Our Bedford location is home to a new RealSimGear G7 simulator. It’s new, it’s sleek, it’s almost an exact replica of the SR Perspective+ Touch model flight deck and most importantly, it has a working CAPS handle.
This simulator is a Cirrus specific simulator created to replicate the G7 and G7+ platforms in the SR20, SR22 or SR22T cockpit.
The sim provides a great platform to do so many things that cannot be replicated in the air. It also allows the instructor and pilot to slow down (or pause) what may happen quickly in the airplane.
Our instructor can present scenarios that require the pilot to think about what to do and do so in a safe, controlled environment. For example, what do you do on take off when you get a low oil pressure light just as you are entering the clouds and being asked to change a frequency to talk to another controlling agency. Is it better to stay below the clouds or is it better to continue ahead – the answer is, it depends. We can do this scenario with differing conditions that require the pilot to actually aviate and think about what a proper response is.
PRACTICE, PRACTICE
Communication with ATC. Cockpit task efficiency. Practice your use of the MFD map and all of it’s multitude of features so that you can access information with speed and efficiency. Practice use of the flight planning pages. Practice use of the various auto pilot features. Practice emergency and abnormal scenarios. Your instructor can simulate system failures.
Practice approaches & missed approaches. Instrument students can log up to 20 hours in the sim toward their rating.
You can now feel the 45 lbs of force required to pull the handle to activate the chute, simulating a CAPS pull scenario.