The scenarios are packaged. The point is it IS cooperate and graduate. All the training modules are. In real life you have more time, fuel and patience.

 

Because it's a sim ride and the A350 can't dump fuel, so if they gave you a realistic leg like ATL-HND, you'd also have to run an overweight landing check list to return or divert to nearest suitable airport. Also you only have 2 pilots in the sim not 4 like a normal 350 leg, so they keep it as simple as possible to fill the squares.

On my ride we departed PDX, after diverting off the SID for TRWs we got a bleed ECAM at about 9,000'. I gave the airplane to the seat filler and told ATC we wanted to stop the climb at 10,000'. Then I ran through the checklist which says "avoid flight through icing conditions". I called the dispatcher and told him what was going on, asked him about icing conditions in SEA, he confirmed there were some, I said I wanted to return to PDX, he agreed. I told ATC what was going on and he set us up to return to PDX.

As we're descending into PDX we get another ECAM, electrical bus fault. Again I give it to the seat filler, run checklist, end of procedure. "Atis, status, perf 3,2,1 brakes" and we're on downwind for the ILS into PDX, 200/1/2. On base to final I arm approach and my loc/gs isn't showing. I ask FO if his looks good, he says yeah, I give him the jet and say you're flying. We intercept and land, taxi to the gate, shutdown complete.

It was a "short" ride but filled all the boxes. In the debrief the IP asked if there was something I could have done to restore my ILS he said, "You had time and fuel, you could have got delaying vectors and sorted it out...".

I said, "We're about to intercept the ILS and you want me to go hold and troubleshoot when the FO's got everything we need? I'd rather land and let maintenance figure it out." (Turns out that bus failure we had included Capt.ILS).

One of the many things they didn't teach us in the worst training program I've ever had was, there's a little knob you can turn and get the raw data up! Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

 

Sounds like it went a lot better than same flight on my 330 LOE... Bleed ECAM at 9,000 - Capt wants to keep climbing.. I said.. "why don't we level off and figure this out" - nope! Kept climbing and got the Cabin altitude at 14K after something else failed.. well that turned into a ****show as you might imagine. We redid that one..

 

My immediate first thought was cabin pressure which is why I wanted to stop climbing.

After running the ECAM it was a anti icing issue instead but the note, "avoid icing conditions" prompted me to "expand my team" (and load up the IP vs me!) and ask about which airport would be better, icing wise, SEA v PDX. That puts it on the IP (as the dispatcher) to tell you where to go, vs YOU picking the wrong place to go.

The seat filler FO was no help at all so I was basically single pilot but in a way that was good too because he had to do all the flying and any mistakes would be on an IP, not a crew error. He did fine but wasn't any 'help'.

The worst part of my experience was having to go through the entire program with another captain instead of a real FO.

 

Hey Timbo,

Any suggestions for those of us planning on transitioning to the 350 soon? Personal AB experience: 330B>320A......350A in the next year or so.....Thanks

 

Watch all the preflight videos, and even that won't make a lot of sense until you get in the box and start pushing buttons to get some muscle memory going. The preflight is the hardest thing to learn because it's completely different than any other airplane. The FMS stuff should come easy to a 330/320 guy but for us career Boeing guys, it was starting from scratch and learning to speak Chinese!

If you're going to the left seat, memorize this flow, the 7 Ss: Start, Spin, Swap, Send, Seat, Set, inSert!

That's only for the left seat only. I have no idea what the FO beginning flow is because I had another Captain in the right seat and the IPs refused to teach us an FO stuff! The airplane is very seat specific.

The guys coming off the 330 get the short course and they had more trouble than the guys off the 320, who got the longer course. Good luck!

 

Flows are now role based vs seat based to harmonize across fleets. It was bad enough asking for a landing before, now the Captain has to do the PM flow if they give up the leg. I guarantee we have some slow learners who will now take every leg.

 

Gents, thanks for the advice!

 

When I went through in March of 2021, I was told the reason they segmented it to: "Capt stuff, FO stuff, and never the two shall meet." was because they used to teach everyone everything, and the bust rate was too high!

It's 20lbs of excrement in a 5lb bag, they really need to add about 4 more box sessions and get some decent On Board Library training devices or at least an app so we can learn how it all works fits together. Hopefully when they switch from the Dell laptops to the iPad it'll work better.

Sounds like they're back to teaching everyone everything! This should be fun! Glad I'm out!

 

I believe the Capt stuff and FO stuff was a Northwest SOPA/SMAC holdover where each seat had defined responsibilities. Looks like the 350 has decided to join the rest of Delta Air Lines and do PF/PM stuff as well as dumb-down the airplane capabilities a bit to mimic the other Airbi. I suspect it will be much easier going forward for those new to Airbus because it will be aligned with the rest of the fleets and very easy for 320/330 pilots going to the Trash Panda. 😁