Day 4, Learning to Hate the FRASCA

Today was a rude introduction to the FRASCA (the static Flight Training Device). We spent several hours this morning discussing the required flight maneuvers you must demonstrate to the examiner in order to pass the flight portion of your Private Multi-Engine Checkride.

We are required to memorize all 7 checklists for the maneuvers so that we can conduct the maneuvers and their revcoveries smoothly with no hesitation in flight.

Memorizing checklists is difficult enough for most people, but to conduct the maneuvers in a static flight simulator where you have zero sense of flight dynamics (bank, pitch, or roll) is even harder, especially when you are required to not only conduct the maneuvers as per the checklists but maintain within FAA parameters during the maneuver as well (+/- 100 feet of altitude, +/- 10 knots of airspeed, +/- 20 degrees of heading).

I was the first to pilot the FRASCA today (again...) I spent 2 hours chasing my airspeed, altimeter, and headings while painfully going through my checklists in my head while conducting the maneuvers. I definitely struggled, as I believe most do there first several times on the FRASCA. But by the end of the 2 hours I was more stressed than I've been in quite some time. Not to mention I wasn't feeling very good about myself and the progress I thought I had been making. Once I was done with my 2 hour session we broke for lunch.

After lunch Jerry, my student pilot partner, had his shot in the sim. Jerry really struggled with the sim as well, and ended up only getting through 2 of the 7 maneuvers before the instructor pulled the plug. While I felt bad for Jerry, I felt a little more comfortable with myself seeing as how I had gotten through the entire list of maneuvers and without someone going ahead of me in the FRASCA (meaning I didn't know what to expect).

Tomorrow Jerry will be going through his maneuvers in the sim again, all 7 this time. Then I'll be flying a Seminole for the first time since arriving to ATP. I'll have to show my instructor I can do the maneuvers in the real thing this time, but better...

I'll let you all know how it goes tomorrow! I'm excited.