Day 68 - November 6th

Success! After three very long days and some extremely diligent work by CAE, we got our Level D certification from the FAA. Our sincere thanks go Don Kerr, Arnab Lahiri and Tom Walsh of the FAA National Simulator Program for their help in ensuring US Airways has a simulator that we can be proud of.

CAE deserves our appreciation also as they were tireless in their efforts to make sure the sim met the expectations of the FAA Part 60 certification circular and the needs of the of FAA NSP team here to evaluate the sim.

CAE celebrated the certification by taking all the players out to dinner - and we ate well!

A copy of the Statement of Qualification signed by many of the people involved.


A very happy Denis Pelletier from CAE


Enjoying some drinks while waiting for our table.


Anne-Elisabeth Dutil from CAE and John Sutherland from US Airways.


All smiles.


Tony Tsao from CAE just can't stop working!


Extra-Happy Hour.


Stephane and Stephane are just tired, not drunk!


Lead Sim Engineer, Dennis Newell with Phil Perey from CAE and US Airways pilot, Al Hancock.


Appetizers and drinks.


Arnab (not) harrassing the restaurant manager.


Here comes the meat!


A quick toast.


Raised glasses.


Toasting success!

A special thanks to the folks a Fogo E Brasa restaurant for their fine food, excellent service and letting us hang around so late!

Day 67 - November 5th

Day two of the FAA certification process. We're all keeping very busy during the certification. There's a lot to look at, review and discuss within this three day period. Every step has to be approved and documented and that's just a lot of work!

Analyzing the sound levels with Rick from CAE.

Omar from CAE and John Sutherland from US Airways reviewing the visual scenes


An army of CAE engineers are here working to ensure a good certification.


An nice picture of the Flight Training Center Main Entrance provided by Jim Couch

Day 66 - November 4th

Today the FAA inspector arrived and we began the certification process. It's going well and the inspectors seem fairly pleased. We have two more days of testing before the FAA makes their final decision.

Stephane changing a loudspeaker in the visual mirror area, Safely!
(Inside Joke!)

A view of the back projection screen from the mirror side.

Tony Tsao, the CAE Project Manager, and CAE Denis Pelletier, the Program Manager preparing for the certification kick-off meeting.


Simulator Engineering Manager-PHX , Jim Couch, starts the meeting with a little levity about the certification stress level.


Kick-off meeting attendees.


Anne-Elisabeth and Rick from CAE reviewing the QTG with FAA representative, Arnab Lahiri


A fine lunch provided by CAE.

Closing the day with a certification group debriefing.

Day 62 - October 31st

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Today we took a short break from snag clearance to go watch our CEO's annual Halloween skit. Doug Parker, in cahoots with some of our other company officials, dress up and put on a show for the troops.

This year it was the presidential politicos, and the bands AC/DC and Heart. Have a look....

Day 58 - October 27th

Today we started SNAG clearance. This is when we go through all the complaints written against the sim and verify the fixes. Things are going well so far and there are very few resolutions offered that we haven't accepted.

SNAG clearance will continue through the end of this week and then the following week the FAA will arrive to certify the sim for training. Tensions are high that the certification process will go well since it'll cost everyone a lot of money if it doesn't. US Airways already has a training schedule planned and having to reschedule would cause an expensive backup.

Day 50 - October 21st

Yesterday we started the visual acceptance. We reposition the simulator to each of the 15 custom airport models we purchased and verify that everything is modeled correctly and meets our training requirements. We taxi the aircraft all around the airport model, fly in and out and check out the operations under low visibility conditions. It is very tedious, but has to be done to make sure we don't have distractions in the visual scene and that there aren't any issues that would cause 'negative' training.

Visual acceptance will continue through the end of this week, then we'll start doing what's called 'snag clearance.' Snags are complaints that we have written against the simulator either during the testing we did in Montreal, or here in Phoenix. CAE addresses each snag and makes a fix or takes some other action then resubmits the issue for us to test again.

Day 45 - October 16th

Still testing.... The CAE test pilot had to return to Montreal so the Test Engineer took over his spot in the cockpit.

US Airways Sim Engineer, Dennis, CAE Test Engineer Anne-Elisabeth and US Airways Pilot, Al.