It's good to hear some of these stories. I just got off of IOE about a month ago, and I'm glad to hear other stories (both recent and from years past) that are similar to my own. It seems like everybody's commonality is that they are all behind the airplane. Of course, I was too.

I kind of got thrown head first into the deep end on my first OE trip. The first day was MSP, DFW, MSP, FAR. The OE captain was really awesome, and was very patient. I appreciated that the first leg was fairly long, so I had time to think ahead and talk with the captain at length on the way down to DFW. I was a little freaked out about going into DFW on my very first flight in the CRJ-900. I wasn't nearly as rusty on my callouts and profiles as I thought I was, but my ability to read and interpret the TLR was seriously lacking (never used it in the sims). The second day was almost the same sequence of airports, in reverse. Then the third day involved going into DCA, which was almost as scary as DFW for me. I was flying, and got the Mt. Vernon Visual to Rw 1, with a circle to 33. The Captain prompted me through the turn, and it wasn't nearly as big of a deal as I thought it would be. I feel like I got really lucky with the pilots I few with for IOE. I had three different Captains, and they all did things slightly different, which provided some different perspectives and techniques for me to try. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

If I had to give any advice to someone just going into IOE though, it would be that attitude and willingness to learn is everything. I knew going into it that line flying is a totally different ballgame from the sim training world, and approached it as such.