Far too many times, I find that a flight simulator, even expensive FAA-certified ones are used to practice routine flying… sometimes even just as a game. That is such a poor use of a fabulous tool.

One of the more important use cases for a simulator is the ability to generate failures. This past week, I used the combination of my simulator and my PilotEdge membership to practice a failure – a GPS failure. As much as we have come to take these technologies for granted, there are days when things fail. I didn’t intend to actually fly such a failure on the simulator last week. it so happened that I filed with a flight plan with the wrong aircraft suffix /I – which stood for “No GNSS” capability (aka no GPS). When the Clearance Delivery controller confirmed with me as to whether I had no GPS equipment, I realized that I had used the wrong code. I could easily correct the code and re-file. However, I used the opportunity to note down that scenario as yet another one that all GA pilots must practice regularly. Indeed on a particular day, we may have an NAVAID outage or an equipment failure – and the need to fly without GPS that day will become real.

It was momentarily disorienting to be asked that question. Imagine actually getting ready for a flight and discovering that the Garmin 530W doesn’t turn on, or worse still, malfunctions in flight. This is exactly where practice comes in handy. Being prepared for a situation or having experienced it before makes it a lot easier to react to it when it occurs. This is exactly the use of advanced technology in flight training – getting the flying brain tuned to circumstances that are out of the ordinary.

There is a ton of technology in use in the aviation ecosystem, however, that does not mean that all elements of it will work correctly always. It is important to be prepared for the time when one of them does not.

General Aviation pilots, especially those that do not fly for a living, or are just weekend pilots must absolutely practice these scenarios.

CP Jois