Originally Posted by
Crawl
Well if I was going to get my ATP, I would do it in an aircraft that I am familiar with, and my performance would be much better... I know how to read a SID/DP, enter a hold, and fly an approach. That wasn't my problem. Just a half hour in the sim prior to the evaluation to get a feel for it, and I probably would have done a lot better. I'm not losing sleep over it.
I've also heard of a lot of airline guys coming back to fly a C172 after a few years and being in sort of the same situation... and I don't think it's because they are a bad pilot, they just aren't used to the aircraft...
I agree that it would be better to gt your ATP in an aircraft that you are used to flying, but unfortunately that isn't always an option and you are still expected to perfrom.
I got mine in a light twin, the likes of which I hadn't flown in nearly 20 years.
Many of my peers get their ATPs in the 737 sim (going through Higher Power usually) when they have never flown a large aircraft or worked with a co-pilot.
Sometimes we just have to adapt and overcome and hopefully it works out for us - sometimes it doesn't and we press on. It sounds like you are definitely pushing forward and that is good news.
I agree with the time to get use to the 'feel' of a sim. They can certainly be tricky to fly. I remember quite a few peers of mine failing the 'computer graded sim' is the DC-10 (I think it was - I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong) that United used in the mid 90's. I know they were good pilots and would excell in training, but the computer didn't think they did well enough so they moved on to different carriers and most have had successful careers.
USMCFLYR