Originally Posted by
Hawaii50
Maybe someone from the North can answer this but a buddy there told me as a new hire they paired him, and all the other new hires, up with a Capt going thorough left seat upgrade. His happened to have a bunch of time on the -9 and helped him enormously through training and company indoc. I thought that was a great idea, really for all training. Who better as a mentor than someone who's been doing the job you're training for. Nothing like that at all in my training experience. Usually two copilots trading out seats. His opinion was that the NW training dept overall was outstanding.
That only happens when it works out with captains upgrading at the same time. My guess is that most new-hire training has historically been FO's paired up (it was for me as a new hire and when recalled from furlough). It can be good and bad, as always it depends on the crew. I transitioned to the little bus and was paired with an initial captain checkout and was a great experience. I have always been amazed at the quality of the North's training dept.