How's the AQP turning out?

I totally agree with the ^^^^ toughest training. Do not forgoe the self study.

With more than 30 years in the industry, I can honestly say that the words "toughest in the industry" and "worst in the industry" are synonymous. There is absolutely no reason that a sim session should ever "sh1t the bed". That is poor instruction. Each session should build on the last, and if you "sh1t the bed", then your instructor screwed up and pushed you further than you were ready for.

If you are putting forth effort and studying, but ever feel like you are going to fail out, the program is screwed up. It should be a building environment, not an environment that tears you down.

If you are a screw up and don't study, the instructors should recognize that very quickly and kick you out, long before you ever "sh1t the bed". It should never come to that. That is a sign of lack of experience as an instructor or a **** poor instructor to begin with.

Right on the money! Be very careful if you decide to upgrade with minimum time. Training department made it very clear "We need pilots, we need captains but NO ONE will be given a pass to take themselves out along with 50 people." I would wait at least until I have a summer and a winter under my belt. Learn as much as you can as an FO then If you feel comfortable telling Dispatch you don't feel comfortable with the weather you rather wait or to cancel the flight and not be intimidated to launch into a level 5 thunderstorm with tornado warnings then you will be ok. 90 percent of upgrade is common sense and knowing your Aircraft, the other 10 is paperwork. Good Luck to all.

EXACTLY! Making something tough just for the sake of making it tough, doesn't necessarily mean making it good.

I start training in Jaunary. I am just about finished up with the take home tests. Seems to be a huge amount of information just dropped in your lap with really no direction. I understand I will not be spoon fed information but any pointers before training would be great. Thanks.

I'll admit both my initial and upgrade training were challenging...for different reasons. Don't be scared off by some online drum beaters, some of whom don't work here. My advice is to have solid non-glass cockpit instrument procedures knowledge and skills, know your limitations and immediate action items (there are quite a few) and normal and abnormal callouts cold EARLY. The CQ guide is a good study tool to keep you fresh on systems questions and limitations. Chapters 7 and 9 in the POH are your new best friends, along with the Non-Normal Checklist. Read them until you are sick of them...then read them some more. I also recommend the expanded normal checklist in the POH as it dissects the checklist and brings in all the elements. Feel free to PM me with questions!

Look for ALB, RIC, RDU, GSO, MDT, and of course PHL. They are starting here beginning of Jan.

Yeah that's kinda the idea behind the take home tests just to get you flipping through the manuals. Some of those questions are gawd awful too if I remember. Just do your best and when you get to the hotel the first day go over them with your other classmates, then once training starts they'll start spoon feeding you what that junk actually means. For all those whining about how bad the training department it's a lot better than it used to be (except for the ground instructors some of them are much worse now than what we had but they're also new), still difficult but as a captain I appreciate having competent fos, this is a busy airplane and we fly in the complex and weather ridden northeast so people need to keep up. No time to waste on guys that don't have basic steam gauge and instrument skills.

PM me if you have any questions, have fun in training it's a good time.

Thank you guys for the advice! Much appreciated. Any idea when the new holdover time plates will be up? I've taken the 2014-2015 Winter Ops Test but the new Winter Ops Test is up with no new data.