One year as a Nuggett, what I learned
Well guy’s, I just hit the one year anniversary and thought I’d try to spark some conversation and maybe a few lessons learned from the other Nuggets. Having come with what some might say was the minimum qualifications in the “heavy, glass, international” experience, some of this may be obvious to a lot of you. However, I think someone who does the RJ/military to 727SO to MD-11 could benefit from some of this conversation. Here are a few lessons I can recall off the top of my cranium.
The ops section at ANC is on the second floor. Yea I’m kind of kidding here, but the first time I saw ANC was heading out for an RFO trip to Hong Kong with the taxi ride to Shenzen. Be sure to ask a lot of questions about stuff other than flying while in IOE.
There is no checkout program for an RFO. See above. I almost lost $100 getting to Shenzen. Every trip has it’s quirks. If you don’t know exactly how the process is going to work, ask someone senior. Everything at FedEx is scripted out but they will not tell you the script unless you ask.
The Sim in Long Beach sux. In my opinion this thing barely meets the qualifications to serve as a trainer for landing. It would better be served as a procedural trainer. So, if you have lots of heavy time and basically only need the procedural training, you would probably not have much trouble. However, if you don’t have a lot of heavy time and need a good sim to learn the difference between fast movers and heavies, this thing could be problematic. Think twice about going there, if you have a choice. I say this after flying the real thing, the sim in Memphis and ANC. I’m sure others will disagree.
If someone comes up to you and says they would like to practice their English, you are about to be taken. Saw this one in Asia and Europe. Cost me a lot in both places. You would think I would learn.
When shopping, the price you pay should be around 1/5 of what their opening price was. I know others are better at this than me, with my limited experience, so feel free to correct/instruct.
If a girl asks you to buy her a drink. Be advised you are about to buy a drink for every girl and non-English speaking person in the room. When the cops show up you will not win the argument.
Never start a tab at a bar with more than 5 people in it. See above.
The MD-11 has big wings. This becomes noticeable when you enter ground effect. From my aero class I believe this is around 1 1/2 – 2 time your wingspan. Why is this important? You will notice your aimpoint shift or the jet kind of start to float around 200 ft. If you’re on your game you, will correct—no problems. But if you’re tired, in the middle of the night, you may adjust a little late. Now you have a faster than normal sink rate coming over the overrun, just as the auto-throttles pull the power. It’s always better to ahead of the jet than behind it.
If the auto-pilot isn’t doing what you want, punch it off. I know this sounds obvious but I thought these auto-pilots were better than they are, (I’m sure it was operator error). Four times flying the line and twice on checkrides I had to punch the thing off because I couldn’t figure out why it was doing what it was doing. Hand flying is so much easier sometimes.
Flame away, but remember this is only meant as a “hangar fly” thread. Lets hear some of the other lessons learned
Last edited by Nugget#69; 08-05-2007 at 09:23 PM.