Ryan Ferguson
Pre-Flight
Just one more day of ground, then it's into the sim.
Most of that stuff you hear about "drinking through a firehose" is right on the money. There's a ton of stuff to assimilate about a turbojet airplane in 7 days. Luckily, I had access to most of the Simuflite training materials before I attended school, so many of the topics were "highly detailed reviews." Two beers at dinner tonight. Two of the other pilots in my class sat with me as we ate and drank, mostly silent, zoning out and staring at the walls. Saturation point.
Still, it's been a highly enjoyable experience. This is training at its highest level - much more comprehensive and authoritative than anything I've experienced in general aviation. One thing I appreciate about Simuflite is an emphasis on real-world knowledge. The instructors' main goal is to help you operate in the real world, rather than focus on useless minutiae. Sure, you've got memory items, limitations, and systems to memorize. But "green arc" is a sufficient answer for "normal oil pressure range." No attempt to force SOPs on anyone, either... if your company has a different practice, you can use it here.
Here are a few pics of the facility (which is state of the art and also very impressive.) Sorry for the grainy quality - they're taken from my cell phone.
More next week...
Most of that stuff you hear about "drinking through a firehose" is right on the money. There's a ton of stuff to assimilate about a turbojet airplane in 7 days. Luckily, I had access to most of the Simuflite training materials before I attended school, so many of the topics were "highly detailed reviews." Two beers at dinner tonight. Two of the other pilots in my class sat with me as we ate and drank, mostly silent, zoning out and staring at the walls. Saturation point.
Still, it's been a highly enjoyable experience. This is training at its highest level - much more comprehensive and authoritative than anything I've experienced in general aviation. One thing I appreciate about Simuflite is an emphasis on real-world knowledge. The instructors' main goal is to help you operate in the real world, rather than focus on useless minutiae. Sure, you've got memory items, limitations, and systems to memorize. But "green arc" is a sufficient answer for "normal oil pressure range." No attempt to force SOPs on anyone, either... if your company has a different practice, you can use it here.
Here are a few pics of the facility (which is state of the art and also very impressive.) Sorry for the grainy quality - they're taken from my cell phone.
More next week...
