September 8, 2020 Changing Boxes

The Liberty Gazette

September 8, 2020

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: A week ago, I said goodbye to a piece of me. For over 12 years I have been teaching pilots to fly the Hawker 800XP, a twin-engine corporate jet. I teach in a simulator and a classroom, and I fly the jet for clients when they need a fill-in pilot. 

After 34 years, FlightSafety retired the Hawker simulator in its Houston Learning Center. As an instructor for FlightSafety, I have taught thousands of hours in this “box.” As an FAA authorized evaluator, I conducted between 300 and 400 tests and checks in it. I have taught in other jets but never so much time in one simulator. 

Fittingly, the last training event I performed was for Larry, a long-time customer who is celebrating 50 years of training with our company. The company’s other pilot with whom he has spent more than 25 years flying, was one of the original trainees in this very simulator back in 1986. Their training was to span four days, after which, the simulator would be dismantled. But Hurricane Laura’s impending arrival changed that. With a hard tear-down date of August 31st, the training schedule was reworked to do all simulator training in two days. The technicians were shutting down everything in hurricane preparation as the last simulator session ended.

With all that, we completed both pilots’ training with enough time left over to let them fly the approach that every pilot loves: the River Visual to Runway 19 at Ronald Reagan International in Washington, D.C. Because of restrictions around the nation’s capital since 9/11, doing this in a simulator is the closest many pilots will ever come to landing there. 

After the storm passed, I came back on Friday to fly the simulator myself one last time. I received an instrument proficiency check by my boss with another instructor as co-pilot. The yoke felt so natural nestled in my hands, and the aircraft responded as if part of me.

The check portion completed, we flew along and reminisced about people and events. Like the time the simulator collapsed while I was doing my required annual observation with an FAA inspector. When it is operating normally, it stands about ten feet tall on six stilts that push and pull the main housing,

making it feel like it’s climbing and turning. When the hydraulic system fails, the fluid generally bleeds off slowly and the simulator settles to the floor. But that time the two aft actuators lost all their fluid immediately, and the simulator crashed backwards, ending with all of us inside looking up at the ceiling—like sitting in a rocket on a launch pad. I crawled out the door at the back and stepped onto the floor. The others climbed out after me. Such memories.

I spent the last few minutes of the simulator’s last day snaking through the mountains of Colorado one more time. The technicians paced, antsy to start disassembly. Someone said I hijacked the sim. But fortunately, no one could shoot out the tires. Tomorrow, a new day, a new box.

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