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.

Day 44 - October 15th

Testing has continued over the past few days. Some times, like this morning, are just beyond boring. We were testing the temperature controls for the simulated cabin and cargo heat functions. As you might imagine it can take quite a bit of time to heat or cool such large areas. In the mean time we're just sitting in the simulator staring at the instruments and trying not to fall asleep. 'Bout as much fun as watching paint dry...

Louardi, Al and Dennis enjoying the wait

Day 40 - October 11th

As testing continues little things continue to get done around the sim. The Brief/Debrief Station was installed in one of the briefing rooms behind the sim. It incorporates a camera mounted on the flight deck that records video of the training session, a recording computer that is connected to the host to record the video and gather simulator data and a playback station in the briefing room. The instructors can play back the video as well as see the position and settings of every switch and instrument in the cockpit. They'll be able to tell exactly what went on and when! Should be a good training tool.

Camera mounted to ceiling of flight deck


Playback Station in pilot breifing room

Day 39 - October 10th

Sorry for missing out on a few days of blogging. We've just been doing testing about 14 hours per day and I'm completely ready to go home by the time I'm done with my part of the shift. Nothing very exciting has been happening the past few days, but Stephane did finish adjusting and assembling the stand underneath the sim as well as getting the raceways installed to protect the rest of the cabling on the floor.

Completed work stand and cable raceways

Day 36 - October 7th

This morning we continued testing of the OTM and then in the afternoon CAE tuned the motion buffet functions. We thought it was a little to high in certain conditions and a little too low in others. Since the buffeting effect is mostly subjective, CAE made adjustments while our guys sat in the cockpit to feel and evaluate the buffeting effect.

We couldn't get the simulator UL approved until we found a way to keep the motion cables under the sim from being walked on. We decided to install an unused maintenance platform from another simulator over the cables, then we could use just a small amount of raceway to protect the portions of the cables not under the work platform. Since this sim is 2 feet higher than any of our other sims the platform will be handy to reach the maintenance doors on the bottom of the motion base.

Flying above the cloud tops

Test-fitting the maintenance platform

Day 35 - October 6th

Testing by US Airways started today. We began with a subjective flyout that is done by one of our pilots who is very familiar with the A320 - in this case it was Al Hancock. The flyout is a sort of "look-see" where we just go through a normal flight and see if we notice anything that might be incorrect or need to be changed. We also use this time to check some particular things that are important to training or peculiar to US Airways.

After lunch one of our Lead Engineers, John Sutherland, continued with Al to start the Operational Test Manual (OTM). The OTM is a set of operational scenarios designed to test how well the aircraft systems are simulated from the viewpoint of the pilots. In the CAE-developed OTM there are 11 different scenarios created to check all phases of flight and hopefully, most of the common procedures needed by the crews, including some malfunctions.

Pilot Jon Witten from our Flight Standards department checking the instruments

Day 33 - October 4th

CAE finally received the special sound-dampening carpet pad and today they installed the carpet on the flight deck. They'll have to rerun the QTG for the sound system and tune it for the new acoustics now that there's quite a bit less echo on the flight deck.

Something else that is new is that there is a dimmer on the lights for the back of the flight deck area where the instructor sits. I think this will be a nice feature. Also, the lights are mounted in the ceiling behind some louvers that seem to direct the light downward and should help reduce reflections and glare in visual and off the instruments.

Carpet with sound-dampening pad is installed

Day 32 - October 3rd

CAE continued working on integration and ironing out some issues here and there. Also, I believe their test pilot continued some of the Manual QTG and subjective testing.

Day 31 - October 2nd

After about a week and a half of 12-hour days working on it, I finally got through the first pass of the Qualification Test Guide (QTG). I had reservations on about 20% of the tests, so now comes the arduous task of reviewing CAE's corrections and/or explanations and re-reviewing those tests. I think I'm starting to go blind! LOL!

Day 30 - October 1st

CAE is providing an auto-alignment tool for the visual system that will help reduce the labor required to maintain the visual picture quality. It involves a camera that the software uses to view the visual display and the test patterns, a light meter that senses the gamma (so brightness and color temperature can be automatically adjusted) and the software itself.

This system has been in development at CAE for a while and I believe we will be the first to have it. We're hoping everything goes well and the tool works as it purported to.

In the pic below you can seen Henry Ng working on the camera. He's epoxying the lens for the light sensor onto the bottom of the camera. The lens directs light into a fiber-optic cable, which transports it to a box that breaks it down and communicates the information to the computer for analysis. This entire assembly hangs inside the top of the visual dome behind the back-projection screen.

Henry working on the Auto-Alignment camera

Day 29 - September 30th

I went through the remaining visual hardware ATM (Acceptance Test Manual) with Henry this morning. I was able to get some hands-on time with the alignment software tool that is used for setting up the visual geometry. I must say it's far easier to use than what I'm used to. It was very intuitive and took me a very short time to become comfortable with it. I would guess that between Henry and I we managed to get a good manual alignment done in about 45 minutes, including my learning curve. Hopefully when the auto-alignment tool is ready it'll cut that time down even further.

Day 28 - September 29th

I got a chance to fly the sim a little more today, but not on motion. I'm so busy going through the Test Guide results (QTG) that I really don't have any time for just 'playing.'

Later in the afternoon I took a quick clip of the sim being flown by the CAE test pilot with the motion turned on. Not too exciting, but you can see our sims 3 and 4 going like crazy in the background. I'll try to catch a better clip when the sim is dancing a little more than this.

Day 27 - September 28th

Over the weekend testing continued. CAE has a test pilot here who is running some of the QTG manually, which generally requires some pilot skill to accomplish.

I interrupted Henry, who is working on the visual alignment, for a few minutes and took a quick flight around the patch. The visual seems nice and the textures are quite impressive compared to what I'm used to. With the new, much more powerful IG computers the capacity to generate higher detail and support a more 3D environment is so much better. More buildings can be modeled around the airport scene, 3d trees and other components are available and terrain is much more detailed. Have a look . . .

The view from behind tha Captains seat


The view out the F/Os front window


The view from the F/Os side window


A look at LAX from the take-off position

Day 25 - September 26th

While having a look around the sim today I noticed that the shutters had been installed on the projectors. They have been incorporated by CAE to reduce the amount of light permitted through the projection lens during dusk and night scenes. When the instructor switches out of a daytime scene, or the simulated time of day is late enough, these shutters activate and close off most of the light coming from the projector. The picture is not affected, just the total amount of light available. This is done to help maintain clean blend zones. Blend zones are the areas where the picture from each projector overlap its neighbors.

Close-up of shutters installed on a projector

Day 24 - September 25th

Unfortunately, I was home sick today with a pretty bad case of food poisoning . . . or something. There's no photos today, but I'm told that Henry finished the visual geometry alignment and sent the resulting data to CAE so engineers there could evaluate it. Apparently, they can determine if there will be any significant distortion in the visual display based on the data Henry sent them.

We also managed to get the simulator a temporary connection to the internet so that CAE can open a VPN (Virtual Private Network) tunnel from their plant in Montreal. This connection allows the engineers back in Montreal to troubleshoot software and update the simulator remotely, rather than have to fly specialists out here to work on the sim to fix problems. Hooray for technology! Now, if only I could figure out how to do my job while sitting by my pool at home . . .

Day 23 - September 24th

Visual geometry alignments continued and we got a look at the PC-based alignment tool. The alignment seems to be quite involved, but this is just initial setup and it should be much easier after replacing just one projector or for minor touch-ups. We'll have to wait until we work with it a bit to see if that's really how it going to be!

Henry, the visual specialist, doing the initial geometry alignment

A view of the alignment grid with all colors turned on


Alignment grid showing the cursor and only one color turned on per channel

Day 22 - September 23nd

Not much obvious happened today and I wasn't hovering over the crew since I'm deep into approving the QTG right now. I know that visual configuration is still in work and the QTG testing is almost constant. I did notice that the cabinet doors have been mounted on the IG and HOST complexes in the computer room.

Cabinets all closed up except the front door of the Image Generator complex

Day 21 - September 22nd

Setup of the visual system continued most of the day. The cockpit remained powered up and there was a visual presentation. Some more components were added to the visual mirror area.

Jean-Phillipe from CAE and John Sutherland, one of our Engineers, went through the motion Acceptance Test Manual (ATM). This is pretty exciting since we get to see the extreme extension limits of the motion system. Thanks to John Sutherland again for getting the motion pics. Check it out . . .

Visual projectors showing an image, but configuration is not done yet


Cockpit instruments powered up


Maximum forward motion deflection


Clearance between sim and front wall at max forward deflection


Maximum aft motion deflection


Clearance to raised accessway at max aft deflection


Max starboard/aft deflection