Flight Impressions – Boeing 747-400 Simulator

The circumstances were that as the Director of Naval Aviation Policy at the time, I had just won approval for the purchase of the Sea King helicopters and the next step was to decide on the type of simulator and who should be invited to tender.

Navy’s experience of simulators was limited to the Tracker Weapon System Trainer which was a non motion cockpit and procedure trainer. Clearly motion was a requirement of any modern simulator but the question was how to specify what we thought we needed? My deputy and I quizzed the RAAF but they were not much ahead of us so we were forced to look elsewhere. One of us, I can’t recall who, said let’s try Qantas. A visit was duly arranged to the Qantas Jet Base in Sydney but when we arrived, we found that our hosts were from the engineering division, not the operational people we expected to be talking to.

Now fate moves in mysterious ways because it turned out that this was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of leaping into the cockpit to have a go (as all pilots are wont to do), we sat down and instead discussed specifications.

This really was an eye opener because it alerted us to the need to specify in specific detail precisely what we wanted. For instance, it is not good enough to stipulate say “simu- late rotor noise”; it is necessary to spell out in detail that the noise must be across the whole flight envelope, from engine start up to maximum speed, with everything in between. At the end of a most informative briefing, we managed to persuade our hosts to let us borrow the specifications book for the 747 simulator (about the size of the yellow pages) which we took back to Canberra with the aim of adapting it to meet our needs. As will be imagined, we went a bit fur ther than just crossing out 747 and replacing it with Sea King, but it provided a most valuable guide to specifying what we required in our proposed simulator.

Returning to the present; as I settled into the left hand seat, I heard Captain John Faulkner, Manager Qantas Flight Safety mention to Captain Gary Cox in the right hand seat that I have given him a fairly strenuous check ride in a Vampire Trainer some thirty five years previously when I had been an instructor on exchange with the Royal Navy. At that point I thought that I was in for a fairly rough ride; I needn’t have worried however, as they decently allowed me to get into trouble all by myself! During the TCAS demonstration I had the opportunity to fly the aircraft which was mostly straight and level except for those occasions when the system called for avoiding action.

Although I had had previous exposure to the glass cock- pit EFIS system, and was aware of the instrument layout, and understood the concept of dialling in airspeed and height commands, it is another matter to develop a scan on instrument layout in a very short space of time. I had found this with the A320 (refer p61 Dec 91 AA), where my scan was only just starting to develop as we came to the end of that familiarisation ride.

As I’ve commented before, as an old hand I find it much easier to get the message from a glance at a needle position rather than to reading a number on a screen. However, its really all a case of what you are used to.

Following the TCAS demonstration, I was invited to try a little general handling and it confirmed my initial impression that the aircraft was far from being the ponderous beast that I had imagined it to be. It proved to be agile in all planes and accelerated better than some early jet fighters I had flown. However, we weren’t at maximum all up weight where I understand things naturally happen a little slower. Control response was certainly very good indeed.

I managed some level turns, including a couple of steepish 45 degrees both ways without disgracing myself, and accepted the offer of a couple of circuits with rising confidence.

One of the good points about simulators is that they can be returned to earth instantaneously; in a blink we were back on the ground, lined up for a takeoff to the south at Tullamarine.

After a demonstration takeoff, circuit and landing I was invited to have a go. Having set the takeoff parameters on the computer which included V1, Vr and engine thrust settings, plus arming the abort braking facility, we were ready to roll. As briefed, I advanced the throttles to the position where autothrust is selected, at which point they advanced themselves smoothly to the previously set takeoff thrust position.

The preprogrammed numbers for VI and Vr duly came up and as the latter was called, as directed, I placed both hands on the control column and rotated to the flight director pitch position of approximately 13 degrees. I had noted the impressive climb performance and quite rapid speed build up during the demonstration circuit, and once again we were soon at circuit height with the throttles well back to maintain the required numbers.

My first circuit was flown under the guidance of Captain Cox who talked me round to finals where I managed to line up and get settled on the 3° glideslope without too many corrections. My mentors had kindly dialled in smooth, nil wind conditions so it wasn’t too difficult to drive it on down, any amusement parlour video games kid would have done just as well.

I found the two synthetic voice calls of “one hundred feet” and “fifty feet” from the radio altimeter great value, particularly the latter, where as coached, I raised the nose about 2o and brought the throttles back a tad. Touchdown seemed to be OK and I managed to keep straight and bring the beast to a halt using reverse thrust, still reasonably on centreline.

Now it has been my experience that your first landing on a new type is normally a good one, but that they steadily get QANTAS wwwwww One of Qantas’s 18 747-400s leaves Sydney for another long haul flight. Qantas has one of the world’s largest 747 fleets, made up of two 747-200s, two 747-200 Combis, two 747SPs and six 747-300s. (Rob Finlayson worse as you start to think that you know what you are doing. It was no different with the 747! The less said about my next circuit the better; the rot started when I failed to throttle back enough to keep the speed down to circuit speed, and then went over my height by a couple of hundred feet. Concentrating too much on correcting these parameters, I lost the plot around the circuit and had to be talked onto finals. However in fairness to myself, there were no visual clues as to where we were in the circuit and the runway was very hard to see. Surprisingly, the second touchdown seemed to be OK but I found myself overcontrolling on rudder and brakes to stay anywhere near centreline; it reminded me of my first ride in a Sea Fury! As subsequently pointed out, there was a perfectly splendid navigation display which if I had thought to use it, would have got me round the circuit almost on rails. Unfortunately I was too busy sorting out other matters to spare it a glance, even if I had thought about it. Lack of scan -sound familiar? Its an old truism that most aircraft are easy to fly (they wouldn’t be able to sell them if they weren’t!), its knowing what to do when things go wrong that counts. You would certainly need to be full bottle on the computer, knowing how and what to input, particularly under adverse circumstances such as a total change to the instrument approach you had expected.

For a modern EFIS, computer driven aircraft (albeit not fly-by-wire), I was a little surprised at the physical size of the control column, it was certainly big to match the air- craft! Again the undercarriage and flap selectors were not the dinky little electronic controls I had expected, but man size (sorry about that girls) levers.

Forces in the pitching plane were to my mind quite heavy with changes of power and speed and needed to be kept trimmed out. I must admit that my short ride in the Ansett Airbus A320 simulator has spoilt me for evermore; to be able to go from takeoff to Vne without experiencing any out of trim forces is next to magic.

My overall impression of the 747 is that the cockpit is comfortable and that the instrument panel is uncluttered and functional, certainly many quantum leaps from the Beech 18 I recently had the opportunity to lay my hands on! In conclusion, I really would like to spend some time getting to know my way round the modern glass cockpit, particularly developing a scan to absorb all the information it provides. I have no doubts that once mastered, you wouldn’t want to go back to the “basic six”. My thanks to Qantas.