JetRage

Dominican,

Thank you for the quick reply. I appreciate the effort you put into your posts on this forum.

Let me ask you this. How is training? I was warned by fellow pilot at my current employer that the physical was difficult to pass and that I would have to know everything to get through training.

I can buckle down and hit the books pretty hard for indoc. But I will say that if theyre expecting astronaut level dedication It probably is not gonna be the place for me. Can an ordinary pilot succeed there?

I have a 4 year degree and about 500 hours on the 767. Lots of turbine time but low on PIC.

The Dominican

The medical is the only variant that is out of your control and it is indeed a NASA style medical with stress test and such...., the only thing I can tell you about it is to make sure your BMI is 30 or below and try to cut down on alcohol, sugar, salt for a couple of weeks before the medical, drink a lot of water and just go take it..., nothing else you can do about it really.

Training? Well...., maybe some of my colleagues can chime in about their experience with it but I personally don't think it is that difficult, different for sure, long, repetitive with tons of redundant stuff that is so important that you won't ever see it nor need it on the line..., like how many blinking red lights are needed on a building that is 20 floors high..., or the fact that the ILS has a Yoyogui style antenna. You know, that really important stuff that you will never, ever come across it again....., Or the setting up of the NDB approach on the FMS where you have to learn to make the inbound course with the two discontinuities before and after, just to realize that we don't do that on the line
The important thing to remember with this training is that your priority has to be the SOP's, Calls & Procedures..., we have a plethora of calls! You MUST not miss calls! I can't stress that enough, if you are not holding your altitude within 100 feet and your speed is off by 10 or 15 knots don't worry too much about it, they will give you tones of SIM sessions to get your flying under control and I do mean tones of sessions, so they won't look at your flying too much at the beginning but if you are not making those calls by SIM 3 or 4, they will start to think that you are having trouble with "The ANA Way" yeah you will need to study but they will give you good guidance into what to study, so it isn't that tough if you adjust to the style of training...., the important thing at the beginning will be to do a lot of chair flying with your partner on the CPT and get those calls and SOP's ironed out quickly, the rest is fairly smooth.

Ordinary pilot...., Well, that be me! And to be honest I don't see anyone here that would be extraordinary so, sure! We have a very good group of guys & gals and most everyone flies the thing like we are trained, and we do have our 5% like every other pilot group.

myoface

Lots of sim sessions is right. Lots of instructors is also (or at least was) the name of the game...hopefully they have changed that. Anyway, each instructor gave you their version of the call outs. Then the next instructor would wonder why you were making those call outs, and give you his version.

Good luck, your head will be spinning as you walk out of the training center most days.

BeepBeep

So naturally bigger guys like myself probably need not apply then? I haven't been under 30 BMI since I was 18

The Dominican

Not impossible but with a BMI above 30 you will have additional medical scrutiny, if you are perfectly healthy otherwise it should be ok but if in top of being a little heavy you have high blood sugar or blood pressure for example, it's unlikely that you will pass the initial medical.

zondaracer

For an initial class 1 medical in Japan, do you go to a central medical facility or is it like the US where you just go to an AME?

The Dominican

Since the company pays for it, they will send you to one of the clinics that they have a contract with.

JetRage

Do the Japanese Doctors get access to your US Medical records? Will they care how many times you got dropped on your head as a kid?

The Dominican

No... Your japanese ATPL will have nothing to do with any other license you may have except for the purpose of validation under ICAO agreement. The medical will be based on the tests done in japan and nothing else. But that is hard enough

EMBforlife

Long time lurker, but read these forums often. I have a few question for anyone who lives in Japan working for Air Japan and would appreciate a PM. Thanks