Lesson 5: The FTD.

FTD stand for Flight Training Device. It's a simulator, which means you're sitting in front of a pretend flight panel, all your instruments staring back at you. But when you start "flying" you have no sensation of gravity and no view outside the "plane". So you really have to be watching your instruments, to make sure you're not climbing or descending or turning, unless you actually want to do those things. Then you have to watch your instruments to make sure you are doing them. It should also be noted that the simulators here at Cochise are probably at least 30 years old, are spring-loaded, and are not very responsive. All that said, here's how this morning went down.

I began my day a little bit excited about the simulator, because I wouldn't have to fly the actual airplane today. It would be a bit of a take-it-easy day. No stress... or so I thought. I found Josh in his office, we went over instruments a bit, then made our way to the simulator room. I sat down, fired up the old heap of garbage, and quickly discovered that "flying" the simulator makes flying the airplane seem downright easy. The machine being old and the springs being... well, also old, there's no such thing as a small correction. So as the simulater drifted left, as it's apparently prone to do, it's necessary to apply a small amount of right bank to correct for it. But, again, there are no small corrections in the simulator. So the tendency is to grossly overcontrol. "Oops, I'm turning a bit left. I'll just correct with a little right aileron... oop! Now we're banked right. I'll just correct that by easing off that right aileron a little... oops! Now I'm drifting back to the left." You get the idea. On top of the inability to make small corrections, there are no armrests in the simulator. That may not seem like a big deal to the uninitiated, but when you're holding your arm bent slightly in mid-air as you grip the control yoke for 30 minutes at a clip, you begin to notice that you really want to bank to the left, since your big, heavy arm is starting to droop. This, coupled with the simulator's inherent tendency to drift left, means you find yourself banking left alot.

In the post-flight briefing, Josh told me I did really well in several areas of simulator "flight", which surprised me alot. Maybe I'm still being way too hard on myself. Maybe I'm just not used to not instantly understanding things. Maybe I need to learn to just be patient and struggle my way through this colossal learning curve. On the bright side, though, after today's tango with the FTD, I'm actually looking forward to being back in the real airplane tomorrow morning, where gravity makes itself known and helps me understand the consequences of my flight-control deflections.