Posts by Berck

This is disturbing. I logged on to put a fortune cookie on blog only to discover that Jonah had just done so. That’s freaky-weird.

Anyway, there’s some mad irony in this coming from a fortune cookie in a CHINESE restaurant:

Class started with one of the two people from standing bids coming in to talk to us. People from departments like this always talk about how over-worked they are, and I’m generally amazed that it actually takes two of them.

In any case, a crew’s standing bid is where he wants to be in terms of domicile, aircraft and position. You put what you want, and assuming that A) the company needs someone there and B) no one more senior than you wants whatever you want, you’ll get it. These are obviously two rather large conditions, especially coming from a guy who’s #4 from the bottom of the seniority list in the company. Actually, if you want to get technical about it, I’m not even on the seniority list yet.

In any case, it turns out that we’re eligible to bid on what domicile we want today, and it will in fact be awarded this Sunday. This is amazingly early for a new-hire pilot class, but it turns out that the bid people are about to be working on who gets to go on vacation when, and apparently this means that they need to take care of us early. This is welcome news for us– we thought we were going to have to wait forever to figure out where we’re going to be based.

So I filled out the bid form online this afternoon. It looked like this:
ORD
PHX
JFK
IAD
CLT
BNA

So that’s my dream sheet. The only other options, which I didn’t list at all, are the 4 Hawaii bases. There’s no way I’m going to get sent to Hawaii involuntarily, so I didn’t bother list it. The way it works is that if I can get my #1 choice (a likely possibility) then I will. If not, it goes down the list. There’s pretty much no way I can wind up anywhere other than ORD, JFK, or IAD, so I listed them in terms of convenience for me. Chicago’s the easiest commute for me, but I could possibly stay with Sydney in JFK, so IAD is last. If I get based somewhere that’s not ORD, and something higher up my list become available, than I can switch.

Since there’s going to be a long time before I’m actually going to have to report to any base, there’s a good possibility that I could move up in my choices before I ever have to report.

We covered the warning system and the AC electrical system today. There’s simply an astonishing amount of information one must memorize in order to fly a jet. I pointed out to Sydney that while one can fly a jet open-book, it’s often difficult to find the answer before you die. Thus the memorization. Unfortunately, there’s all sorts of things I’m being required to memorize that I could certainly look up if I really needed to know.

We watched a video on EGPWS (pronounced eee-jip-whiss by pilots who love to pronounce acronyms), which is the fancy system installed on our jets to try to keep us from flying into mountains. I was having a hard time staying awake and would start to nod off when the video would play the warning messages. “TERRAIN! TERRAIN! PULL UP!” Sounds like that will give you a bad dream.

So, there are 10 types of aural warnings on this jet. Because the names are so funny, I thought I’d type out the kinds of warnings verbatim:

• Warbler — Stall
• Siren — Wind shear
• Whoop – Whoop — GPWS mode 1 or 2
• Fire Bell — Fire warnings
• Voice — Voice aural warnings
• Clacker — Overspeed or excessive stab trim
• Horn — Gear not down
• Cavalry Charge — Autopilot Disconnect
• Warning (Triple Chime) — Warning tone that precedes an aircraft system voice advisory.
• C-chord — Altitude alert

And then there’s the AC electrical. It’s complicated, with 4 different generators, 6 different buses and all the cross-ties and auto-switching. 115 volt, 400hz, 3-phase. I wonder why 400hz 3-phase was chosen– that just seems like complicated overkill. I’m sure there’s a good reason, but unfortunately my biggest complaint about my enormous systems book is that it’s not detailed enough.

And the DC system for tomorrow… woohoo!

We’ve slowly been making progress. We’ve been through the walk-around three times now, I think I’m going to scream if we do it again today. Course, when you consider that they teach us to preflight the plane by showing us a powerpoint presentation…

For those of you that keep asking me about the overall scheme of things, here goes:

• Basic Indoctrination (I finished that last week by passing the test)
• Systems (This is what I’m doing now, and will finish at the end of the month)
• Then I’ve probably got a break. The class that finishes this Friday has been told to expect a 6-8 week break.
• Cockpit Systems Integration (This is where we sit in front of cockpit posters and they tell us which buttons to push when)
• Oral Exam
• Another break, this one possibly longer in the order of a few months.
• Simulators

6 simulator training sessions

Proficiency Check (If I pass, I get a Second-in-Command type rating for a CL-65)

Line Oriented Flight Training (This is where I get a flight in the simulator to give me an idea of what it’s like to fly the jet on a normal flight with both engines, nothing on fire, no thrust reversers deployed, the cabin properly pressurized, etc)

• IOE (Initial Operating Experience– this is where I’ll get to fly a real jet! With real passengers! I’ll have to do my first 25 hours in the plane with a specially qualified Captain who, in addition to doing everything else, is going to be evaluating me to make sure I’m capable of doing what I’m supposed to be able to do. If I pass, I’ll be out on the line on reserve somewhere. Woohoo.

We got our wings yesterday. A rather unexciting ceremony of the uniform lady passing them out. We were reflecting that it would have been nice to be presented them formal-like after we got through training. Oh well. We can return them formal-like when we wash out, I guess:)

So, I’ve got a test Friday the 26th on limitations. It’s a 100 question rote memory type thing. Boring, but at least it’s about the airplane!

Class is back to the early shift, starting at 6:30am today. I went to bed at 9pm and slept soundly until 2am when someone was yelling outside. It’s times like these that it’s a good thing I don’t own a firearm. It took me a couple hours to get back to sleep.

Our systems instructor was unable to get to work today (it seems that he’s stuck on the east coast), so one of the training supervisors who talked to us last Monday gave us some books (see below) and spent the rest of the class period going through a pre-flight walk around. Yes, he spent 6 hours talking about it and showing us slides.

Things start in earnest tomorrow, I think. Our instructor today managed to drive me absolutely crazy by pronouncing the final t in the word pitot. Seriously.

Lunch is at 10am, at which point the “Burrito Express”, otherwise known as the “Taco Wagon”, or more affectionately, the “Roach Coach”, pulls up outside the building. It appears to be a bad/authentic Mexican restaurant inside a bus, with a proprietor that leans out the side in order to peddle some theoretically edible goods. I purchased a Mexican coke, and received a John Adams dollar in change. I didn’t know such a thing existed– it looks like even more of a disaster than the other previous dollar coins, being roughly the same size and weight as a quarter and only slightly golden colored. The cool feather is the pound-sterling-esque lettering on the side. (Took me a long time to find the mint date)

I’d planned to read through the CFM before class tomorrow, but that’s probably not even possible if I weren’t to sleep. And we got a systems manual as well, which is also the same size. Flying a plane involves a ton of paper.

We also got our seniority numbers. I’m currently the 4th least senior pilot in the company!