The Pinch Hitter at AOPA Summit

[Keith Smith]

I'm spent, but I couldn't head to bed without quickly relaying the story of the coolest PE demo at a conference that we've ever had...

The film crew that shot the AOPA profile piece about PE at Oshkosh a few months ago came by to say hello on the first day of Summit (Thu). They mentioned that there was a Pinch Hitter course that was going to take place (or had already taken place elsewhere, I'm still not sure), and that it might be cool to have one of the Pinch Hitter pilots could come over and fly in the PFC equipment to try out what she'd learned. The plan would be to shoot the piece and add it to the footage that AOPA publishes during the conference.

A Pinch Hitter course is a program that teaches non-pilot passengers the basics of flying the airplane in the event that they need to take over ("in a pinch").

I suggested that not only should they fly the sims, they should do it with ATC, which would be their ONLY lifeline if this were to happen in real life. She said that sounded great and that they'd be back.

Quick aside: the shoot was initially canceled and was going to be shot elsewhere using different equipment, until they realized the ATC service was only available with us, and in the PFC equipment. Shortly after, the shoot was back on!

We were introduced to the Pinch Hitter graduate and her boyfriend, a 172 pilot. We briefed the scenario off-camera and then on-camera (the latter wasn't planned, but when the producer overhead the briefing I gave the Pinch Hitter graduate, she suggested I do it again on-camera in case they wanted to use the footage to give some context).

So, the scene was set...we'd position the airplane out over the water, just west of LGB, simulating a VFR XC flight from LGB to AVX. I'd be at 4500ft, westbound with flight following. I would then walk away from the sim and she would have to take over. The only information she was given was a tail number (the same as her boyfriend's plane) and the location of the push to talk key.

Mark Dalforno was the Socal controller.

All I know is how it ENDED (very well), but I didn't get to hear a word of the actual exchanges because I had to prepare for the AOPA Live presentation on stage.

About half way through my presentation, I heard a large cheer and applause coming from the PFC booth. I couldn't help but smile, and actually decided to stop my presentation and explain what had just happened.

When I got back there, the crew was just wrapping up a high-energy interview with the boyfriend and the recently soloed pilot. It's hard to put into words exactly how everyone was feeling over at the booth, but it was an energy that I have never seen before. Every single member of the crew was talking about what just happened. It was really quite profound...not just a source of whimsical entertainment, or casual interest.

The boyfriend was floored by what he saw and heard and insisted that this should be mandatory equipment for every flight school in the country (this marks the second time we've heard that exact statement at AOPA Summit! Once in 2010, and now here at Hartford). Pictures were taken of the happy couple by the sim, with smiles all around.

There's talk now of working with various Pinch Hitter program around the country to offer them an opportunity to have their graduates fly in the sim on PE to really get a feel for what it would be like.

It was a great day indeed. I'm incredibly proud of what the service has to offer, and the level of professionalism of the controllers on the network. Believe me when I say that people NOTICE those differences. I even heard her (the Pinch Hitter, and I'm sorry I don't have her name) mention shortly after the flight that "the controller even closed the runway after I landed and was sending aircraft to other runways."

When she was asked how she felt during the flight, she mentioned that while she obviously didn't fear for her physical safety, just about every part of her brain told her that she was flying an airplane. She COMPLETELY forgot about everything around her, the cameras, the crowd of people behind her that were dead silent throughout the process (including the boyfriend who managed to stay quiet, I'm told!). She said that all she saw was the panel and the visuals, and all she heard was the controller's voice. She didn't feel like it was a game or casual exercise....she was trying to land an airplane, and that she felt tremendous pressure. In short, it worked.

Great job to those involved (I didn't get to see most of it, something I really wish wasn't the case). I know Mark Dalforno was on Socal since I heard his voice before I left and handed the controls over to her. I am not sure if she swapped over to tower or if she did a single freq approach.

Either way, every controller should be very proud of the work that was done today, and throughout the Summit. We have monitors running on most frequencies (it's during staff configuration changes that I sometimes loose a room or two, such as the addition of socal or gnd, for example, until I can get up and add/remove more instances of the monitoring tool), so even if we're not on frequency at the time, the other rooms are still playing through a separate set of speakers so ppl at the conference can hear everything that's going on.

I'll do my level best to get some pictures and/or video during the show tomorrow.

Thanks again.

Keith

[TheMadDocMD]

Awesome stuff Keith - - Yeah Single Approach Freq into LGB - felt the transfer of freq would be too much in the situation along with trying to squawk emergency or anything else...

For our pilots; some information on what goes on behind the scenes....- It was a amazing chance to test our coordination between facilities; I was constantly updating our on shift supervisor with updates, as well as coordinating with Los Angeles Center to hold inbounds to Long Beach, and coordinating with Long Beach Tower to close the airport for the emergency inbound and start the fire equipment.

Great stuff - - I had a complete sweat going when she came into the airport and touched down , I forgot that this was virtual for that 45 minutes!

Can't say thanks enough to the other controllers that were on and helping out the coordination and ensuring I did not get additional traffic on frequency. <PS Even the pilots the frequency realized the situation and offered to cancel IFR to help out with the workload!>

[riorben]

The video segment will be posted on http://aopalive.org later this week.

[Keith Smith]

It's likely that we'll be embedding it on the site when it gets posted, along with a couple of other pending pieces.

[Alex Stjepanovic]

MD get ready!

[TheMadDocMD]

[Keith Smith]

Note: We have been contacted by AOPA to add some extra material to the piece. I assume this means that they are going to hold off on publishing the video until these additional changes are made.

Congratulations again to Mark Dalforno and the controllers that were assisting him on the landline...a solid effort by all, particularly considering we've never really briefed/trained for this case (it was one of the few scenarios that we hadn't planned for in developing this network).

There is talk of integrating with other Pinch Hitter courses in the future. If that happens, we'll prepare some additional material for controllers to help them out in situations like this. Talking someone down is not easy and once again, I'm thrilled to see that the impromptu experiment had such a positive outcome.

[Steve Ruiz]

This sounds like it will be a sight to see. As I have said to you many times over- Exciting times...

[Keith Smith]

Here is the video:
http://www.aopa.org/aopalive/?watch=lld ... pw9C2mbcdf

[Alex Stjepanovic]

Darn, I was hoping for the full thing to be up.