Sled Driver

IN THE BOX
It took close to eleven months to complete training in the SR-71. While the
second half of training was mostly flying the jet and accruing flight hours, the first
half of training was torturous because of the many hours spent in the simulator. My
RSO informed me he enjoyed simulator sessions as much as he enjoyed root canal
work.
Flying an aircraft close to the edge of its performance envelope meant things got
scary in a hurry when even the slightest malfunction occurred. Simulator training
gave Sled crews experience with nearly every type of malfunction before it
happened to them in actual flight. Although everyone agreed with this objective, it
was hell stumbling our way through the learning process. The sweat-soaked-blankstare-at-a-dying-instrument-panel
look, introduced during the interview sim, was
relived often.
Most crews were senior Captains or Majors with ten years flying experience. They
were selected to fly the SR-71 because they were experienced and they were good.
They didn't feel either during many days in the sim. At their former units they were
all accustomed to being the top performers. It wasn't an easy process to watch both
engine temperatures and pilots egos reach breaking points during stressful
moments in the sim. Everyone was humbled in the sim, or the box, as it was
commonly called.
With a small number of crews on station at any one time, we would administer
simulator sessions to others when our training was completed. Supervising sims was
a two-man job. An instructor RSO sat at a large console equipped with the readouts
of the back-seater's cockpit instruments. The instructor pilot sat directly behind the
pilot, surrounded with a complete selection of switches designed to wreak havoc on
aircraft systems and bring crews to their knees. The pilot and his instructor, and the
RSO and his instructor, were in separate simulators and all four people
communicated through headsets hooked into the intercom system.
The key to a successful simulator mission, indeed, the key to a successful aircraft
mission, was clear and concise communication between the crew. Simple as this
sounds, relaying information between cockpits with few similar gauges required
some forethought. Communication became more critical when the sim was coming
apart. During such emergencies, I needed to relay to my RSO the precise nature of
the problem so he could read the necessary corrective steps from the proper
checklist. As I struggled to identify the malfunction, critical seconds passed, creating
additional problems. Many a hilarious utterance came forth from the front cockpit
in the heat of a session, leaving the guy in back totally confused. One time I became