BI Sims

After drilling into you to look outside the cockpit in your first four flights in the aircraft, they take you out of the cockpit and put you in a simulator with no screens or windows and tell you to look inside. Make sense? You tell me. Today I started Basic Instruments. Basically, what this is going to allow me to do is fly the aircraft without looking outside, simply relying on the instruments to take me places and perform maneuvers. Later, actually, the last section of training here is Radio Instruments which takes this and builds on it 100 fold, so this is just the basics. 

Today, I learned several scan patterns of the instruments to maintain level flight and make turns at the same angle of bank, aka constant angle of bank turns, and also constant speed climbs and descents. These are the building blocks for maneuvers I will learn in a few days. Today was not too tough, the hardest part was learning how to fly the simulator because it is waaay more touchy than the actual aircraft. However, one of the most important skills this does teach me is trim. Like I said yesterday, trim is so vital to flying. Instead of the the aircraft flying you, you are flying the aircraft. 

Tomorrow is a little more intense but I should be ok. I will be learning how to make timed turns and climbs/descents, more commonly known in the flying world as rated turns/climbs/descents. Then I'm on to the weekend. Hopefully, I'll be able to get in a surf tomorrow afternoon, supposedly it is supposed to be pretty good.

Chris