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