Hey All,

New to the board and really respect what you all do.

Long story short - My dad, after a mid life career change and tons of hard work, has been given a shot at his dream job at JetBlue. He is currently about 3-4 weeks in at JetBlue University and is really struggling. He is moving over from a small charter company to JetBlue. I'm looking for some words of advice, but as a teacher with no experience in aviation, I have no idea what to tell him.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated and I apologize for the lack of detail. Didn't know where else to look. Thanks!

aap

 

That's a tough spot if he's coming from small non-glass aircraft.

This is all no-brainer advice for airline folks, but if you dad was at a small charter he may not know the rules...

1) Study together... "cooperate to graduate". The lone-wolf student is most likely to flunk out. (OK I have to admit I'm a hypocrite and don't take my own advice but most folks just don't work well that way).

2) If you need help...ask for it! Some training departments are pretty brutal but most will work with you if you communicate the need. A lot of folks who fail don't communicate until it's too late.

If he's doing sim, he needs to practice profiles for many hours each day. He needs to do what the military calls "full mission profile" training, that is to do EVERYTHING exactly like he would in a real airplane, checklists, flows, callouts, instrument setup, approach briefing. I cannot over-emphasize the need to do this thoroughly and repeatedly. Along with all that also practice running EP's for the stuff you KNOW you're going to get (engine flameout and engine fire)

The conventional wisdom is to stick with the company training materials. But if he's having trouble "getting" the airbus in ground school maybe he should try to acquire some commercial training materials to possibly get a different perspective.

Hard to be much help without knowing all the specifics, but good luck.

 

Great advice from rick. As an add on, if he is having problems with the Bus, there are a number of online ECAM trainers that could help. I used one of them when I upgraded to the Bus.