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Air Canada’s A320 Simulator at Pearson Airport
By Captain Dav1d 1996-09-18
1996-Sep-18: Another in a series of flying adventures by Captain Dav1d. Licensed since July 1994, David has already accumulated more than 500 pilot-in-command hours, and has added a number of endorsements to his license, including a night rating. His aircraft, a Piper Cherokee 180, is based at Buttonville airport.)
COPA 32, based at Toronto’s City Centre (Island) airport is a well-established club with plenty of activities for the members. This report covers our tour of the simulators at Air Canada’s facility at Pearson Airport. We were told that if time and space permitted, we’d all be given a chance to fly the simulator. We were booked into the B767 simulator for 1000h local time on a cold, rainy Saturday morning in September.
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We arrived, all ten of us in our own vehicles, right at 1000h. Nobody wanted to be late, because once we were inside, there would be no-one to open the normally locked outside door. None of the members had ever been in a "real life" simulator before, but almost everyone had flown PC simulators. The casual conversation slowly veered toward virtual reality, and we wondered just how real this simulator could possibly be.
We were greeted by Tony Corke, from Air Canada, who began to explain what were going to see, and do, in the next two hours. A quick walkaround in the simulator building would be followed by our adventure inside the simulator, and then we’d have a short question and answer period. After briefing us on the agenda, Tony had some good news and some bad news. The bad news was that the B767 simulator was booked, so we wouldn’t be able to fly it. The good news was that he had rebooked us into the Airbus 320 simulator! Not only is the A320 a newer airplane, with fly-by-wire and glass cockpit, but the A320 simulator is one of the most advanced ones that Air Canada owns. No one was disappointed with this combination of good/bad news.
The tour began with Tony describing the different rooms that housed all of the simulators. There are many simulators in this building, including some that are for airplanes that Air Canada no longer flies, such as the B727. These simulators are still in use, because other airlines rent time in them to keep their pilots current. In fact, Tony was proud of the fact that most of the simulators are busy 24 hours a day ("...some visiting pilots are working on a different time zone...").
We walked through the computer room, with its "blinking lights" and "spinning tape drives". It looked like an "old-style" computer room, although there were some newer PC’s and other peripherals. (For those of you who know old-style computers, I recognized an LA320 DECwriter paper terminal!)
The simulators themselves are generally located in individual rooms, although some of the simulators are paired two to a room. In the room adjoining one of the big computer rooms we saw three simulators: two were the standard cockpit simulators, and one was a "cabin door" simulator. It looked like a ten foot section of fuselage, with a standard passenger pressure door. Apparently, Transport Canada requires Flight Attendants to practice emergency door procedures.
We were soon ushered into the number 2 Airbus A320 simulator. It was just as I’d imagined it. From the outside it looked like a shuttlecraft from the Starship Enterprise, except that it was mounted on hydraulics which held it over 10 feet in the air. The front half was shaped like the nose of the A320, and the back half was square. In the middle of the back was a door, which was accessible only by a gangplank, which lifted like a drawbridge during simulations. At this moment, the gangplank was down, the simulator door was open, and the anticipation was mounting.
As we approached, we were met by Paul Mackie, the guy who runs the simulator. Although he didn’t call himself "Mr. A320", he did tell us that he is responsible for maintaining this simulator, including fixing the hydraulics, the computer program, the graphics, anomalies in the controls, and generally everything else as well. He told us that he probably has more hours in an A320 than any "real A320 pilot" out there. He led us into the simulator, and Tony left us in Paul’s capable hands.
The A320 is one of the new generation of fly-by-wire aircraft. Control yokes have been replaced by joysticks, and there are no mechanical linkages between the joystick and the ailerons or elevators. The joystick is no harder to move during a steep dive than it is under straight and level conditions. Unfortunately, there is no feedback either. In fact, only the rudder pedals and the trim wheel are mechanically linked. The throttles are still dual levers situated on the console between the two seats, but they drive potentiometers which in turn increase the thrust of the jets; they do not mechanically control anything.
The instrumentation is also new generation stuff. There are six "glass cockpit" screens, capable of being individually configured to display status instruments, navigational information, weather briefings, radar scans, or other pertinent information. There are only a few "old style" gauges: an attitude indicator, and an altimeter.
Paul first sat in the jump seat behind the captain’s chair, to setup the simulation, then he climbed into the coveted left seat. One of the club members quickly jumped into the right seat, both jump seats became occupied immediately, then the rest of us found kneeling space between the jump seats or standing space at the back. There was room for all of us inside the box, but not enough restraints. Paul cautioned us to hold on to whatever we could because the simulation would be quite real. "Yeah, right" I thought.
Paul said he would take us for a short early evening "fam flight" through New York City, and then we’d get our chance to fly out of Pearson. The simulation began with the sound of the A320 engines spooling up, as the graphics coalesced to reveal our aircraft sitting on the button of La Guardia’s longest runway... ... ...
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When he popped off the parking brake, the plane lurched forward almost imperceptibly - just enough to be noticed. He explained that since it takes time for the jet engines to reach takeoff thrust, he first had to push them halfway, then "firewall" them. As we rolled down the runway, the increasing acceleration pushed us farther into our seats, until, at take-off speed, all 150,000 pounds of aircraft, passengers, fuel and cargo became airborne.
As we banked over Shea Stadium, Paul rolled right to show us the brightly lit field, empty at this time: there was no ball game tonight. We seemed rather low for a flight over a built-up area, but rather than mention something like that to a seasoned pilot, we all simply giggled in amazement.
With no time for a recovery, we suddenly found ourselves heading for downtown Manhattan. The twin towers of the World Trade Center taunted us like the upright goalposts of a football stadium. Paul accelerated towards them, and casually remarked "Hold on, this is gonna be fun!" With just enough time for the 90-degree roll left, he knife-edged between them with Bond-like precision. Neither building was touched, but I’m sure we scared the office workers who thought it might be a good night to work late.
Then, Paul asked us if we’d ever toured Fifth Avenue at better than 250knots. Of course, no-one had, so he brought us down to 35 feet radar altitude for the scenic tour. The A320’s alert system kept saying "35 feet, 35 feet", but Paul kept punching the Alarm Cancel button. Thirty-five feet radar altitude equates to about 2 feet of ground clearance. Paul wanted to prove to us exactly what that meant, so he pushed the stick slightly forward, and the wheels touched the pavement momentarily. Not even a touch-and-go really, more like a brief bounce on the pavement. No pedestrians were looking, so we got away without having our tail number reported to the authorities.
Now, well within the heart of downtown New York, Paul aimed for the tops of the buildings, pulling up at the last minute, just clearing the elevators shafts and antennae on the tops of the tallest buildings. New York City isn’t that big at 250 knots, and we quickly found ourselves in the Harbor. The clearance below the Manhattan bridge looked smaller than our A320’s almost 40-foot height, but Paul snuck us underneath without a scratch.
Of course, the most prominent feature of the New York City Harbor is the Statue of Liberty. Paul smirked in his now familiar way, and told us to "hold on, this part might get a bit rough". Miss Liberty smiled as we approached, then suddenly, her face appeared to register horror as we sheared off her head. I cringed just before the moment of impact, but our warp shields held, and we didn’t even register the impact.
Feeling that we had had enough, Paul banked the jet back toward La Guardia. With one final trick up his sleeve, he lined up on the approach, and accelerated to 310knots, well above the normal landing speed. Then, we touched down near the button, and he started to apply the reverse thrusters. The far end of the 7000 foot runway was coming at us too fast, and the deceleration of the aircraft popped us way out of our seats. We used more than 6900 feet of the runway, and blew out two tires. Then, we all began to breathe again.
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