American used to have a ground school where you had your own cubicle with A/V aides and a book. Any questions could be answered by roving instructors and a trip to the wall moving mock up. Class room was open 24/7, (Sans instructors.) I went nights because the Confederate AF was in town.

After Indoctrination and distance learned ground - going to Sims - how long? Do you get to go home, or stay in ATL the whole time?
If different for different fleets - I want to know about 765/7ER

You can positive space home any break in training 48hrs or more. ER is a little backed up so probably 4-6 weeks off after indoc. Other fleets are quicker. All subject to change.

Once you get to the training center it’s about a 30 day footprint total. Typical schedule is around 5 days on 2 days off. As previously mentioned you can go home on the 48 hr breaks. You keep your hotel room the whole time so no need to check in and out every week. Your 2 days off probably won’t fall over the weekend unless you’re really lucky. My last course I worked Sat-Wed with Thur-Fri off most weeks. Did have one 3 day break I think.

We used to have system classes for two weeks in a classroom with a former mechanic or an engineer from tech ops. Lots of information, lecture, questions answered.
Then eventually we had pretty challenging oral testing face-to-face for a couple of hours.
Pilots knew the airplanes pretty well, and carried Leatherman pliers to fix things in flight on occasion.

Pilots also complained at every opportunity that they are not supposed to build an airplane and how stupid it was to study so much, put pants on every day and waste so much time/money.


With CBT’s becoming a thing pilots kept asking for studying CBT’s at home in their pajamas on their time, with their amount of review/repeat and only then coming up on campus to take a test.

Now they complain again and keep asking for a “two week ground school class on Virginia ave” to come back.
All we need to do is complain more and hopefully we’ll enjoy it again soon.

Nobody has asked for 2 weeks on Virginia Ave.

I think folks just want to be paid fairly for their time. Seven hours of pay for a week or two of self study ain’t cuttin’ it. “Optional” material that’s pro bono is actually getting ridiculous.

What did it used to cost Delta to fly a classroom full of pilots to Atlanta for two weeks, and where have all the savings gone? I’d be surprised if many people were asking to train on “their time”…

I can only speak for the bus training but it seems to me the CBT's are just fine. I think the best comrpomise would be to add one full day to do a thorough systems recap and answer any questions people came up with during self study. I don't think class room systems are really needed when we're told what's expected of us to know for the systems test. I also appreciate getting systems out of the way and not being tested on it later so I can really focus on learning to fly the plane.

The morning of the systems test is a recap. Are you proposing we add another full day in front of that?

Personally no, I am saying for those that wish for 2 weeks of systems ground school that it would be just enough of a "compromise". I agree, that recap is more than enough.