OK, last night I was able to read the whole article when I first saw it on Yahoo! Finance. Now all I see is a couple of paragraphs and no access to the entire article any longer.

Now, as a CAL pilot, I will comment. The article mostly deals with the 777. However, as indicated above, the company would like to expand some of the annual recurrent training to the use of FTDs for other aircraft. Last year the FAA approved CAL to do a test group of 737 pilots in the new -800 FTD with visuals for the LOE (LOFT) portion of the annual training.

I happened to be one of the pilots who had this on my schedule. Think these were randomly assigned based up on availability of slots. The first day was the standard full motion simulator with evaluation of critical maneuvers (RNAV RNP, CATIII, autoland, reduced visibility takeoffs, V1 cuts, SE approaches, etc.).

The second day we used the -800 visual FTD for the LOE. I will say that, yes, it was different to get in there. However, for the scenario given this past year, I found the FTD to be sufficient in what needed to be accomplished and evaluated. Was it strange not having the motion? Initially, sure. However, there was nothing during this particular scenario I feel would have been enhanced by having motion available. That is my opinion, of course.

I do think there is either a misconception or misrepresentation or whatever you want to call it when reading the article. It is made to sound as though all sorts of critical maneuvers are being conducted in the FTD.

Now, under a different yearly LOE scenario, would a full-motion simulator make more sense? Absolutely. Would it be great if every session was conducted in a full-motion simulator? Of course it would! I'm just a 737 pilot who has only done one of these. A 777 guy could probably give more insight since they do this regularly.

I do understand the UAL side's concern and even can agree with most of what their position is. However, I am curious if any of the UAL union representatives have gone to the CAL training center to see these sessions "in action" so-to-speak to get a thorough understanding of the process.

I don't believe that pilots doing an LOE in an FTD makes them less qualified to fly the line. I do agree that the company does view training as a cost that they want to bring down, but I don't see every solution or idea as necessarily anti-safety. I'm in the middle on this. I'm probably split 55%-45% in favor of always using a full-motion simulator for these training events, but as I said above that really is based on only one experience under one scenario. Given another scenario I might say 100% definite that we should be using only full-motion simulators.