Done!
Last night the bulk of my
training was finally completed when I passed my simulator proficiency
checkride. That makes me an official
pilot for Continental Express, and as of right now I am finally earning a
paycheck.
It feels good. It was a stressful event – two months of
training had to culminate in a single two-hour flight aboard the EMB-145
simulator. To ATP (airline transport
pilot) standards, I had to demonstrate stalls, steep turns, four instrument
approaches (one with an engine flameout), a rejected takeoff, and an engine
failure during takeoff (V1-cut). And of
course, a couple of landings.
When I look back on when I
first saw the cockpit of this airplane a few weeks ago, I have a hard time
believing I am actually qualified to fly it.
In fact, I’m even sort of comfortable flying it. The training here has been very good. My instructor was very tough on me and did
not tolerate any errors, which is probably why I was successful yesterday. It may not sound like much, but it’s pretty
amazing that a person can be trained to go from flying a Cessna 402 to a jet in
such a short amount of time, and I have to credit our training department for
making it happen.
Of course, I still haven’t
flown the actual airplane! But the
simulator is actually more difficult to fly and less forgiving so the airplane
itself shouldn’t be much of a change.
The training department informed me that my two-day aircraft training
period will occur sometime in October, which is pretty much as I
suspected. So until then, I will just
enjoy my paid vacation and try not to forget too much of what I have
learned. Initial operating experience
will come shortly after aircraft training.
Then I will begin flying for real on reserve duty.
The funny thing is, if my
class date hadn’t been bumped up shortly after I was hired, I would just be
leaving for Houston today to begin class for the EMB-120 Brasilia. I must say, I am thrilled things worked out
the way they did.
I’m tired now. I’m on my way home as I write this and
unfortunately have little time to relax since we must have everything ready for
the movers by Tuesday. But I’m still
very happy to be returning to our home (or what’s left of it.) We’ll hang around in Portland for a while
until Stephanie finishes up her job then it’s off to our new home. My visit to Cleveland last weekend was good
– the city left me with a better impression than I expected and I found an
apartment for us to move into when we get there. It is in a suburb of Cleveland called Parma Heights, which is 20
minutes from downtown and 15 minutes from the airport so it should be a pretty
good location. The apartment itself is
large and brand-new so hopefully it won’t feel like too much of a step down
from our house in Sherwood. And of
course, the advantage of renting a place is that if we don’t like it, we can
just pick up our things and move somewhere else in a year. Cleveland rocks!
This will may be my last
report for a little while unless events occur over the next month that warrant
writing one. Time to rest.