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This last week I spent several days in Denver getting the annual done on our aircraft. It just so happens to be the closest base for warranty work, and so I make the journey once a year.
Apart from missing my wife and pets, the time went by pretty quickly with some hard work on AOA with this video and because my sister lives here. Not a bad gig!
To make a long story short, and get to something relevant, I was thinking on the way back home about how this experience was like flight simulation.
Although in Flight Sim we don’t have mechanics charging us when our stuff breaks, there is something I can relate.
Whenever work is done on your aircraft, especially after intense maintenance like an annual, it’s the most ESSENTIAL time to be thorough about preflight. This is not the time to cut corners or get in a hurry to get home.
My experience with A&Ps (airframe and powerplant certified mechanics) is that they are very professional, almost always thorough, and do a great job. They are usually finding a lot more things wrong than a pilot would see on the surface. That’s not to say they are unethical of sticking you with a larger bill, but it is saying that they are there to do their best. Their signature and therefore their butt is on the line.
BUT
You shouldn’t bet your life on that.
In flight simulator we often install something new into the operating system, or maybe we even go through a whole new reformat. This can change something dramatically in your sim without you knowing about it.
I don’t know how many times I have made major changes to my sim, and then gone in flight simulator, slammed forward the throttle and after it’s too late I find out one of the major flight controls doesn’t work. Now the plane is a grass eating machine. One REALLY expensive and wrecked lawn mower. Oops!
Think this can’t happen in real life?
I recall an accident, I believe a Falcon, that had all the controls (or maybe just the elevator) inverse during a major maintenance stay. In other words, all of the controls were opposite of what they were supposed to be. How bad would that mess you up? I know for me that I wouldn’t have a chance unless I caught it on the ground!
This poor pilot was not lucky. He didn’t make it out alive.
The moral of the story is that when you do major changes to your sim, or maybe you even have a new complex addon aircraft, be thorough and run it through the ringer of intense checks. No one likes to waste valuable sim time only to see the flashing ‘crash’ text show up. Bummer!
Do you have an experience like this in flight simulator you’d like to share?
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