SixPapaCharlie
May the force be with you
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2013
- Messages
- 17,547
- Display Name
- First Officer 6PC
So having passed my Line check today, it seems I am on the other side of what ever I just went through.
Long story short April 1 of 2024 my employer told us we are going out of business. I had been the Director of IT which means allowing my tech skills to atrophy while I attended meetings that could have been emails.
I knew the company was going to fail starting about 6 months prior so I started looking but no response, Then the company did fail and for a few months I kept sending out the resumes and no response.
The only other thing I am really passionate about is flying. so I got my commercial, muili, and flew about 400 hours to get to the magic 1,500 hour mark.
I got the hours and started applying but the airline I am most interested in said we are no longer taking pilots without the ATP / CTP. So off to school I went and got that knocked out along with the ATP written.
With that knocked out, I got my resume and paperwork in order and submitted my app on airlineapps.com Additionally I am close friends with 4 captains at the airline. 3 of them wrote me letters of recommendation and one is now dead to me. I kidd. He just never got around to it.
I got the call for the interview 4 weeks in advance and I studied the ever-loving hell out of the Jepp charts, symbology, arrivals, approaches, etc. I had never flown a SID or star so I called our friend @RussR and he met me in my plane and we flew a couple just to get an idea of how they work. Thank you Russ. I was over prepared for the interview. I showed up in mid October. hiring was all but frozen. It was me and 2 young cadets. They took our logbooks, sent us to a meeting room and we kinda talked about our experience. Then they brought us back 1 by 1.
I was ushered into a room with a pilot and an HR employee. The pilot spoke like an auctioneer asking rapid fire questions, Mostly about symbology on the Jepp charts. Then the Woman from HR would ask a softball question to bring the pace (And my blood pressure) down. What is it that interests you about our company? What got you into aviation? Then back to the rapid fire guy. It was a blur and the whole thing lasted maybe 20 minutes. They thanked me and sent me back to the meeting room with the other 2 kids. We sat for about an hour and once again, they called us out 1 at a time. I went back to the same room and saw a drug test on the table. Thankfully, I remembered all the tricks @eman1200 taught me so I wasn't worried. I saw the test on the table and felt relieved. Took the test, "passed" and they said welcome aboard.
8 Months Later...... I get a class date of June 2nd
INDOC
Week 1 is indoc. You are in a class, in my case with 37 other people. Think first day of school vibes. Strangers awkwardly asking "What's your background?" and making small talk.
We get introduced to the heads of training, the CEO and a series of other speakers, then our instructor comes in and we start reading the the flight operations manual (FOM) and taking copious notes on everything and anything.
In hindsight this shouldn't have been stressful but we didn't know what the test was going to look like on this. We were going through the book at break neck speed and the firehose I kept hearing about was on and aimed at us. In hindsight, this wasn't even the fire hose but it was a crap ton of info and there were no breaks or pauses. Just read, listen, and write. After a week of that, it was a field trip to go down the slide, practice putting out fires, become familiar with the exterior cabin door and some other tangible / physical things. It was a fun end to the firehose of information.
SYSTEMS
Systems week was similar to Indoc however it was 2 days of reading, then they sent us home for 3 days to watch 132 training videos. Engines, brakes, fuel system, hydraulics, etc. Everything and anything about the plane. That wasn't an exaggeration, it was 132 videos. The info from Indoc and systems would be tested in the KV or Knowledge validation test. I don't recall the number of questions but my class WAY overstudied for it. Nobody ever tells you what happens if you fail something I still don't know. However, I suspect if you fail a test they probably don't fire you but that was what was in our minds so we studied this stuff like our lives depended on it.
Knowledge Validation
KV day, we all show up and take this test that we panic studied for and it wasn't that bad. I am not really an academic but I got a 91 so I assume everyone else got a 100.
FMS LAB
This computer and the Guidance panel are life now.
The FMS or flight management system also called the MCDU "McDoo" is what we use to program the route, performance data, navigation, takeoff, climb, descent, and landing info. Think of it like your Garmin, the approaches, stars, sids, go here along with weight and balance information. There is a lot more to it than that but this post is already going to be too long. To teach this, everyone gets a day of FMS lab training where they give you a high level overview of programming the box, we practice programming holds, arrivals, approaches, etc on what is like a PC based, flight simulator with no visual reference. Meaning there is a panel and there are phases of flight that take place in real time but you are only referencing this box, and an MFD and PFD. Think Flight sim with no external view.
The FMS lab is open 24/7 so there were a lot of late nights here where we would practice programming it for different scenarios. It was tremendously confusing at first but it would all make sense way later in training.
CPT
This was the hard part. Cockpit procedure trainers are these sort of non moving sims. Here is a photo I googled. You can see the FMS box pictured above on either side of the thrust levers below.
These are all touch screens that behave like the real aircraft. Everything happens in real time Pilot flying sits right and Pilot monitoring sits left.
We practice 2 hour flights going through our roles and then switch seats and do the flight again. We are learning flows, callouts, procedures, and emergencies during this time.
This was hard as hell if I am being honest. It was intense, timeboxed, and very little room for errors because time was limited. At night we had to be getting these flows and callouts down or the CPT the next day was going to be a mess. Those in class that didn't have flows and callouts down had really stressful CPT sessions. Some of these sessions felt like checking events. They could get pretty intense as this was the precursor to sending students on to the sims.
The company is very nice to those that struggle. We had one guy that was struggling terribly. CPT is supposed to be 8 days. They sent him back for another 8 to get him up to speed. They want you to succeed. This was where the rubber starts to meet the road in the training program. I personally felt sometimes like I was hanging on by a thread and other times, I felt ahead of the aircraft. I got it done in the 8 sessions but it was a test I wish not to have to repeat. Lots of late nights, lots of early mornings, chair flying with anyone and everyone that was available but this is were we basically said "We're not effing around". I started staying at the hotel even though I am local and my family was so supportive. I had to be where the class was and where the training devices were so I could shut off all other aspects of my life and focus on this one thing. Did I mention it was hard?
Long story short April 1 of 2024 my employer told us we are going out of business. I had been the Director of IT which means allowing my tech skills to atrophy while I attended meetings that could have been emails.
I knew the company was going to fail starting about 6 months prior so I started looking but no response, Then the company did fail and for a few months I kept sending out the resumes and no response.
The only other thing I am really passionate about is flying. so I got my commercial, muili, and flew about 400 hours to get to the magic 1,500 hour mark.
I got the hours and started applying but the airline I am most interested in said we are no longer taking pilots without the ATP / CTP. So off to school I went and got that knocked out along with the ATP written.
With that knocked out, I got my resume and paperwork in order and submitted my app on airlineapps.com Additionally I am close friends with 4 captains at the airline. 3 of them wrote me letters of recommendation and one is now dead to me. I kidd. He just never got around to it.
I got the call for the interview 4 weeks in advance and I studied the ever-loving hell out of the Jepp charts, symbology, arrivals, approaches, etc. I had never flown a SID or star so I called our friend @RussR and he met me in my plane and we flew a couple just to get an idea of how they work. Thank you Russ. I was over prepared for the interview. I showed up in mid October. hiring was all but frozen. It was me and 2 young cadets. They took our logbooks, sent us to a meeting room and we kinda talked about our experience. Then they brought us back 1 by 1.
I was ushered into a room with a pilot and an HR employee. The pilot spoke like an auctioneer asking rapid fire questions, Mostly about symbology on the Jepp charts. Then the Woman from HR would ask a softball question to bring the pace (And my blood pressure) down. What is it that interests you about our company? What got you into aviation? Then back to the rapid fire guy. It was a blur and the whole thing lasted maybe 20 minutes. They thanked me and sent me back to the meeting room with the other 2 kids. We sat for about an hour and once again, they called us out 1 at a time. I went back to the same room and saw a drug test on the table. Thankfully, I remembered all the tricks @eman1200 taught me so I wasn't worried. I saw the test on the table and felt relieved. Took the test, "passed" and they said welcome aboard.
8 Months Later...... I get a class date of June 2nd
INDOC
Week 1 is indoc. You are in a class, in my case with 37 other people. Think first day of school vibes. Strangers awkwardly asking "What's your background?" and making small talk.
We get introduced to the heads of training, the CEO and a series of other speakers, then our instructor comes in and we start reading the the flight operations manual (FOM) and taking copious notes on everything and anything.
In hindsight this shouldn't have been stressful but we didn't know what the test was going to look like on this. We were going through the book at break neck speed and the firehose I kept hearing about was on and aimed at us. In hindsight, this wasn't even the fire hose but it was a crap ton of info and there were no breaks or pauses. Just read, listen, and write. After a week of that, it was a field trip to go down the slide, practice putting out fires, become familiar with the exterior cabin door and some other tangible / physical things. It was a fun end to the firehose of information.
SYSTEMS
Systems week was similar to Indoc however it was 2 days of reading, then they sent us home for 3 days to watch 132 training videos. Engines, brakes, fuel system, hydraulics, etc. Everything and anything about the plane. That wasn't an exaggeration, it was 132 videos. The info from Indoc and systems would be tested in the KV or Knowledge validation test. I don't recall the number of questions but my class WAY overstudied for it. Nobody ever tells you what happens if you fail something I still don't know. However, I suspect if you fail a test they probably don't fire you but that was what was in our minds so we studied this stuff like our lives depended on it.
Knowledge Validation
KV day, we all show up and take this test that we panic studied for and it wasn't that bad. I am not really an academic but I got a 91 so I assume everyone else got a 100.
FMS LAB
This computer and the Guidance panel are life now.
The FMS or flight management system also called the MCDU "McDoo" is what we use to program the route, performance data, navigation, takeoff, climb, descent, and landing info. Think of it like your Garmin, the approaches, stars, sids, go here along with weight and balance information. There is a lot more to it than that but this post is already going to be too long. To teach this, everyone gets a day of FMS lab training where they give you a high level overview of programming the box, we practice programming holds, arrivals, approaches, etc on what is like a PC based, flight simulator with no visual reference. Meaning there is a panel and there are phases of flight that take place in real time but you are only referencing this box, and an MFD and PFD. Think Flight sim with no external view.
The FMS lab is open 24/7 so there were a lot of late nights here where we would practice programming it for different scenarios. It was tremendously confusing at first but it would all make sense way later in training.
CPT
This was the hard part. Cockpit procedure trainers are these sort of non moving sims. Here is a photo I googled. You can see the FMS box pictured above on either side of the thrust levers below.
These are all touch screens that behave like the real aircraft. Everything happens in real time Pilot flying sits right and Pilot monitoring sits left.
We practice 2 hour flights going through our roles and then switch seats and do the flight again. We are learning flows, callouts, procedures, and emergencies during this time.
This was hard as hell if I am being honest. It was intense, timeboxed, and very little room for errors because time was limited. At night we had to be getting these flows and callouts down or the CPT the next day was going to be a mess. Those in class that didn't have flows and callouts down had really stressful CPT sessions. Some of these sessions felt like checking events. They could get pretty intense as this was the precursor to sending students on to the sims.
The company is very nice to those that struggle. We had one guy that was struggling terribly. CPT is supposed to be 8 days. They sent him back for another 8 to get him up to speed. They want you to succeed. This was where the rubber starts to meet the road in the training program. I personally felt sometimes like I was hanging on by a thread and other times, I felt ahead of the aircraft. I got it done in the 8 sessions but it was a test I wish not to have to repeat. Lots of late nights, lots of early mornings, chair flying with anyone and everyone that was available but this is were we basically said "We're not effing around". I started staying at the hotel even though I am local and my family was so supportive. I had to be where the class was and where the training devices were so I could shut off all other aspects of my life and focus on this one thing. Did I mention it was hard?
Last edited:
