The sim is a great controlled learning environment but it's not a substitute for the real world. No matter how much they try and cram in the syllabus you're just not going to be a seasoned pro after 8 sims. All the sim does is make you safe enough to fly the airplane under the supervision of a check airman. Your IOE will "fill in the blanks" and cover a lot of things they don't have time to cover in training like using the radar. For now my advice would be don't pester your sim instructor with questions about things that aren't in the syllabus, worry about passing your checkride and the rest will come later. You'll have plenty of time to play with the wx radar once you get online.

 

Very sound advice, exwaterski...

Ya'll are worried way too much about things like Radar...trust me, you do not want to learn about that system in a Simulator environment - you want to be able to see and feel the stuff as you fly through what you've painted. Worry about one thing in training - passing the Checkride...IOE is for the learning part.

 

Great advice, and that is my plan. The reason I said what I said was that you always hear about these captains that complain about having to babysit, and all this talk about low time newhires who don't know what they are doing. I don't want to be thrown into that group, so I want to know as much as I can going in and "assist the PIC in his duties."

 

A good attitude will go a long way...sounds like you have that.

I think somebody may have already mentioned high-altitude aerodynamics...this gets seriously glossed over at regionals. If I had to guess why, I'd say because there are few to zero people in the training Depts. who understand the math. The military does not gloss over this, and neither do most majors as far as I know. It is something which can bite you in the butt if you don't understand it and/or don't respect it. There have been numerous high altitude stalls by RJ pilots in the last few years, all of which were caused by ignorance and/or laziness (not to mention flagship..multiple stall protection events in various phases of flight, culminating in death). BTW, major airlines don't stall many airliners Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators covers it adequately. If you're not a big math person, maybe get some help from someone who is if it doesn't make sense to you.

Also be very respectful of ice contamination, ESPECIALLY on hard-wing CRJ 100/200. There have been multiple fatal crashes of Challengers (the biz-jet version of the CRJ), and one fatal airline crash in China due to pre-takeoff contamination. There are a few cowboy CA's out there who still think they can "eyeball" it or have flown with ice in the past and therefore think they can do it again. Ice properties are variable depending on conditions...it's very hard to predict how it will behave. A clean airplane is only the ice condition where the effects are 100% certain.

 

I did take aerodynamics back in my Riddle days....years ago. So I have to admit its not all fresh, but I do remember some basic principles. And I have Aero for Navy dudes!! I used it as a reference when I was doing my CFI/II. I asked about high altitude aerodynamics in ground school, but we never really talked about it. It wasn't in the cirriculum.

 

Here's a pretty good guide (from Honeywell via SmartCockpit.com) http://www.smartcockpit.com/pdf/flightops/aircraft/0001

 

I once looked at ASA's high altitude and general aerodynamics module and it was pretty good. Of course I was told it was born out of an early RJ incident back in the late nineties.

 

Good luck. Let me know if you have any questions. PM if you want to. I served time in a training department and would be glad to answer whatever I could for you.

 

From what I gather, it seems that by making sure we simply follow whats in the POM, we shouldn't encounter any problems. For example, we are forbidden to climb in VS...we always use SPD mode. And the book states that we also shall never fly slower than 290KIAS above FL180 especially while climbing.

 

"Fly the Wing" is a really good reference book, too. It's intended audience is first-time jet pilots. Good reading with info on radar, high-altitude aerodynamics, etc. But, I'm sure you'll be fine.

Enjoy IOE, you'll feel like you're head is spinning at first, but then things slow down.