This last week was the last FULL week of Academics until we finally start flying. Monday began the 3 day string of simulator rides to demonstrate procedural competance. We flew departures, arrivals, recoveries, and a few straight-in landings to show the IP we could run in-flight checks, make radio calls, while still keeping up wtih the Aircraft. It really is a juggling act, and is very apparent how important it is to memorize certain things. The more you have memorized, the less you have to try to read while in the airplane and the more you can keep your eyes outside the aircraft. Monday afternoon was our Flying Fundamentals Exam. I wasn't sure how I would do going into the test, and about 30 minutes into it, I wasn't sure how I'd come out! I kept couting the questions I thought I might have missed, and I kept coming up with the max number of questions we were allowed to miss! To my great relief, I only missed two somehow, and I lived to fight another day.....
Tuesday and Wednesday was spent doing our Emergency Procedures simulator. I crawled in a UTD sim on Tuesday, and tried starting the aircraft, taxiing out to the imaginary runway I couldn't see (UTDs don't have video screens in front of the cockpit...only the guages work), taking off of 17L, departing to the area, and working in the area. During each of these phases, the IP would trip an emergency and expect me to apply the boldface to the problem. Overall I did pretty well and got an Excellent. However, we did the same exact type of profile on Wednesday in an IFT simulator (one WITH a video screen) and found myself fumbling around the cockpit all day long. I was moving entirely too fast because I thought I knew the procedures really well. The problem was, I DID know the procedures. I would flip switches too fast and wouldn't spend enough time ANALYZING the problem and trying to think through the steps. I was pretty iritated at myself for making dumb mistakes on Wednesday and couldn't wait until the next time we could get in a simulator and try to make up for it. BIG lesson learned: in an emergency, take a second to think about what the airplane is telling you BEFORE you apply the boldface procedures. For instance, during an engine failure on takeoff, you're supposed to wait to kill the engine until after you stop completely on the runway. I would get too far ahead of myself and shut down the engine while I was still rolling on the runway. Gotta Slow Down....
Thursday we spent the whole day in the classroom learning about weather. Our weather exam here is notorious for being the worst of them all...we don't test until this coming Wednesday, so there'll be plenty of time to study for it.
Friday we spent time continuing weather lessons, then took our Contact Exam. I got a 100% on this one thank God. The afternoon was spent on the flight line getting oriented to our new duties on top of flying. I don't have time to go into the details, but needless to say, it feels a bit overwhelming. Wish I could go into more detail with this blog right now...maybe I will be able to update it next weekend when I have more time. I have my dollar ride (first flight) this Thursday, so I'll do my best to give you some nice detail on how it goes. Plenty of studying to do...
-Chris
Psalm 18:2
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In the tweet, they say, it was taught as a first step to every EP, to "wind the clock." Apparently they had a clock that you had to wind to keep going, and doing so as first step sort of expunged the punch-i-ness out of your system so you could calm down and take things slow. Too bad the t-6 clock is digital.
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My IP told me about that! Haha, and that's exactly what he said: "Too bad the T6 clock is digital." He reminded me several times in the sim to "Wind the clock", i.e. take it slow!
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