Cross-Country Flight in a High School Classroom? There’s a Sim for That.

This is a true story of a final exam I gave my second-level high school aviation students.

With a Redbird FMX advanced aviation training device (AATD) in our flight lab, the experiences students had were as realistic as I made them. Throughout the semester and leading up to the final, students were trained in proper navigation, flight planning, creating navigation logs (navlogs), using the traditional E6B flight computer, and proper radio phraseology. The goal was to get the students to fly a 50-plus nautical mile cross-country in the FMX using proper checklists, radio calls, and navigation to fly successfully to a destination, land, and park. They also had to do it all with paper charts—no ForeFlight or other technology.

Did you hear that noise just now? It was the collective gasp of all iPad-using pilots. If you are a pilot, imagine taking a flight without it. I know I would not want to do that. I compare it to learning long division. Only once we learned long division did we have access to a calculator. Learning and understanding are part of the process.

Setting Up and Planning a Cross-Country Flight for Your Students

The flight had students take off from Chino, California (KCNO) and fly to Camarillo, CA (KCMA) in a Cessna 172S. We set up the FMX with a G1000 glass panel, and students used aviation headsets with the built-in intercom system.

During a particular final exam flight, the other students I was not assessing that day would hop on other flight simulators to practice and prepare. I saved the final exam flight to launch it consistently at the parking area at KCNO with the correct settings for each student.

For the setup, I placed a six-foot folding table behind the entrance to the FMX. I ran the intercom cable under the flight simulator and up to the folding table. I plugged my headset into the intercom box to act as air traffic control (ATC). I also had a laptop connected to the Instructor Station for the FMX and an iPad loaded with ForeFlight to monitor the flight through Redbird Corvus.

To the side of the simulator, I placed a large LCD TV with Redbird Insight connected to it, providing an exterior view of the aircraft and a picture-in-picture video of the pilot that allowed me to see her eye-line and hand placement and record the flight.

An Example Flight

On the first day of final exams, my star student requested to go first. She submitted her navlog and weight and balance calculations, and we discussed briefly her chosen path. Everything looked good. We noted the steeply rising mountains to the north and the vast airspace near her route. She decided to fly from KCNO to the Pomona VOR (POM), then to the Van Nuys VOR (VNY) at 4500 MSL.

The students knew how to use GPS navigation, but the final exam focused on VOR navigation. They were allowed to use the GPS map to aid in situational awareness but had to use VOR frequencies and V/LOC, not GPS, for navigation.

The plan was to taxi from parking to runway 26R. I set the wind to 230 at 7 knots and the sky to clear conditions. After running the proper checklists and setting up the radios, the first student was ready for taxi.

She called Ground Control to request flight following prior to taxi. 
I told her, as Ground Control, “Skyhawk N172RB, maintain clear of the Class Bravo, departure frequency is 135.4, squawk 2245.”

She read it back correctly and set her radio and squawk. She then requested her taxi from the North ramp. I gave the taxi clearance with a clear-to-cross, and her readback was correct. She began her taxi and made it to the run-up area, performed the run-up checklist, and completed the before-takeoff checklist. She switched to the tower frequency and told me she was “Holding short of 26R ready for takeoff.”

Here’s how it flowed from there.

• Me, acting as ATC: “Skyhawk N172RB, Runway 26R, cleared for takeoff.”
• She entered the runway and successfully took off.
• During her initial climb out, I said, “N172RB, contact Departure, have a good flight.”
• “Switch to Departure, N172RB,” she replied.
• She switched to 135.4 and said, “SoCal Departure, Skyhawk 172RB, 1600 climbing from Chino, heading 270.”
• Now, acting as Departure ATC, I said, “172RB, IDENT. Ontario Altimeter 29.96”.
• She replied, “172RB IDENT, 29.96.”
• I chimed back in: “Skyhawk 172RB radar contact, 2 miles northwest of Chino, 2000 feet. Climb VFR. What will be your top altitude today?”
• “4500, N172RB,” she said.

That whole exchange was within the first three minutes of the flight.

She began her turn over the POM VOR. Everything was looking good. That was when the Assistant Principal came in to observe.

If you are a teacher, you know that feeling you get when an unannounced observation suddenly happens. The great news is that there could not have been a better time for him to arrive. He asked what we were doing, and I explained. I asked him if he wanted to sit in the copilot seat. He jumped at the opportunity and hopped in next to the student. He also put on a headset to hear the communications. That's where the real fun began.

The pilot said over the radio, “Hey, Mr. Peterson. I have a question.” I promptly replied, “I’m sorry, Mr. Peterson isn’t available right now. This is SoCal Departure. Did you need something?” The Assistant Principal cracked up.

The pilot turned, looked at the Assistant Principal, and then forward again. I could tell she had rolled out on the wrong heading. She was going southwest directly toward the Class Bravo that extends from 4000-10000 feet south of KEMT. She knew something was not right and was trying to process it. Her heading was different from her intended heading, according to her navlog.

I let her fly it a little longer before eventually asking, “N172RB, what heading did you choose toward Van Nuys?”

She immediately realized she had not put in the correct radial on the OBS from POM, but it took another 30 seconds or so to process what was wrong. Then, BOOM, it clicked!

She twisted the OBS to the correct radial, turned the airplane, and intercepted the course, avoiding flight into the big scary Class Bravo. Nice recovery!

Suddenly, some turbulence arose out of “nowhere.”  By nowhere, I mean from my Instructor Station behind the FMX. I added a little light turbulence, shortly followed by moderate turbulence.

After it began, I said, “N172RB, SoCal. We have been getting some reports of light to moderate turbulence between 3500 and 5500. How is your ride?”

She said, “There is definitely turbulence here, but it’s not too bad.”

I reduced the turbulence but shifted the wind suddenly from a left-quartering headwind to wind directly from the right. The FMX promptly reacted to my wind input from the Instructor Station.

At that point, I gave her a frequency change to the next controller. She had to multitask: fly the plane, stay on course, and call the next controller. Aviate. Navigate. Communicate.

She did it all successfully. Prior to VNY, I gave her a vector for “traffic." That worked well. I told her to “Resume own navigation.”

She picked up the ATIS at Camarillo and was handed off to a tower about six miles from the runway. She made her descent and landing to Runway 26, exited at Taxiway Charlie, and contacted Ground.

“Skyhawk 172RB is clear of Runway 26 on Charlie. Request taxi to the base of the tower.” “172RB, Camarillo Ground, taxi to the base of the tower via Charlie, Foxtrot.”

“Taxi to the base of the tower via Charlie, Foxtrot, N172RB.”

Referencing her paper airport diagram, she taxied to the base of the tower, finished her shutdown and secure airplane checklist, and climbed out of the FMX.

Outcomes

The Assistant Principal was amazed at what he just witnessed. He commented on what a great job she did and how he really enjoyed the part where she asked Mr. Peterson a question over the intercom. I responded, “Mr. Peterson won’t be there when you’re flying.”

She had to use her training and problem-solve while piloting the aircraft. She had to act as the pilot in command (PIC).

One of my only interjections was giving her a clue as SoCal Departure when I asked her what her heading was to VNY. However, controllers in the real world will often reach out if the aircraft appears to be on a different course than expected.

She was exhausted after completing the flight. She commented on how realistic the flight felt, especially the turbulence and the wind shift. Thanks to the Instructor Station, we had a breadcrumbs record of her flight so she could see when she was beginning to go off course, as well as the corrective action.

This student has since begun flight training at our local flight school. She is a high school senior and already a few hours away from her checkride. Recently, she told me how much that flight in the FMX (along with all the other training on our various Redbird simulators) prepared her for the real thing.

My school also has a Redbird LD, which we used for the final exam so that more than one student could fly at a time. Although it does not have a motion platform, the rest of the simulator has the same layout and quality as the FMX. Both simulators have the control loading yoke, which provides physical feedback when adding control pressures or trimming the aircraft. The convenient headset jacks on both the pilot and non-flying pilot side allow other students to hear ATC or any instruction provided during a lesson.

Other students have also started flight training and all the instructors tell me what a joy it is to work with these kids because they already have experience from a realistic simulator. Students arrive at the flight school with ground knowledge and dozens of hours under their belts using quality aviation training devices. We have found that the transition from our simulators to the airplane is nearly seamless.

All a teacher wants to hear is that something they did positively impacted a student. The simulators, combined with additional tools like Insight, Instructor Station, and Corvus made my job as an aviation teacher much more fun and effective and gave my students a leg up on reaching their own aviation goals.