My supervisor at work liked to go out out, from time to time, to the bars in Madrid frequented by other Americans, and on one of these evenings met an engineer who was just finishing some upgrades to one of the heavy-duty flight simulators used by the airline who was paying all our bills. Was I interested in going over one afternoon and checking it out?
Easy decision. Five minutes later we were out of the door and hot-footing it towards the simulator building. You've probably seen pictures of these big six-axis simulators, looking like gigantic spiders with cables and hoses draped everywhere. You may also have seen video of them in use, with their strange, jerky motion. From the inside, it's nothing like that.
First of all, you don't go anywhere near them when they're in use. Those things are big and heavy and strong and fast, and although the people controlling it are inside, they may be thousands of miles away. They certainly can't see you. When it isn't in use the device kneels, like an elephant accepting passengers in a howdah, and you can walk across a fold-down bridge from the gallery surrounding it. As you enter the simulator something really, really strange happens. You leave the interior of a large building brightly lit by sunlight in the middle of the afternoon, and enter the cockpit of a jet aircraft at night. The door closes, and the building outside disappears completely. The interior looks, sounds feels and even smells right. It would taste right if you cared to try.
How could it be this good a reproduction of a DC-9 cockpit? Because it isn't a reproduction. These seats, controls and instruments flew many millions of miles before the aircraft they were part of was judged too old to fly any more. This is real.
The Engineer sat down at the instructor's station, out of sight behind us, and I took the left seat. "We'll all need to strap in" he said, as he started flicking switches. "Make sure they're tight". There was a slight lurch as the elephant stood up. "Let's go do something" he said, and suddenly the panel came to life, I heard the engines running at idle and the air side of a terminal appeared outside the windows.
It was nighttime, because the hardware and software to produce daytime views hadn't arrived yet, but believe me... It was real. It turned out that we were at the civil terminal at Frankfurt, I had clearance to the runway and there was an approach plate for Frankfurt, turned to the taxiway chart, just beside me (how convenient). For a moment I was back in the B-N Islander at Galway, and everything looked too complicated. "Concentrate on the ones that you do understand", I thought. Push the throttles forward a little and the engines responded, but the aircraft didn't move. Push a little further and we lurched forward. Oops, galloping a bit so pull them back as I felt the bump-thump of the joints in the concrete. Turn on the taxi lights and saw out there much better. I didn't really need them because there are plenty of markers on those German taxiways, but it helps orientation when you can see the concrete and the painted markers. It's a silly thing, but the rise in pitch of the impossibly high-pitched note of the jet engines made my heart pound. OK, beginning to get the idea now -- it's heavy, but there's plenty of power to move it. At low ground speeds you steer with a little wheel device down low, convenient to your left hand (have to drive this on the ground from the left seat).
Lined up on the runway and cleared for takeoff, the line of lights stretching off into the distance. Push the throttles to takeoff, and the feel of acceleration was amazing! Rotate, and we're in the air, get the wheels up. "We're very light", said The Engineer, "Wouldn't normally accelerate this fast". "No $#@!", I thought as we accelerated through normal best climb speed and rocketed upwards at a rate that was simply scary by piston-engine standards.
The Engineer reminded me to turn off the taxi lights, and as they retracted an annoying little vibration stopped. I was lucky not to have ripped them off at that speed. Level off at 20,000 ft and try some straight and level. It turns out that S&L is easier said than done, the S is fine, but I was bouncing up and down like a yoyo, and the lurching got uncomfortable. My boss in the right seat was looking a little green. After a few minutes I began to get it -- it may be just a plodding old DC-9, but at that weight it's a light, responsive aircraft that needs a fairly delicate touch. It took a while to feel comfortable with this. I tried a couple of stalls and steep turns -- this is a nice aircraft!
What next?
The Engineer handed me an approach plate for Madrid Barajas, and I set the radio frequencies. There are enough radios that I wouldn't have to change anything once we began descent -- now that's real luxury. Things got busy very quickly once the procedure began: arrival, find the ILS, descend... He gave me the approach and threshold speeds for our weight. Outer marker, and we're suddenly clear of the cloud. Aha! I had the field in sight, the development where I lived clearly visible just off to the left. Continuous adjustments to keep the needles centered. Abbreviated checklist -- flaps, arm the spoilers. Middle marker, wheels down (always a plus!). Was this a Sunday night? That would be the most obvious reason for the heavy traffic on the Madrid-bound side of the Autopista just outside the airport boundary. Didn't notice the inner marker -- that's what comes of wondering about the day of the week. (Bump-thump) A little turbulence from the road, must still be warm. Add a little power to slow the rate of descent. We're past the fence, here's the threshold, flare gently. Bump! One end's down. All the lift vanished instantly as the spoilers popped out automatically. Pull back to keep the nose wheel up as long as possible. "Let the nose down", said The Engineer, "if you hold it up, like you would a light aircraft, it" WHAM! "comes down hard like that". There was a sudden transition: Instead of flying an aircraft I was now driving a hundred-foot wide tricycle at over 100mph and steering with my feet. Brakes and reverse thrust ("Not too much... Do you hear the compressor blades stalling?") threw me heavily into the straps, a bit heavy handed, but we were down nicely and I turned off gently at the next exit.
The occupant of the right seat wasn't a pilot, so I stopped to clean up before continuing (more than one pilot has retracted the wheels instead of the flaps while using insufficient care cleaning up after a flawless landing). My boss let out what sounded like a very old breath from the right seat and told me that he was dripping with sweat because he wasn't sure how that landing was going to turn out.
The DC-9 is a pretty nice airplane to fly.
We shut down in a perfunctory way, opened the door, and I staggered, mentally, from the disorientation of moving instantly from a night time cockpit to a brightly sunlit building.