Progress Report

Just a short post this time to report on the status of 767 training.

Ground school is conducted with just two pilots and an instructor. My partner is a freshly recalled former TWA pilot. (AA purchased TWA back in 2001). He has been on furlough from AA for 6 years. He is happy to be back but also quite worried that he may be getting a furlough notice before too long due to the state of affairs at AA right now.

But so far so good. The first two weeks were devoted to ground school every day with our instructor and then several hours of computer based training at our own pace. That pace needed to be somewhat rapid since there's a lot to learn.

After the two weeks, we had to pass a computer based systems evaluation test. We no longer have to take oral exams...it's all computerized now. We both managed to pass that without too much difficulty!
After that it was goodbye to our ground school instructor and on to simulator training with a simulator instructor. That lasted one week. The first couple of simulator periods were dedicated to normal procedures and duties but by day three day we were subjected to almost any kind of emergency imaginable and were expected to deal with it appropriately. Wind shear, engine fires, hydraulic failures, electrical failures, flap/slat problems, terrain warnings, dual engine failures, and even bitchy flight attendants were among the many issues thrown at us!

We were also expected to learn the nuances of the very advanced (as compared to the MD-80) flight management system on the 757 and 767.
After every sim period my partner and I were completely worn out and had massive headaches!So now comes the last week of sim training with a different instructor and then finally we'll have a maneuvers evaluation period followed by a final check flight with a designated examiner. Hope it all goes well.

I have my Tylenol ready for this upcoming week.

Stay tuned.



For a look at some more of my photos, please aviate over to Plane & Simple.