the panties story was good. bustinmims you gave some real good info. what is the typical upgrade to the big dogs from the regional?

 

Yeah, thats pretty much every layover. Panties being flung your way by girls at the hotel, threesomes in the hot tub with your stunning flight attendant and the front desk girl and a big pile of money thrown at you each month. Its great, don't let anyone tell you otherwise

 

Im not sure what layovers your doing but i know ive missed them....

My first flight was San Juan to St Lucia. I remember sitting down in the cockpit and then all of a sudden im at the runway. I dont know how the weight and balance got done or where the clearence came from or the walk around. We got cleared for take off and i rotated into the darkness. About the time we got to acceleration altitude, i remember going IMC. Next thing I know we start getting bounced around and theres a ton of rain hitting the windshield. The captain turned on the radar and it just has RED no green or yellow just red. I thought wow less than .1 into my first 121 flight and im going to kill everyone in a thunderstorm.

 

First day was not what I expected.... I thought oh well, theyll want to do everything and have you watch and there will be alot of explaining and such. Haha, riiiight. I showed up about 15 minutes prior to showtime in hopes that the captain would also be there and we could get a head start on things. Waited and waited, finally the flight attendant shows up and we walk out to the airplane. I just talked to him while he crossed seatbelts and he was like, "can you get everything fired up its cold in here." I said, "well I dont know." He replied with, "oh ok you dont know how to do all that yet." I was like yea I do but am I supposed to? At this point that captain finally showed up like 20 minutes late and the gate agent was right behind him asking if she can could begin boarding. So ya, needless to say that first departure setup was a complete blurr. He flew first leg and we flew a GPS approach down to 700 feet. Ha, I was told in sim we would probably never fly a GPS approach, how ironic. Had a great time though and learned alot.

 

My first flight was relatively uneventful, from SLC to IDA, just like in the sim. Had an FAA inspector in the jump. No pax in back, besides the other trainee pilot and his instructor.

Of course, once I got to the airport, I had no frickin' idea where to go, what airplane we were flying, or where to meet them. After a bit of confusion, a van was sent to get me.

My first impression was that it made a lot more noise than the sim. I was pretty excited to fly up to FL240... never been that high. The instructor pilot suggested I could descend at a slow IAS, and I said heck no, I wanna do 320kt. Had to do a zero flap approach, according to the FAA person.

I exchanged the right seat with the other pilot trainee in the plane, and sat in the back on the way back to SLC.

Now, my first pax revenue flight was in SBA a week later. A 1pm departure to SLC. I showed up early to get my parking pass, and get a lay of the land. I hung out in the boarding area, looking at several pax minding their own business, and it kinda hit me. This is no game.

Met up with the IOE instructor, he gave me a briefing (but I must have missed the part about signing in on the computer). What a gorgeous place to start out, and what a short little runway !!!

I was sweating like a pig rolling down the runway at reduced thrust, with the end of the runway fast approaching. Anyhoo, my approaches to SLC and ABQ weren't text book, but the landings weren't bad. Got one upset following a B737 that kicked off the autopilot. Captain flew us back into SBA with a 25 knot crosswind at night.

Got to say hi to a controller that I hadn't seen in quite some time on the last leg. Icing on the cake of a very tiring day. Did it again the next day.

 

My first revenue flight was at nightime in a Metroliner. Once airborne we noticed the right torque was beginning to climb quite rapidly.

The engine did not respond to the power lever. In fact, the power lever had become disconnected so we had to shut the engine down.

Great first day!

 

My very first flight was CLE-MDW one cold morning. Had to deice, but one of the trucks was busted and we ended up leaving pretty late.

All in all, a whole lot of pucker factor on that first trip. IOE check airmen really do earn that override they're paid, that's for sure!

 

It's good to hear some of these stories. I just got off of IOE about a month ago, and I'm glad to hear other stories (both recent and from years past) that are similar to my own. It seems like everybody's commonality is that they are all behind the airplane. Of course, I was too.

I kind of got thrown head first into the deep end on my first OE trip. The first day was MSP, DFW, MSP, FAR. The OE captain was really awesome, and was very patient. I appreciated that the first leg was fairly long, so I had time to think ahead and talk with the captain at length on the way down to DFW. I was a little freaked out about going into DFW on my very first flight in the CRJ-900. I wasn't nearly as rusty on my callouts and profiles as I thought I was, but my ability to read and interpret the TLR was seriously lacking (never used it in the sims). The second day was almost the same sequence of airports, in reverse. Then the third day involved going into DCA, which was almost as scary as DFW for me. I was flying, and got the Mt. Vernon Visual to Rw 1, with a circle to 33. The Captain prompted me through the turn, and it wasn't nearly as big of a deal as I thought it would be. I feel like I got really lucky with the pilots I few with for IOE. I had three different Captains, and they all did things slightly different, which provided some different perspectives and techniques for me to try. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

If I had to give any advice to someone just going into IOE though, it would be that attitude and willingness to learn is everything. I knew going into it that line flying is a totally different ballgame from the sim training world, and approached it as such.

 

My first day of IOE was 8 legs in and out of SLC followed by a reduced-rest overnight and 6 legs the next day. I was so stoked those two days that I probably could have done twice as many legs and not flinched, I was running on adrenaline the whole time.

 

Please excuse me. I have not been through my flight training yet.
What do the following phrases mean?

1. "I was behind the plane"

2. IOE


Thank you.