Training Update - Week 3

Another week has passed bringing my classmates and I a little closer to livin' the dream.

For the most part, indoc class is over. On Monday morning we have the final exam. The indoc exam will cover: company policies and procedures, flight and duty regs, takeoff minimums, departure and destination alternates including company specific ops specs, ops specs that allow Cat II precision approaches down to 1,200 RVR (runway visual range), flight planning and dispatch requirements, MEL (minimum equipment list) & CDL (configuration deviation list) and more.

It sounds like a lot, but shouldn't be too difficult. 80 or better is passing unlike the upcoming limitations and memory items test, which require 100% and there are NO retakes.

After the test is family orientation. It's a pretty nice thing. The company provides air transportation for spouses and other family members to come to Cincinnati for a tour of headquarters, the training center and the simulator facilities. My wife is coming out tomorrow morning and will be here for 2 days! I'm really excited about seeing her and wish the kids could come too. Being away from them for so long is really hard.

After orientation day, it will be time for the meat and potatoes of training: systems class
Systems covers everything from nose to tail on the CRJ200. It will be mostly a refresher, with a few company specific differences in operation and limitations. I'm looking forward to it.

Happy flying.

The Best Museum EVER

My roommate Brad and I decided to take a short road trip today to the National Museum of the US Air Force at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH. This museum is a must see. And best of all, admission is free!

The museum's collection contains hundreds of aircraft that date from the dawn of aviation to the F-22. One of the most special areas is The Presidential Gallery. It contains several aircraft that served US Presidents from FDR to Bill Clinton. Of course, the jewel of the collection is SAM26000...

one of several Boeing VC-137 (707-320B) aircraft that served US Presidents. SAM26000 is most famous for being the aircraft that carried the body of John F. Kennedy from Dallas in November 1963 as Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as the next President. You can still see the marks where the bulkhead was cut to make room for Kennedy's casket in the aft main cabin. The crew refused to let his casket travel in the cargo bay. You can just feel the history in the air walking through through this famous aircraft.

This is a B-58 Hustler. Like all of the aircraft at the museum, it is pristine. I think the B-58 is one of the most wicked looking aircraft ever designed. The thing with orange paint on it is an escape pod. There were 3 on the Hustler, each capable of safely ejecting a crew member at 50,000+ feet at Mach 2. I love this plane.

This is Bockscar, the Boeing B-29 that dropped Fat Man on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9th, 1945. There are also replicas of both Fat Man & Little Boy next to Bockscar.

This is the North American XB-70 Valkyrie. It is massive. It was conceived in the 1950's as a supersonic high altitude bomber capable of Mach 3. It first flew in 1964 and achieved Mach 3 in 1965. Only two were ever built and the other one crashed after a mid-air collision.

The XB-70 is powered by 6 specifically built GE engines with afterburners and 30,000 lbs of thrust each.

The cost of the project was enormous and the Valkyrie project was retired in 1969 and has been at the museum ever since. Photos do not do this aircraft justice. The cockpit sits as high as one of a 747.

Look at the size of those jet pipes! Ever seen a plane with six in a row? Me either.

I took about 100 photos at the museum, but Blogger only allows 5 photos at a time, so check them out and enjoy.

Thirsty? Have A Drink.

Today was the first day of basic indoc, where we really start to get learned about the airline business. Basic indoc runs through Monday the 17th, topped off by...you guessed it...an exam. Most of today was spent on duty rules and minimum rest requirements. Basically, a pilot is only allowed to fly 8 in 24 hours, 30 in 7 days, 100 per calendar month and 1,000 per calendar year. Of course the FAA has seen to it that there are many caveats. In addition, the ALPA contract confuses things further. It's initially presented as you vs. dispatch. They will try to extend your schedule beyond legal limits, not intentionally of course. As a pilot, you are responsible for not over flying your legal flight hours.

Since everyone in the class passed "Launch", we were now worthy to receive all of the course materials. ALL OF THEM! As you can see, it's not a light load. Everyone received 13 books, plus a large paper CRJ-200 cockpit mock-up (see below). The large blue books are the course training books. The small book is the Ops Specs for my carrier. It details the way the carrier operates and all of the company procedures for day to day operations. The gray books are the Flight Standards Manuals for the CRJ-200. They are like owners manuals for a CRJ. They cover limitations, procedures, weight & balance, performance, maneuvers, MEL & CDL. The green book is the manual for the Collins 4200 FMS (Flight Management System). The red book is the QRH (Quick Reference Handbook) It is used for abnormal and emergency procedures. The remaining books contain the ALPA contract, and general CRJ training info.

Needless to say, the fire hose has been turned on. The amount of books is a little intimidating, but the airline definitely makes sure that new pilots have all of the tools necessary to be successful. Every bit of training is handled in-house and has been since the airline was founded in 1977. It's pretty clear that anyone who washes out will have done so by choice.

The paper tiger. This is the best place to practice cockpit flows and procedures.

First Hurdle Cleared

This morning (bright and early at 5 a.m.) was our initial sim evaluation. It's pass/fail and marks the end of the Launch Program. My partner has less experience with RJ systems so our instructor spent a good deal of time showing him synoptics pages on the EICAS (Engine Information and Crew Alerting System). The EICAS pages have a great deal of information about the CRJ which is a very video intensive aircraft.

After the systems refresher, it was my turn to fly. I did some low RVR (Runway Visual Range) takeoffs, some hand flown and coupled departure procedures, course intercepts, direct-to intersections and other flight plan amendments. Then the instructor vectored me for some CAT II ILS approaches, both hand flown and coupled with the auto pilot. Since we were ahead of the Launch curve, we had a little extra time to fly a few missed approaches too.

As mentioned earlier, Launch is designed to be an introduction to the CRJ for the uninitiated. There's nothing difficult like V1 cuts, rejected takeoffs, rejected and balked landings or emergencies. Very straight forward with no surprises.

My partner and I both passed launch and can check off the first phase of Part 121 training at our airline. Passing the first milestone feels great.

Picture of the cockpit with flash. The guy in the red shirt is Paul, my current sim partner. Please excuse the mess of papers covering the FMS (Flight Management System). These photos were taken just as we were switching seats.

Here's one without the flash. It's a little more representative of what the CRJ-700 sim looks like when in use.

This is the captain's seat. In a real CRJ, there is a fuse panel directly behind it. In the sim, it is on hinges and rotates out of the way to make a clear view for an observer. The seats are very comfortable and infinitely adjustable. Unfortunately, the flash washes out the view from the cockpit.
Here's another view of the captain's seat without the flash. The level D CRJ sim is an actual cockpit delivered by Bombardier. All of the controls and displays are functional and could be installed in a line aircraft. On the top is the glareshield, which contains master warning, master caution, stall, GPWS (Ground Proximity Warning System) & flight control enunciators, engine and APU fire controls and the FCS (Flight Control System - Autopilot). The screens, from left to right, are: Primary Flight Display (Altitude Heading Reference System), Multi-Function Display (navigation, terrain and traffic data), EICAS 1 (always displays engine info, gear, flaps/slats and fuel data), EICAS 2 displays systems information (status page showing, other pages: Environmental Control Systems, Hydraulics, AC/DC Electrics, Fuel System, Flight Controls, Anti-Ice and Doors). Underneath the papers is the FMS, which controls navigation as well as landing gear, ground proximity and a few other items. Next is the throttle quadrant, which contains the thrust levers, spoilers, flaps/slats, thrust-reversers and ground spoilers. Next are the RTU's (radio tuning units), some engine system controls, EICAS controls, aileron and rudder trim, stabilizer and mach trim, radar, yaw dampers, transponders and standby RTU, display controls, cargo fire system, computer cooling fan controls, observer radio panel, parking brake, manual landing gear handle, and ADG (Air Driven Generator) controls.

The other important panel is the overhead. It houses controls for these systems: electrical, fire detection, lighting, fuel management, 10th & 14th stage bleed air, APU (Auxiliary Power Unit), Engines, hydraulics, pressurization, air-conditioning, and anti-ice.

There are more buttons and levers, but that's enough for today. My fingers hurt.

Now I'm off to CVG for a flight home. 4 whole days off! I can't wait to see my wife and children.

Just For Laughs

HP, American Express, B of A - the list goes on. Outsourcing call center support to a foreign country. What if Crew Scheduling was outsourced? It might go a little like this. By the way it isn't meant to be xenophobic. It's just for chuckles, courtesy of Airline Pilot Central.

Back In The Saddle

We jumped in to the sim today and it just felt right. Due to scheduling conflicts, we were assigned the CRJ-700 sim, which isn't what I will be flying initially.

The -700 has some nice features not found on the -200 such as FADEC, leading edge slats, one-touch switchover for 10th stage bleed air, single button ignition, better environmental controls and fire detection/suppression system. In addition, the CRJ-700 weighs about 20,000 pounds more than the -200.

With leading edge slats, the -700 has a slower Vref speed. It's a CAT C aircraft whereas the -200 is CAT D. They also land in completely different ways. After one "learning" landing, I managed to get the technique and grease the rest.

It was really a laid back session with a lot of hand flying, ILS approaches and not much else. No emergencies, no single engine approaches or V1 cuts. Two more sessions like today, with a few more challenges hopefully, and it will be time say goodbye to the sims for a few more weeks. Things are going well, very well.

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Tomorrow, my wife and I will be celebrating our 17th wedding anniversary...apart. After Sunday's sims, I have 5 days off and will be heading home to see the family. Being away from them is the most difficult part. This first year will be bittersweet. A dream finally realized mixed with the heartache of being absent from family so much. Next month, I will miss my daughter's 9th birthday and my younger son's 5th birthday. We won't talk about Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years right now.

Thankfully, my laptop has a built-in web cam and we get to have video conversations every few days. Isn't technology great?

Training Update

Well after only 3 days of training, I have an entire day off. Then after 3 more days, I'll get 4 days in a row off. Not a bad start.

Since there have been fewer new hire classes, this one is pretty large at 14. There's a pretty good cross section of people. The youngest is my roommate at 22 and the oldest is 44. Experience ranges from absolute zero to previous military and airline flying. I am surprised that there is only one female, a former flight attendant. Everyone is great and we all seem to get along.

The first day was basically in-processing. B O R I N G was the theme for the day. Company history, HR speaker after HR speaker, acknowledgment of corporate policies, procedures, protocol etc. and company ID badging. At least there were plenty of opportunities for breaks and a nice catered lunch was provided.

The next two days were the introduction to our recently implemented addition to pilot training called "Launch", plus security training in order to receive a CVG SIDA (Secure Identification Display Area)badge. A SIDA badge is required to access secure areas at US airports with air carrier operations. Launch is basically an overview of the the CRJ-200. It consists of 2 days of ground school, followed by 3 days of sims (5 a.m. ouch) that culminate with a basic pass/fail sim evaluation.

I think it is a smart move for the company. For an initial $4,000 company investment in sim time, they have the opportunity to see if you are able to adapt to a jetliner. Since they've started launch, the washout rate for pilots that have passed the launch program has decreased dramatically. Better to invest $4-5,000 in a new hire early than $25,000 later only to find that the pilot isn't ready for prime time.

So today is a chance to relax and study before 3 full days of sims. If all goes well during launch, there will be 4 days off before basic indoc starts. Otherwise, there will be many days off!