well I guess this is the best feeling a pilot can get after a long night of work.

Session #3
To simulate a more realistic emergency situation, this lesson incorporated decision making procedures used by the airline. For this case, it is an engine failure after take-off. TOGA thrust is applied upon a failure is detected and reflected on the ECAM, to climb to the Minimum Safe Altitude of the aerodrome.

Radio call will be made to ATC for radar vectors to hold for us to sort out our issue. Once engine is secured via ECAM actions and QRH procedures, we will adopt the "DODAR" and "TESTS" decision making models.

D - Diagnose the situation and state of emergency
O - Options we have, to carry on or divert.
D - Decision after considering our options with the emergency factored in
A - Assign tasks to PM, flight attendant on what to do. To include TESTS
R - Review on actions and see if anything extra needs to be done

T - Truth of situation the aircraft is facing
E - Evacuation needed?
S - Signals to the cabin crew, stop cart services
T - Time given for cabin crew to prepare for landing
S - Special instructions

Once the above is done, company ops can be called to prepare for our unexpected arrival. This can be crucial as no gate with aerobridge might be available and maintenance services can be prepared on ground. Finally, a passenger announcement have to be made for inform them on our intention.

This is not an easy model to follow initially, as we all fumbled and had to follow this list on a written paper. Lots of things to consider and not to be missed. The flight ended with an ILS approach with FD, which is probably the easiest part of the session? Haha.

Shut down engne 2? (Yes, both are shut down)

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Christmas is over and 2015 will arrive in a few days' time. 2014 has been very eventful, full of ups and downs, happiness and frustrations, in terms of training. I shall write more to summarize 2014 on my next post in the new year. 

Week 80: A320 Type Rating Week 19

Session #1 & #2
After the first two sessions with experience of one engine failure, these further two sessions were more like revision to further polish our control and flying technique with less thrust power in our hands.

One added training in the lessons were Go-Around with one engine. Haha, the climb performance was so so so bad it felt like the climb rate of a C172. TOGA power was applied and the immense yaw followed, catching it with the rudder is key to getting the plane under control.

After four whole lessons of flying with one engine failure, I can say that I feel very confident in the capability of the A320. Even with half its power taken away, it is still able to achieve flight relatively well even in go-around. I am truly quite impressed with its performance!

Went into the Full Motion Sim to have a look. It feels way different with exceptional graphics

After the first two training sessions of the week, it marked the completion of Phase 2B and Phase 2C commenced on the final day of the week. The commencement of Phase 2C meant that the simulator will be in Config C, with all buttons and screens alive now. Suddenly the overhead panel looks so complexed with the various controls and buttons I haven't seen since the very first training session.

Other than the config, we will also be introduced to the Autopilot, Auto-Thrust, ECAM, FMA and full usage of the FCU. Other than engine failure, we will be further introduced to other forms of malfunction and various ways to handle Threat & Error Management (TEM). This new phase will probably test us more on plane management rather than the raw data flying and manual control of the A320 which we have been doing all along.

Studying the FMA modes

New aerodrome to fly for Phase 2C

Session #3
The first session of Phase 2C, with two other different partners again, got to get used to their style and work harmoniously. The programming of the FMGS wasn't much of a difference other than the noise abatement rule that we have to abide to in this airport. Usually the Thrust Reduction and Acceleration Altitude are both at 1100'/1100', but with the need to continue climbing till 3000ft, the difference will be Flex/MCT till 1100ft at 15 degrees pitch, then thrust pulled back to CLIMB and continue 15 degrees pitch till 3000ft then lower pitch to 10 degrees to accelerate and clean up. If 1100'/3000' is input into the FMGC correctly, the FD will be able to guide the PF or the AP to fly it correctly.

Upon leveling off to a certain flight level, we started playing with the FCU settings to let us understand the different modes displayed on the FMA in the PFD. This is done with AP on, and we monitor the AP via the FD. The flight was finished off with a decelerated ILS approach and Go-Around.

With a decelerated approach, we prepare the aircraft to be flying at green dot speed before intercepting the Localiser, the interception que is usually given by the ATC's call of "Clear for Approach Runway 25L". With clearance for approach, we will arm the APPR button on the FCU and the AP will automatically catch the ILS' localiser and glideslope. How beautiful is that! However, ATC might only give permission on interception of Localiser only, in which you only arm the LOC button on the FCU.

Flaps 1 at green dot speed is being called upon interception of the localiser, with Flaps 2 at 2000ft AGL, gear down once flaps extended, gears all green then extend Flaps 3 and 4 almost with only seconds apart depending on V-fe limits. By then, we will be close to 1500ft AGL or less, which gives us enough time for a quick Landing Checklist that takes about 15seconds to complete. Fully stabilised by 1000ft AGL is strictly required and AP will be disengaged at 500ft AGL and start flying visual after the runway minimum to land the aircraft.

With the Go-Around, it was of no difference other than that with AP, it's much easier to handle and less workload on the PF by following the missed approach procedure. The missed approach altitude will have to be set by the PM on the FCU when FMA shows G/S*. This is done to ensure that the AP flies the APPR and captures the glideslope before a new altitude is set. The Approach function will overwrite any height that has been set.

It was fun to finally have the AP help in the flying but how it works will 100% depend on how we set the FCU, therefore it is crucial that we know how the FCU works and understand everything stated on the FMA. It is more of a case of the computer flying the plane and we're controlling the computer. This extra layer gives the pax a smoother ride as humans will find it challenging to fly so accurately.

Week 79: A320 Type Rating Week 18

After a one week break from training for some studying to be done, I was back in the simulator for thrice this week, plus a two hour long written exam paper at Singapore Aviation Academy sandwiched in between. The one week was spent mainly on the A320 CBT to familiarise myself with various complex systems of the A320. A lot of numbers and design concepts that I had to understand and remember.

The A320 Type Rating Paper was on Thursday in the afternoon. It has been 1.5years since I last stepped into SAA. Fingers crossed, this will be my last written paper, well unless I have a change of fleet and need to take another aircraft's type paper. The paper itself consists of 80 questions with two hours given to complete them all. Passing mark is 75% with no negative marking, meaning to say I can have a maximum of 20 incorrect answers.

You will think it's easy, but due to me still being in the infant stage of flying the A320, lots of my knowledge will be based on what I've studied in the CBT instead of real life experience in the simulator. This made studying for the paper a tad bit harder. Life of an airline pilot sure involves plenty of reading; the FCOM and SOP combined is already thousands of pages.

Managed to complete and re-check my answers within one hour and left the examination room. Results were released in the evening via CAAS web portal, and I'm glad that I passed. No raw marks were given, it's either PASS or FAIL. Just in case you are wondering, the paper cost S$55 to retake. Another hurdle passed, and I can continue my focus on the sim training.

Back at SAA

Session #1
The final lesson on circling to approach at Bali Airport's RWY27. There wasn't much left to teach and I have to depend on myself to fly accurately and land in a stabilised manner by 500ft AGL. Disappointingly I'm still unable to fly as well as my sim partners by the end of the session, which gave me a bitter aftertaste and asking myself why am I learning not as quickly expected. Nevertheless, this won't be the last session on circling to land, and till the next one, I will hone my visual flying further to meet the required standard.

Red button on the control stick is the secret eject button haha

Session #2 & #3
I'll combined these two sessions together as they were flown on two consecutive days with the same lesson plan and the same instructor. The mother of all malfunctions was given; one engine in-operational. We were given two scenarios, engine stall and engine surge. For the first time we were exposed to ECAM. However, ECAM actions were not required in the lesson plan, so we only focused on controlling the aircraft and threat management.

First, we had engine failure after lift off  and after thrust reduction altitude. The very first thing that hit you is the yaw, along with its secondary effect which is roll. Being too used to not using the rudder on the A320 unlike the C172, I tend to correct the roll only, missing out the yaw correction via the rudder.

As a result, my catching of the corrections were not very good and not fast enough. As I was still climbing, I had to push to TOGA thrust which makes the yaw even worse, resulting in my very poor corrections of my flight control surfaces. Upon seeing my difficulty, my instructor asked me to focus on my flying, using manual rudder and get everything in control for a while first, before I put my hand on the rudder trim to sort the rudder out. It wasn't easy as with any power setting correction, the yaw moment will change, which will require new trimming again. I was flying with manual rudder for quite a while, almost cramping up my thigh haha.

After getting the aircraft under control, a MayDay call was made for radar vectors back to land. Initially, I wasn't too sure about the bank angle that is allowed during single engine operation. My instructor immediately cleared my doubt about it by telling me bank angle limitation is based on Speed rather than engine. At Flaps 1, as long as I'm above S-speed, I'll have full banking authority. Anything below it, I'll only be limited to 15 degrees of bank angle. That's a good pointer given.

Next engine failure was given exactly at V1, commonly known as "V1 cut" in the aviation world. This was even harder to control as I had to lift off and slam TOGA immediately from a preset Flex Temperature. The amount of yaw is at maximum, I know that because my rudder trim had to be set to maximum left or right. Catching the yaw via the rudder was pretty intense, with one of your foot at full rudder, got to make sure my seat was position properly before flight. The crucial part is always about catching the yaw. Not catching it will cause the roll to go haywire and that is very dangerous at low altitude seconds after lift off. Imagine rolling towards the control tower and crashing into it.

Final part on the sessions was the approach. It was an ILS approach with one-engine out. According to company procedure, it should be an early stabilised approach, meaning to get the aircraft fully configured for landing before the final descend point, with Flaps Full and Gears down. I had to plan the configuring way early and get used to the power setting requirement on approach. Minimal thrust correction is advised  as and huge fluctuations in power will cause the yaw to come in and disrupt the approach.

To avoid going below target speed, I usually maintain about 5kts above target speed. The PM can be instructed to help in resetting the rudder trim during the approach. There is no height recommendations, only to the PF's comfort level. We chose to do it at the 50ft call out. The roll out after landing will have to be careful too especially if full reversed is being used, taking into consideration the effect of yaw. Not getting ready for the yaw will cause the whole plane to steer out of the runway and end up on the grass. You don't want to see that happen, even in the simulator. To be safe, the better way is to use Medium Autobrakes and idle reverse. With a more than sufficient distanced runway, it should not be a problem at all.

A closer look at the thrust levers, the left engine is dead, and landing

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Not a bad week with three training sessions and a pass in my type rating paper. It's going to be another three training sessions in the following week and completion of Phase 2B training.