Today was the first of 3 tests I’ll have to get through before getting signed off for the left seat. This was the oral exam. They are done by either a company pilot examiner or the FAA. I lucked out and ended up not only drawing the FAA, but our POI (Principle Operations Inspector, sort of the FAA-Company contact point) for the airline. Fun stuff.

Pretty much anything is fair game for this oral, and I’d been studying for it for about 2 months now, with intensive ground (and at home) study the last week or so. I’d like to say I felt 100% ready going in to it, but that is never the case with a checkride, at least for me.

I was scheduled to go yesterday at 2pm, but then that was moved to today at 10am, which was then moved back to 9am. I got to the training center by 8:30 and waited until 9 for the POI to show up. Once he did, he introduced himself (he’s a new POI for us, so I hadn’t actually met him) and then gave me a flight plan and performance data to run a weight and balance with. That took about 10 minutes (with me TRIPLE checking every number). Apparently I was close enough as we moved on from there.

First off we hit some limitations and memory items. Despite some of the things he requested NOT actually being memory items, I’d gotten a heads up from a guy who went with him yesterday and had those number memorized too. After that we moved on to some dispatch and weather related questions as well as some performance related theory. I guess I answered everything he wanted as we headed into systems from there.

Systems pretty much blurred by until I got stuck on the Mach trim. I told him what it did, but couldn’t adequately describe the theory behind it. That was ok with him, as he apparently wanted to teach something anyways. After 10 minutes of discussing aircraft certification and stability we moved on. After a few more minutes he said I seemed to know the airplane pretty well and he was satisfied.

Filling out the rest of the paperwork took a few minutes and I was heading out the door by 11am.

Two days off and then I head down to the sim in Charlotte on Monday.

Here I sit and wait. My oral was scheduled for 1:30pm tomorrow and has been pushed back to Friday at 10am now. No idea why. I’ve been ready to take this thing for a few days now, so I guess one more day of waiting won’t kill me. In theory I guess I should be studying more, but I’m at a point where anything else in would start pushing other stuff out. Or so I am telling myself. I did manage to go over limitation and immediate action items once this morning and chair fly a few flows and procedures. Maybe I’ll do that again tonight and then hit everything once tomorrow.

Grrr… enough already.

Today was the last day of ground school. It was yet another drive in the slush/snow for me in both directions, but I’ve just about got used to that.

We spent most of the day going over differences between the 200 and the 700. They are relatively the same plane and are a common type per the FAA (meaning if you are trained on one you are trained on the other) but there are a few differences. The problem of course is that most of my training over the next few weeks will be in the 200, including the oral exam with the FAA on Thursday. So I spent most of the day trying to listen with one ear and then dump it out the other so I don’t get confused between airplanes.

After (mostly) not paying attention all day we took a written 100 question test. For the most part it went well. I think I got around 90 questions right with out having to look stuff up (it was an open book test) and then once corrected I got all but 3 right. Makes me feel pretty confident about the oral.

We’ll see I guess.

No more studying today. Tomorrow is a review day. Thursday is meet and greet with the Feds. Wahoo.

I managed to get nowhere near enough sleep last night (up too late, stomach bothering me, neighbor making lots of noise) so when my alarm went off at 6:30 this morning I was in no mood to get up. Oh well, duty calls. I was out of the house by 7:15 and stopped to top off my gas tank with some (comparatively) cheep $2.85 gas. Even with the stop and typical morning Dayton traffic I still managed to get to the trianing center by 7:55 for another exciting day of class. I really don’t know how I did this 5 days a week for 4 years of college and 12 years of school.

Today was pretty much all systems. All day long. Of course with the group ADD we have going on (see previous post) it didn’t get too dull until the very end of the day. I honestly can’t remember what systems we covered, but what I do remember is that for the most part nothing we went over was something I was unfamiliar with.

We broke for lunch at noon and the two guys from my original new hire class and I went over to BW3s for lunch. It was sort of interesting to see how much of a different person they were now, compared to almost 3 years ago when we ate in the same place during new hire training. I’d imagine I’ve changed just as much, although seeing myself in the mirror every day pretty much negates any chance of see change myself.

After lunch we got back into systems. Again, there were often a few conversations going on at once but I think we managed to hold it together and finished up just about all the aircraft systems before taking another break. There was a recurrent that started at noon today that was made up of mostly all Dayton Captains. Of the 8 that were there (plus one Knoxville CA and one Dayton FO) they were all really great guys to fly with. Of course, I won’t be flying with any of them again now that I will be in the same seat as them. Interesting thought.

We started back up with a slide show walk around of the 200. Basically, what’s this? what does it do? when does it do it? sort of stuff. Again, there wasn’t much there that I hadn’t seen/heard before. We finished up the slide show just before 5pm. After that I packed up my bag and headed home. 4 days down, one more to go.

And now, if I can convince myself to go to sleep before 10, I may actually catch up on my sleep.

We had the weekend off from class, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t study time. I am at something of a disadvantage as almost everybody else is based outside of Dayton and hence is being put up at the hotel attached to the training center. On one hand, that’s actually pretty good for me as I don’t have to live out of a hotel for a week (that will come with sim down in Charlotte) but on the other hand, they are able to study together during off hours as well as access the training center when ever they want. For me it’s a 30 minute drive each way.

I spent yesterday thinking as little as I could about training. Of course, that’s easier said then done, and although I managed to get a bunch of other stuff accomplished, I was still constantly going over stuff in my head. By the end of the day I broke down and broke out my Operations Handbook. The deal I made myself was I would only study during commercial breaks. So I watched Blade III (Wesley Snipes is STILL badass) and manged to go over normal and abnormal procedures before one last shuffle through my limitations note cards and bed time.

Today I forced myself to get up early (ok, 8am, not exactly early) to stay on a morning schedule for the upcoming week. After taking care of some stuff I headed up to the training center and got there about 10:30. I spent the next 4 hours going over systems and procedures with a few guys from my class. It was a pretty laid back session, but I felt pretty good about what we went over. I left them at about 3:30 to head home, with a quick stop at Panera Bread for a late lunch.

The rest of the afternoon/evening has been pretty much a waste. Well, not really a waste but apartment cleaning certainly didn’t help me get ready for my oral on Thursday. My goal for tonight is to go over the 700 system differences and my limitation cards a few times. I’ve got two more days of class, a day off and then my oral and I’m feeling like that will be plenty of time to get ready. As is, I almost feel ready now.

While taking a break from vacuuming I moved all the pictures I’ve taken from February (and there weren’t that many as I only flew 5 days this month) into a different folder. While doing that I took a look at some of the pictures I took learning to fly as well as the ones I took instructing in Jacksonville and Phoenix. It got me thinking about the transition I made from student to teacher and how I am really about to make that same step again, just at a different level and in a different airplane. Granted, there are some big differences. Most notably, the “students” (err.. FOs) I’m going to be working with have an assumed basic level of knowledge, something that wasn’t always the case when I was instructing. Also, these students are here to learn how to be a good captain, not so much how to operate an airplane or in the Airspace System, although from a lot of stories I’ve heard, that is not always the case. Of course, the other difference is that in the past when I was instructing it was just me and the student in the plane. Now there are a whole bunch of people in the back who didn’t pay to ride along on a instructional flight.

Either way, I think it will be ok. I just spoke to a friend of mine who has been a captain for about a year now at a different airline. He pretty much said the only way to do it is just jump in. It’s a trial by fire.

Yippee.

The days seem to be getting longer. I managed to go to sleep last night by 10:30. The weather in the morning was supposed to be bad (freezing rain/snow) so I set my alarm for 6:15, which would give me 45 minutes to get up and ready and then a whole hour to get to the airport. It took me about 15 minutes to scrape the ice off my car (for the first time), but the road conditions were actually ok and I managed to make the trip in about 40 minutes.

We got started with systems. Hydraulics, electrics and some others. I’m finding that not only do I have the stuff memorized (which was something I had to do almost 3 years ago in new hire training) but I can also apply the systems to bigger picture stuff. Levels of learning baby!

The systems took us us through lunch time. After a break (and a chicken fajita burrito at Chipolte) we started back up again on weight and balance. A combination of that and speed cards took us through 5pm. There were a few more sections to go over but the Director of Training stuck his head in and told everybody to go home as it was starting to ice up pretty good. The lucky 7 that were staying at the hotel dragged their bags downstairs while the two of us that are Dayton based headed outside to scrape ice off our cars (time number three for me counting the morning and lunch) and then drive off. The drive home was pretty bad until I was about half way home when the precip turned to rain.

I’ve got the weekend off now which is good. I certainly have a bunch of stuff to go over, but I’m starting to feel like I might be ready for this.

Today was a little bit more productive then yesterday. I am now starting to feel like I at least have a chance of learning what I still need to know between know and Thursday when my oral is.

Today we got started with finishing up the flight release, which took most of the morning. Ground school (here anyways) very typically gets side tracked and at one point we all thought we had ADD as we couldn’t spend more then a few minutes on topic with getting caught up with something else. At one point there were 3 different conversations going on about different things, all of which would have been useful to know. I was trying to keep up with all three, while trying to clarify something else with the guy sitting next to me. Confusing to say the least.

There is (in theory) a syllabus for the way class is supposed to work. The problem is there is a block of 24 hours (that’s three straight days) of systems. While it probably takes just about every bit of that time to go over all the systems, it would be maddening to do so. Burn out would hit after about the first day. So, to cut down on that, we are interspersing systems throughout the 5 days. It makes it a little hard to follow along, but at least I’m not going brain dead.

After finishing up the release the Vice President of the airline came in to talk with us while we had lunch (company supplied pizza). He managed to spend about an hour saying just about nothing. Unfortunately it is typical of the labor-management relationship here. The one or two questions we actually wanted answered he was unable to answer. After about an hour he left and we finished up eating.

After lunch they posted the schedules for the next few weeks. Basically we’ve got 3 more days of ground school, an oral check with an FAA inspector, 6 sim sessions, a sim checkride, a LOFT (basically a flight from start to finish in the sim) and then a Proficiency Training event in the other airplane sim. Busy busy. My class has 9 people in it, and I am actually the youngest so because there were only 4 sim slots (for 8 people total) I was pushed back until the next sim period, in mid March. People picked partners for the sim with the senior partner picking the sim time based on seniority. Fortunately for me there was actually an extra sim spot that came open with a guy who had to wait from the last class. Because he was the most senior for this round he got his first choice, and by default I ended up with the 10am to 2pm sim slot. Not too bad.

Once the schedules were taken care of we finished up the release and then moved on to systems for the afternoon. I was sort of surprised at how much I knew. I guess that’s a good thing.

Tomorrow is more systems and some weight and balance work. Assuming I make it up there as there is a big snow/ice storm going on right now.

Today was the first day of upgrade training. The schedule (as of now) is 5 days of ground with an oral exam at the end, 6 days of sim and then a sim checkride followed by a LOFT training and then a PT in what ever airplane I DON’T do the checkride in. After that I have IOE in the actual airplane. We get the schedules for the sim some time this week.

Today got off to a pretty slow start. It snowed last night and I drove up to the airport (normally a 30 minutes drive) in a white out part of the way. Despite adding 15 minutes to the drive I managed to get there before the 8 am start time. After lugging my flight case inside and upstairs I hung out in the hallway with the 8 other members of my upgrade class waiting for our classroom to be unlocked.

The class is made up of two guys from my new hire class (for a total of 3 of us), a girl from the class after us (who was awarded the class just 4 days ago), two guys from the class before us (my old roommate’s class), two guys from the class before that, and one guy who has been here for almost 4 years. The ages range from 25 up to 39 with me being the second youngest at 26.

We have 1 1/2 instructors for the class. Mario is our primary instructor and a second instructor is observing the class in preparation for being certified to teach upgrade training in addition to new hire training. Mario has been with PSA as a mechanic and instructor off an on for a while now and has several thousand hours as a flight engineer for various airlines.

We got started with handing in our licenses, medicals and passports for them to be photocopied for company records. While that was happening Mario briefly spoke about the out line for training and how stuff would progress for the next few days. We then started filling out our 8710 forms (FAA forms that have to be filled out every time you apply for a a new rating or certificate). One of the Pilot Examiners was in the training center and he stopped by to walk us through filling out the form. Basically it involved checking the right boxes and filling in the correct flight times (and ensuring that the mins were met). Fun stuff. He then spent some time talking about problems previous upgrade candidates were having (the pass rate is down to about 60% right now) and answered some questions.

After he left we headed downstairs to wait for a hotel shuttle to the remote training building to go through the doors trainer. There was also new hire pilot and flight attendant classes that had to do doors as well. All in all there were about 25 of us to get through. The doors training is a cabin mockup with 3 rows of seats, a main cabin door, a service door and 2 emergency window exits. The FAs use it as both a doors trainer and a platform to practice evac drills on. It took all of 2 minutes to pop both window exits and open and close the main cabin door. After doing the service doors and then putting on and inflating a life vest (fun with CO2 cylinders) the 9 upgrades grabbed a van back to the training center.

Once back we took a quick break and then started in on weather. Weather is confusing. By weather I mean the minimums we need in order to be able to go, and adding alternate airports that we can use in the event the weather is too low at our destination. There are several rules to apply and things to check, and it wasn’t being explained very clearly, which didn’t help. A quick note… I’ve been studying on my own for several weeks now so I had a pretty good idea of what I was doing. However, I was sort of hoping for a quick over all clarification and that really didn’t happen. The class managed to work through some of it but never really got to a definitive “this is what is is” point. Somewhat frustrated, we took a break for lunch.

4 of us headed over to Arby’s. There are only two of us in the class that are Dayton based and had cars. The other guys decided to eat at the hotel restaurant.

After lunch we started back up at 1pm with a briefing by the head of the Safety Department about the ASAP program. Basically the ASAP program allows pilots (and dispatchers and mechanics as well) to submit a report any time a non standard even occurs. The system primarily is in place as a way of self disclosing data, but also protecting those that submit a report. The FAA can not take certificate action (a bad thing) against somebody if they file an ASAP unless they knowingly or maliciously broke the regulation. We talked about the program, how it works and reviewed some sanitized data. After about an hour and a half we took a break.

After the ASAP talk we went back to working with weather. This time we were (mostly) able to get a working definition. I feel a little better now about my understanding of it, but it is still something I am going to have to review several times. After that we moved on to working with the flight release and what is on it. We got about halfway through that before our instructor had to leave for the day at 4:45 to get to a prior commitment. He left us with a 50 question test that the Directory of Flight Standards had given to the last class (as a surprise test, no open note, not working together). We worked on the test (mostly by our selves) until about 6:15 and then called it a day. I was pretty happy with how much of the test stuff I knew. There were a few I had no idea about but for the most part I at least had a clue.

I made it home by 7pm to cook dinner, type this up and then go review a couple of things from today. Then it’s bed time to get some sleep before getting back up at 6:30 tomorrow to do it all again.

Ah yes. It’s for a good cause though.

Just so you know… I hate studying.

I survived my 4 day of early mornings intact. It was actually a pretty easy trip, although the time shift did drag a bit. Yesterday was a very early start (4:30am in the van) to fly Akron to Charlotte and then back up to Dayton. We walked out of the hotel into negative 5 degree weather with gusty winds and blowing snow. Of course, I had to do the walk around of the airplane in this and managed to freeze pretty good. The nice thing was the plane had just come out of the maintenance hanger so it was already running when we got there and was warm inside.

The irony of all this is that it was my last time doing the first flight of the day walk around as a First Officer. This whole trip was a trip of “lasts” for me, although I didn’t really think about it too much until I rotated the plane off the ground into the low clouds of over Akron and realized that was the last time I would rotate a CRJ from the right seat.

(A quick aside… right now, about 45% of the guys upgrading are failing. That number is incredibly high, and nobody knows for sure why it is happening. If they fail, they get sent back to the line as an FO again and have to wait a few months before they can try to reupgrade. I certainly don’t plan on having any problems with upgrade, but then again, neither did these guys. So, it is possible I could end up back in the right seat, but that is no way to be thinking when going into upgrade training).

It was a pretty quick flight down to Charlotte and I managed an ok landing as the sun came up to the east. From there we turned north towards home, losing sight of the ground somewhere north of Beckley, WV. The captain brought the plane in for a very soft touchdown on 24L in Dayton and I ran the after landing check. We then taxied to the gate and shut it down. I think that was the slowest I’ve ever run through the shutdown checklist. After saying the final item I took a deep breath and realized, that despite the fact I am very much looking forward to upgrade, I am going to miss this seat a bit. I’ve learned so much in it, and it was my introduction to 121 flying.

Eh, onward and upward they say.

The plan yesterday was to go home, unpack, repack and then head out to Salt Lake City to go skiing with a friend who lives out there. Unfortunately he got stuck in Newark yesterday and couldn’t get home until this morning. So, sometime in the next hour I am going to head over to the airport and try to get west. The problem is right now it is freezing rain outside an the roads are a mess. Also, airplanes sometimes can’t go in freezing rain due to icing issues. I’m pretty sure I’ll get out there today, but it could be a long day. It’s worth it though to ski.

Here’s the picture of the sunrise I mentioned in the last post. There are a bunch of other pictures of for February too.