Well on Sunday I arrived into Orlando at about 1130am, the van was not scheduled to pick us up until 430pm. The drive from Orlando to Flight Safety is about an hour and 30 minutes, so they dont want to have seperate transportation for everyone. I checked out the aiport, which is more like a very nice american mall, got some food and just hung out. At about 2:30 I went to the meeting point of the shuttle and just sat down. A few minutes later a person walked up to me and asked if I was with Eagle. I replied yes, and he said he was too, and that there where other guys upstairs. He then mentioned after hearing my name that he had read my blog.
4 Hours later we arrived at Flight Safety. We where supposed to have 8 guys ride with us, but due to some confusion only 6 made it at the time. Once arriving we stepped out and a guy smoking outside asks if we are with Eagle. He then says that he justs finished the 3 week course and tells us all about it. He says that you basically have flows and crew management to study the first few days, then you hop into the seminole for 6 hours of pilot flying and 6 hour non-pilot flying. You then go over systems and flow for the Erj145 and then you get your Erj145 sim time. We where then greeted by Shane Johnson, the guy in charge of the RJO program. He had heard the other student explaining the program to us and said it was going to be different for us. Apparently Eagle called up Flight Safety and said “Hey, these are the current problems we are having with guys… so work on this stuff.” That new stuff is instrument skills, apparently new hires are having difficulty flying STARS, SIDS, and non-precision approaches. Shane then hands us our keys, and then shows us the class room which we will meet in the next day and then walks us into the dormitory. The dorm rooms are not bad. Its 2 persons to a room. The rooms include 2 desks, a TV with cable, microwave, fridge, toaster and restrooms in each room. Washer and dryer are free as well.
The next 2 days comprised of 16 hours of ground school. The instructors mentioned that they where just winging it because the program had changed at very short notice and that they weren’t sure what exactly to cover. They said this was supposed to be the new order of things: 2 days of Jepp Charts. 2 seminole frasca sessions 2 hours a piece. 6 hours of seminole time, 3 days long, 2 hour flights each. Then we have ground school for 3 days and talk about the navigational systems on the Erj145. Then we have an Erj 145 cockpit procedures lesson. Then 4 sim sessions, 4 hours each, 2 hours pilot flying and 2 hours non-pilot flying. We are actually scheduled to finish before the 3 weeks finish.
You can tell that the instructors are confused on how to throw us into an Embraer full motion sim without ever going over systems with us. Apparently the last classes where able to do V1 cuts, stalls, steep turns as well as instrument procedures. We will NOT be doing any of this, we will be strictly doing instrument procedures in the sim. Im a little disappointed as I really wanted to do a few V1 cuts before heading to Dallas, but oh well.
So far the instructors are awesome. We have been dealing with the older guys who don’t actually seem to fly for Fly Safety anymore. One guy mentioned not having a medical anymore, another guy is a retired 20 year captain with ASA and another guy flys a caravan for fedex feeder. He has been doing that for 15 years.
Anyway, I will update a little more after a few more days.
Posted by v1valarob / Eagle Transition Course - Flight Safety