Real World Heavy Commerical Training

[Guest william273]

anyone know about how pilots train for commerical airlines? what i want to know about is what goes on as far as landing practice. like how much time or how many flights do they practice for manual and auto-pilot landings. how about wind training...like crosswind, headwind and tailwind landings and plain old boring no wind good weather landings? how much time is spent in their hi-dollar commerical simulators. i know probably most is done in the simulator but how much time is spent in the real aircraft?oh yea don't forget low visibility landings. william

[FLEX1978 373]

My father fly's the real 744F in Asia. I dont get a chance to speak to him much in person as I'm based in London but I think he has the sim every six months. When he transfered from the 340 he had to fly the pax version for a while for some reason.

[Guest william273]

he'd be the one who'd know. thanks, william

[Guest joe308]

If ur talking about actual

[Guest william273]

wonder how a FO would feel if he had to wear a name tag that said "Trainee". very informative joe, thanks, william

[Mike T 208]

Long before you get behind the stick of a commercial airliner you already know about all of the things you mentioned through your training from private through commerical ratings. These concepts are not new to you and you will have done plenty of them through the minimum 1500 hours fixed wing PIC + turbine rating you WILL have before you can even apply to an airline.Once you are accepted at an airline you spend the prerequisite time in the Level D simulators for the aircraft you are being slated for. You will be trained in regular line flying, emergencies, and everything thing else you will encounter out on the line. IN short all of your time in spent in the sim until you are checkout and deemed ready to go outside.Only when you are passed in the simulator by a checkairman are you eligible for you IOE (Initial Operating Experience) flights. You will fly with a check captain or training captain in your rated aircraft out in the real world and once you receive your needed hours as PIC of that aircraft you will get your type rating (assuming that you are checked out)Only once you receive your ticket are you released into the wild as a newly minted first officer. HTH,Mike T.

[N520AT 3]

>Theseconcepts are not new to you and you will have done plenty of>them through the minimum 1500 hours fixed wing PIC + turbine>rating you WILL have before you can even apply to an airline.Not true. In the US, there have been regional airlines that have been hiring with only a commercial certificate. Granted, there have only been 2 airlines that have done that (Piedmont, which is no longer doing it and ASA..which is). Most airlines are hiring around 500 TT / 50 ME with no turbine PIC required.

[Guest william273]

hi mike, that makes sense and i should have known that. actually after i posted this thread it dawned on me that they probably worked their way up and learned all this on the way. thanks, william

[Guest william273]

interesting. thanks dan, william

[LeFreak 0]

i have a JAR CPL, and i had 230 hours total time when i got hired by our national carrier on the Avro RJ85/100 .. training was one month of groundschool to get to know the aircraft and operations, then 10 4-hour sessions in the simulator followed by a 4 hour sim-check and a 4-hour low visibility training session .. so that makes 48 hours simulator .. next was 6 touch and goes with the real aircraft, and then linetraining started with pax on board ..every six months we have 2 4-hour sessions in the sim, which include different emergencies, LO-VIS qualification (to maintain our personal CAT 3 status) and counts as a check to maintain the typeratingThe low visibility training includes LO-VIS take-offs (on the avro we are qualified for t/o with an RVR of at least 125m), we train the take-off and engine failures before and after V1, which can be challenging in lo-vis) .. for landings we train on the cat II and III minima, and with different failures which depending on the type of failure result in go-around or landing .. during initial training in the sim we trained up to x-winds of about 20 to 25 knots (the avro is limited to 35 knots x-wind) .. all the rest is done during actual line flying ..every flight and every landing is different, so even the most experienced pilot learns every day .. those who claim they don't are idiots :-)

[Guest william273]

now THAT'S the stuff i want to hear about. i'm sure those lo-vis failure landing were something else. so what sort of manuals or whatever are you studing before you practice the simulator? thanks, william

[Mike T 208]

Yes true, I assume he is talking about majors and not regionals since the title of his post is "Real World Heavy Commercial Training". Last time I checked regional airlines don't fly heavies so pointing out regional hiring practices would be irrelevent.Regionals are hiring out of ab initio training with less than 500 hours but that is to fly aircraft UP TO ERJ and CRJ class aircraft, which are actually easier to fly than turboprobs (which are being phased out at most larger regional carriers anyway). Which major carrier do you know is hiring jet pilots with 500 hours with no turbine and no PIC? I'm not speaking from speculation, I'm speaking from experience and I tell you that your resume' will get thrown in the garbage if you submit it to a major with 500 TT and no turbine PIC. Regards,Mike T.

[XWRed5 0]

Like LeFreak, I was hired straight out of Flight School onto the A319/20/21. Our low vis departures are 75m vis and full Cat IIIb no decision height autolands (the wonderjet is very clever :-)). Everything he said was spot on. Some of the guys on our course had previous turboprop experience so they didn't have to do base training (real aircraft, no pax, I did 8 touch and go's).With regards to what to read before the sim check, we read the manuals. Tech, abnormals, QRH, SOP's. Reminding yourself of the correct procedures (including mouth music) for the different types of emergency's, along with more general thoughts on how to drive the flight along.I've written a small (3 or 4 pages at the moment) Word document to remind me of the sort of thing we have to do (some of it is always the same due licensing requirements). Every time I bugger something up I write in the document so I don't make the same mistake twice. Every time I receive some kind of little gem of information/tip whatever from anyone, that goes in here too.Things are very different the other side of the pond, same result though, just a different method.Hope this helps,Ian

[XWRed5 0]

>Even newly promoted Captains>have higher minimums for a specific period of time during>their initial trips than a regular Captain. Not true at my airline, when you get the stamp saying "Route Check Passed" as a Captain, you hold all the responsibility's of a Captain, if you weren't ready for them, they wouldn't have passed your route check.If the Captain can't fly/operate the aircraft to it's limits, who can?Hope this helps,Ian

[Guest william273]

thanks Ian, this is good stuff to know. william