S92 Simulator

For anyone not used to flying computer games, adapting to flying the simulator is harder than you might expect. David Sale, Program Manager Sikorsky S92, finds that this is also true of teaching older pilots to use the simulator, in comparison to younger ones. “At first,” he says, “they can be quite resistant, but after a few hours, when they realise how useful it is, everything changes and they work with the machine. The first two or three days in the simulator,” he explains, “are the hardest, especially for pilots used to visual flying.”

In the simulator, he explains, it is possible to set up 210 different malfunctions that could really happen in the helicopter. Of course, it would not be possible to demonstrate this on a practice sortie in a real helicopter, for both safety and cost reasons. These failures include engine failures, electric failures, hydraulics, APU failures and others, and they can be combined with worsening weather conditions...