TSEW: Starting Sims

Written: January 6 - 7, 2020
Published: October 2021

January 6

First simulator problems. The first two runs of the day were the “pre-test.” The pre test is run with an instructor who isn’t supposed to say anything and just let you run the problem. They keep notes and grade it, but it’s not punitive or formal really. It’s an evaluation of where students are at so the instructors have a baseline, and they will also run a post-test at the end and see if we have improved. I suppose this ensures the class is accomplishing something, too.

After the pre-test runs were done, we ran final only (that is, working on the final sector) problems in the sims with straight ins and downwinds feeds. All about building holes, knowing when to slow people, and when to turn them base and into the final to plug holes. Takes some getting used to, but in a simulated environment, the mathematical equations work great. My suspicion is that in the real world, it’s not as much math and science as it is feel and gut, but, I digress.

January 7

Today we continued working on working the finals-only problems. I’m not sure how much busier they are going to get, but the first few problems were pretty straight forward. All of the conflicts are between downwinds and straight ins, which is easy to see the tie points and how to fill the holes. Eventually though, they move the straight-ins to a base leg which, for most of us, makes it way harder to count the miles to the tie points.

Starting today we did what are called “proficiency runs.” Normally simulator runs take place with an instructor sitting side-by-side listening in and coaching or providing feedback (their involvement largely depends how you’re doing on the run, your overall reputation, and how hands on the instructor is). But in TSEW, for the last run of the day, we run “proficiency runs,” which are an opportunity for you to apply what you’ve learned in the sim lab without an instructor. It’s a bit sink or swim mentality since there isn’t someone there to help you. But, it’s also easy to fall back into your old ways of panic-vectoring and not actually counting or building the holes the way they want you to see them. The best analogy I can think of is if you go bowling with the bumpers up. The instructors are similar to bumpers, they make sure it never gets truly awful. The proficiency runs are like bowling without bumpers, gotta keep it out of the gutters or you’re SOL because there is nothing to save you. Regardless, it’s a nice reality check.

At any rate, tonight because of how the schedule worked we did two “pro runs.” Our class has 11 students and the lab only has 8 scopes, so every run we do 3 people monitor someone else instead of run. I’m not sure if people are scared to run without the instructors or what, but I always walk into the lab last so that anyone who wants to run already has a scope. Our instructor told us to be adults and rotate between the runs of monitor and running, aka don’t sit out two in a row. One kid in our class thinks he’s better than everyone else and doesn’t run the pro runs, but I personally think he’s just a pussy and scared to fail. Nobody is judging in here, and the run is really more of a self assessment than anything, but he is either scared, too good, or both.

On both of my runs I did fairly well, I’m writing this a few days late so I don’t remember exact numbers, but I remember landing 17-18 planes on both runs in 30 minutes with the final still loaded up. Both runs I do remember having at least 1 error, either separation or illegal intercept, but for where the class is at in the problems that seems pretty normal.


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