Pilots Take a Realistic Ride for Well-Grounded Training

The headlights on the San Diego Freeway flickered by in the dusk as the high-performance jet lifted smoothly off Runway 30 at Long Beach Municipal Airport.

The whine of the twin engines eased a bit as the Cessna Citation banked left for a series of turns over Torrance before heading south over the twinkling beacons atop the oil derricks in Long Beach Harbor. Several more turns brought the airport landing lights back into view. Moments later, the executive jet touched down with a gentle bump and a soft “chirp” of the tires.

Not bad for a pilot who had never flown a jet before. Or any other kind of plane, for that matter. But he had a few things going for him.

Not the Real Thing

The plane wasn’t a real Cessna Citation, just the cockpit of one. The flight over the harbor area wasn’t real either, just an uncannily realistic simulation created by computer-drawn images, recorded sounds and motion generated by a complex system of hydraulic jacks. And seated by the novice pilot throughout the flight were two highly qualified instructors, coaching and monitoring his every move.

When the novice emerged from the cockpit, heart still pounding from his 20-minute experience, he could have sworn that he’d been soaring through the skies of Southern California. In fact, he had never left a cavernous room at the Long Beach Municipal Airport where the Citation flight simulator is housed.

It wasn’t too long ago that such expensive equipment, which can cost up to $50 million apiece, was reserved for airline and military pilots and researchers at such well-funded test centers as NASA’s Ames research facility at Palo Alto.

Today, they are available for every pilot--or at least those who can afford a tab that ranges from $5,000 to $12,000 for everything from a three-day refresher course to a 12-day training regimen. Instructors use them, instead of real planes, so they can duplicate the sort of hazards a pilot might encounter in real life without the risk of a real crash.

Center for Training

“There are things you can do in that simulator that you would never want to do in a real plane,” said Linda Pendleton, 43, one of the transport-rated pilots who works as an instructor at the Long Beach training facility. “If the guy fails the test, you’d a lot rather he do it in a simulator.”

The $6-million Citation model at Long Beach is one of eight flight simulators housed at the airport. The simulators are owned and operated by Flight Safety International, a leader in the field and operator of 31 such facilities throughout the non-communist world.

Most of these facilities are used to train pilots from airlines like Delta, American, Alaska, United and TWA, which are able to save the enormous investment that would otherwise be required to buy, operate and maintain a complete fleet of simulators for the jetliners they fly.

But at some training centers, like the one at Long Beach, there are simulators for corporate and private pilots as well--men and women who fly jets like the Citation, turboprops like the Beechcraft Super King and piston-powered aircraft like the Cessna 421.

For the novice, the flight over Southern California was uneventful. Pendleton, who was running the computer that can program in every kind of crisis from a howling thunderstorm to engine failure, made sure the novice had an easy time of it.

But Flight Safety’s instructors can make life pure hell for clients undergoing the sort of periodic recurrency training required for most professional pilots today.

The man who followed the novice into the Citation cockpit was Dennis O’Brien, 38, a veteran pilot who flies for a holding company in Palm Beach, Fla. His instructor, Gordon Winfree, 52, decided to test O’Brien’s skills on a simulated flight out of Salina, Kan., one of a couple of dozen airports the computers can serve up.

As O’Brien started the engines and ran through the preflight checklist with instructor Dan Davis, a 28-year-old serving as co-pilot on the training flight, Winfree spun the dials and pushed the buttons on the large computer console behind them.

Magically, the main runway at the Salina airport appeared through the windshield--an eerily three-dimensional view splashed by computer-driven projectors onto a large parabolic mirror that wraps around the cockpit. To simplify the computer’s task, the simulated time is always nightfall. In the dark, the images on the screen are mostly lights--from imaginary cars on nearby roads, from illuminated signs, from runway markers and from buildings in the airport area.

The whine of the engines permeated the cockpit, broadcast through a system of 14 speakers that can provide everything from the crack of thunder to the chatter from air traffic control radios. Cockpit instruments and lights reacted to O’Brien’s adjustments, just as they would on a real plane.

Cleared for Takeoff

Securing clearance for takeoff from the airport tower, O’Brien released the brakes, shoved the throttles forward and held the nose steady as the runway began to slide by below.

The forces of takeoff were palpable, created by the system of six hydraulic jacks that tipped the cockpit back to let gravity imitate the force of acceleration. The engine whine increased as the plane seemed to hurtle down the runway, then tip sharply upward on liftoff.

Suddenly--in response to Winfree’s instructions to the computer console--one of the engines failed on climb out. The cockpit motion, the engine sounds and the cockpit instruments all reflected the loss of power.

O’Brien’s responses were textbook, correcting smoothly for the asymmetrical loss of power and continuing the climb out from the runway. Advising the tower that he had to return to the airport, O’Brien began a series of turns to line the plane up for a landing.

Winfree fiddled with the computer again, and O’Brien muttered that the controls were getting sluggish. “Ice,” he said, activating the planes de-icing system, noting a couple of minutes later that the controls were reacting better.

“This feels like the real thing,” said O’Brien, who has flown a Citation for several years. “It’s about as real as you can get.”

The airport lights appeared in the windshield as O’Brien approached the field. Seconds later, sequential strobe flashes at the end of the runway showed the plane was on the proper approach path.

Winfree fiddled with his computer again. A shadow appeared on the runway ahead.

“ATC advises that there’s a plane on the runway!” Davis warned.

O’Brien shoved the remaining throttle forward. The engine howled and the lumbering plane eased slowly back up.

Moments later, after another go-round, the plane touched down on the runway.

Winfree went to the computer again and when O’Brien applied the brakes, nothing happened.

He quickly switched to the emergency braking system, and the powerful plane eased to a stop.

“He’s been able to handle everything we’ve thrown at him,” Winfree said. “He’s a very competent pilot.”

O’Brien grinned.

“We made it,” he said. “Barely . . . we took this plane to the limits . . . and it was fun,” O’Brien said. “In a real situation, though, it wouldn’t have been as much fun.”