“This is the captain speaking. The left wing is not on fire. I repeat, the left wing is not on fire…
I was just riding the elevator down to the hotel lobby for a cup of coffee and ran into Roosterville, one of my friends from indoc class. Roosterville is in his fifties and has a lot on his plate: in addition to the training we’re working through, he’s got a son headed to Iraq.
As I stepped off the elevator, I saw him and we talked for a minute. He’s headed home, to Missouri, and leaving the company. He’s got a lot of family issues to deal with, and the training had him stretched way too far.
Roosterville is the first of our group to pack it up and go home. He’s good people and I hope things work out well for him. He deserves a break.
Meanwhile, we’re slogging through training. Systems class was, for me, frustrating. It is a two week ordeal, and the information was not terribly well-organized. The systems book (a three-ring folder that’s about 4 inches thick) didn’t jibe with the computer-based training (the CBT featured a simulator module, which had me excited until I realized it was an animation, not a simulation - - i.e. push this button, then push that button, then press this button as opposed to “alright, she’s all yours for the next hour. Figure out how she works and report back to me”)
The whole computer program was written by french-speakers and the narration on it wasn’t that great, either. I fired the narrator on day 4 and plugged my headphones into my ipod instead of the computer. I turned on some classical music really quiet-like and my quiz scores went up… go figure.
Now I’m half through Cockpit Procedures Training, and it’s interesting to say the least. I did get 10 minutes in the simulator last night, long enough to take off, climb out and have a Stab Trim runaway. Then.. had to let the other guys have the same failure. Then we got to see all manner of failures. This CRJ may be the most problematic airplane I’ve flown other than the Apache. Wait.. it could be that they’re the two airplanes I’ve done the most intensive training in… nah..
Anyhoo.. time to hit the books and get smart on this stuff before it bites me in the butt.