I believe that there are two kind of pilots – those that love simulator training, and those that don’t. My experience has never been with the state of the art kind of simulator, but rather more of the old flight school rattle box kind, with seats that smell of stale man sweat and controls that beg for a wipe over with anti-bacterial wipes.
Encountering wake turbulence can be especially scary and hazardous during the landing and take-off phases of flight, where the aircraft’s close proximity to the ground makes a recovery from the turbulence-induced problems more difficult.
The introduction of a single theoretical exam for the IF rating seemed like a good idea, especially for those who did not have the time to study for, and pass virtually all of the CPL subjects. However, as is evident from the large number of frustrated students, it is not exactly a win…
There you are, flying along, looking at the scenery, when suddenly, it feels like your aircraft has hit an invisible roller-coaster, throwing you upwards, and downwards, to such a degree that you want to grab on to your seat. Turbulence can not only result in screaming, vomiting passengers, but also sweat beads on pilots’ brows.
Probably one of the stupidest things you can do while flying is scud running. Stupid, because you might think ‘It will never happen to me!’.
We have all been there. The urgent call of nature while flying a single-engine that is not ‘loo’ equipped…
…considering I was going to need to be fully focused for 150NM I thought it a good idea to have a few glugs from my ever-present water bottle before starting up the engine.
