V Australia Non Revenue Line Training

As one of those involved in setting up the Training of pilots on the Boeing 777-300, we undertook line training of our newly trained pilots in our aircraft between Melbourne, Adelaide and Avalon airports. What follows is a description of one of those days of training.

Today was the begining of Non-Revenue Line Training (as it’s being called). For the Check/Training Captain’s it began in earnest earlier in the week with Mike Malherbe in the Sim. We reviewed procedures for touch and go landings (and practiced them) and looked at MEL-AVV-MEL-AVV-MEL … as a line training sector. Today it was time to put it to the test.

There are a couple of issues associated with touch and goes in a large aircraft – the demands of the maneouvre are reasonably obvious. Touch and Go landing involve a pretty standard approach and landing, but as soon as the aircraft is on the ground, the flaps are re-configured for takeoff and the thrust is advanced. When speed is sufficient, you rotate the aircraft and you’re away again on another flight. The main differences are not arming the autobrake and auto speedbrake systems for landing. Once on the ground, if someone goes for the reverse thrust after landing (an entirely natural reaction) the aircraft has to stay on the runway.

We prepared for these maneouvres with some extensive simulator training beforehand. During my sim session, Paulwent for the Reversers ‘by mistake’ but I caught it fairly quickly and stopped him. Quick enough to prevent any reverser deployment – not fast enough for the Speedbrake not to “consider” deploying. I say “consider” because although the handle didn’t move and the spoilers stayed down, we still got a takeoff configuration warning after we stood the thrust up. That was interesting - almost half way down the runway, lots of thrust, lots of speed, and potentially an unsafe configuration. In the sim I looked at how much of RW23 in Adelaide was left, took control and stopped. Fortunately the training is conducted at relatively light weight – we pulled up easily. It was an interesting exercise.

They say when you put two Training Captains in a room – you end up with (at least) three ways of doing something. After the sim sessions there were still a few questions in my mind about how best to deal with the two most contentious issues of the line training that’s about to commence – the Touch and Go’s and the MEL-AVV sector.

Along with us today were three sets of cabin crew and the trainers. As you can tell from the dark circles under their eyes, the cabin crew training department have been putting in long hours this last week. The arrival of VOZ into Sydney has meant a limited window of opportunity for the crew to be exposed to the aircraft and gain the benefit of the best, most expensive crew trainer in the world. The crew training department have certainly made the most of it, including coming along with us today on five sectors separated by touch and goes all over South East Australia.

But for all their hard work – there’s always fun and laughs to be had whenever V crew get together. Wouldn’t have it any other way.

I arrived at Lord Street at 5:15 to print the flight plans, NOTAMS and weather. Lots of plans, in fact – three copies each sector of Sydney-Melbourne-Adelaide-Avalon-Adelaide-Melbourne, with a touch and go planned at each destination.

Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane weather – crappy. Melbourne, Avalon, Adelaide weather – fine. When you don’t plan on clearing the runway at a destination, it sure simplifies reading the NOTAMS.

Eventually there were 40 of us gathered at Lord Street. Since I was the Check Captain today, the boys (Tony Dodd, Morgan Lee, Scott ‘Boon’ Rackley, Matt Crestani and Gareth Maplesden) decided I could brief the crew – all 29 of them. Thanks Guys!

Into the bus and off to the aircraft. 15 minutes waiting at the gate for an escort and a few other hassles meant we ended up pushing almost half an hour late. Fortunately the original sked called for a hour on the ground in Melbourne and fifteen minutes everywhere else - we were about to compress that into about 30 seconds at each place.

First up with Doddsy and Morgan, who flew from the left hand seat. An uneventful sector lead into a RNAV VOR approach onto 34 in Melbourne. The touch and go was in the end intense, focussed, and a non-event. Nicely done, nice to watch. From the sim experience, after “Positive Climb, Gear Up …” Morgan selected the TOGA Switches, and away we went – off to Adelaide.

The rest, as they say, is history. 3 touch and goes later and Doddsy, Morgan, Boon and Matt were checked out. The last sector was used by Tony to train Gareth in his first line sector.

Meanwhile the cabin crew had been making the most of the up and down, operating cabin services, running emergency training scenarios, testing equipment and rotating through the crew on board. Since I was not required for the last sector I headed for the cabin and helped out – playing “Pilot” for the various events being thrown at the crew.

It was a big day, the first of many over the next two weeks. For those of us lucky enough to get a few sectors over the coming 12 days – enjoy.

Ken.

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