Ugh. Why would they drag 60 days of training out to 90 days and meanwhile not try to enable people to go home as often as possible?


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Every time I tried to get the ok from the schedulers to go home, they changed my schedule where I couldn’t go home. There is no apparent rhyme or reason to how they schedule. You may have 5 or 6 straight days on, then 1 off, and back into a string of in days. I had 3 consecutive days of 0400 sims. 1 day off, then an 0800 sim, back to 0400 sim. Ball buster. Some guys had almost 2 wks off. I was very happy to leave MIA.


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Your best bet is to bring the car down and have your family visit. The only time I saw folks get to go home was over Christmas when didn’t have any training going for a few days. I didn’t bother going home, I just stayed and took it easy.

Yeah, training will be a lot and schedules changes so often. It is almost more stressful just to travel home then it is to stay. Bring the car and try to enjoy Miami.

I had my truck and it was my sanity. I got out everyday to get away from the hotel and the trng ctr. There were times when I could have gone home, but I didn’t have that warm fuzzy feeling that the schedule wouldn’t change. My family came down for a week, which was awesome. I am just not a MIA fan. Love the weather but it is definitely like being in another country.

Trng is what you make it. The guys in my class were awesome. We hung out together, grilled after every big milestone, and kept each other motivated. It was a long 93 days, but we all made it thru and we’re glad it was over. We all stay in contact thru group text.


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Covid, sim availability, training capacity, and training footprint.

Im planning on driving down, and I have friends in the FLL area, plus my wife is coming down for a weekend or two. Looks like my class will extend over thanksgiving and Christmas, so at least I’ll be home twice. I’m not asking cause I cannot be away from home for that long, but if I have a chunk of time off I’d rather go home and pet the cat for a few days vs hang out in Miami. I hate Miami with the fire of 1000 suns.

Someone asked what airplane I’m in, and the answer is 767.

Years ago the training footprint was 70-72 days. Then they started adding things.. A manual handling sim session, because people couldn’t hand fly and it was causing problems. A landing sim session, because people were bending aircraft at an alarming rate just from bad landing techniques. A upset recovery sim session, because the FAA mandated it. I’ve heard there is another sim session or two in addition to these that have been added.

It used to be after type ride you just did a LOFT and CAT II/III, and a 2 day LQT class. There’s a ton more added on now to attempt to make up for the decrease in experience levels coming in the door. At one time, it was rare for anybody to get hired here without significant heavy time. That’s definitely not the case anymore. A while back I flew with somebody right off of OE that had zero turbine experience prior to coming here and had been flying a grand total of 3.5 years from first flight. The training here didn’t evolve to meet that change in experience until it started causing problems…and I still don’t think they’ve gotten there.

If you don’t already have a toll tag that works in Florida, get a Sunpass when you get there. A lot of the roads are toll and are by toll tag or “pay by plate” where they just bill you later. I’ve heard of people driving cars not registered in Florida having problems with the billing part and end up with a suspended license in their home state because Florida reports it as unpaid tolls. The Sunpass is easier and cheaper.

https://www.sunpass.com/en/about/whe...eSunPass.shtml

I really thought that first sim hand flying was a good way to get comfortable with flying the plane and landing it and not worrying about your flight director. I came from a regional and getting to feel the power of a lightweight 767 was a good intro I thought.

I’m a huge proponent of manual handling training and I always have been. Atlas only added it because there were problems on the line with pilots not being able to hand fly in the simplest situations. I don’t think it needs to be an extra sim session, though…it should be integrated into the training program. Too many people I see in the sim just want to get the autopilot on as quickly as possible and turn it off as late as possible…a lot in the airplane too.

At Atlas…we train for the check ride, not to proficiency/competency.