NEW AID FOR TRAINING

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28999, 14 September 1959, Page 13

NEW AID FOR TRAINING

Use By Electra Pilots

"The Press’ special Sentea AUCKLAND, Sept 13. The pilots who will fly Tasman Empire Airways' Lockheed Electra aircraft to and from Australia have had a new aid to their training with the construction at Mechanics Bay of a flight simulator. Designed locally, it is primarily to give training in starting procedure.

Tasman Airways' chief instructor, Mr J. A. Baker, said starting Electras was a most tricky part of flight routine. The simulator, consisting of a mock cockpit complete with instruments, would aid pilots to avoid maladjustments which might ruin engines worth more than 30,000 dollars each. To demonstrate all faults which might occur at starting, a small console has been built by a T.E.A.L. instrument foreman, Mr H. Daysh. The instructor can. by using the machine's controls, show the pilot exactly what could happen in a real cockpit Mr Baker explained that once the engines were started, there were “no worries in the world." Explaining the turbine temperature gauge, “the most vital of all," he said that too high a temperature might wreck an engine. Training in the simulator would aid pilots immeasurably when the tf ™e came for practical training. The first Electra is expected in New Zealand about the end of next month, and three T.E.A.L Pilots, including the Electra project manager, Captain J. R. McGrane, will leave for the United States soon for practical training and to take delivery.