Someone's going to be an airline pilot!

I was visiting my son in Austin and were were out all day and not much in the shade. HOT! So the sun went down, we were sitting on the porch having a cold one, a little breeze came up and it felt downright comfortable, and I said so. Son says, "Dad! It is still 100."

That was the only place I've been where 100 felt cool.
This is the truth. 100+ at night feels great.
 
First day in the sim yesterday. It was a "relaxed" lesson as the objective was to just get used to the feel of the airplane. We did climbs, turns, descents, steep turns, landings, and coupled and non coupled ILSs. The CRJ200 is weird because you have to drive it into the ground to land and doesn't really land like an airliner It also has a very high Vref speed and can float easily so you must nail you speed and be careful not to round out too fast or too much. Our instructor was a CAE instructor with many years of experience in the CRJ. She was a CFI, then flew Grand Canyon tours, flew for Mesa for over 15 years, and finally settled as a CAE instructor. The sims are located in the American Airlines training center (weird). We are back in the sim on Sunday and we'll be doing LOC BC, DME Arc to LOC BC, and some ILSs. We'll also be doing engine start malfunctions, high and low altitude stalls, rejected takeoffs, and two engine go arounds. It should be fun!

crjsim_zpsxejn0fgk.jpg
 
First day in the sim yesterday. It was a "relaxed" lesson as the objective was to just get used to the feel of the airplane. We did climbs, turns, descents, steep turns, landings, and coupled and non coupled ILSs. The CRJ200 is weird because you have to drive it into the ground to land and doesn't really land like an airliner It also has a very high Vref speed and can float easily so you must nail you speed and be careful not to round out too fast or too much. Our instructor was a CAE instructor with many years of experience in the CRJ. She was a CFI, then flew Grand Canyon tours, flew for Mesa for over 15 years, and finally settled as a CAE instructor. The sims are located in the American Airlines training center (weird). We are back in the sim on Sunday and we'll be doing LOC BC, DME Arc to LOC BC, and some ILSs. We'll also be doing engine start malfunctions, high and low altitude stalls, rejected takeoffs, and two engine go arounds. It should be fun!

crjsim_zpsxejn0fgk.jpg

If you "drive the airplane into the ground" you're going to have unhappy passengers and probably a broken airplane.

For what it's worth, the 200 is very easy to land, all things considered.
 
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It also has a very high Vref speed
crjsim_zpsxejn0fgk.jpg
I remember standing next to the runway at KLAR (7,200 ft elevation) and seeing a 200 land. The ground speed was incredible. It looked like it was going 200mph GS over the numbers.
 
Typical Vref was around 145 kts for the 200. Agree with KSCessna Driver, the 200 is easy to land. You just have to flare!
 
Typical Vref was around 145 kts for the 200. Agree with KSCessna Driver, the 200 is easy to land. You just have to flare!

The landing gear configuration helps a ton. Trailing link makes it hard to have a real bad landing. I know people talk crap on the 200, but I enjoy flying the thing.
 
It was fun but the 700 & 900 a lot more fun, and faster, and higher, and 2 FAs (can be bad or good lol), etc etc.
 
It was fun but the 700 & 900 a lot more fun, and faster, and higher, and 2 FAs (can be bad or good lol), etc etc.

That may be, but I don't have the SJS thing going on like so many new hires do these days at 9E. Plus, I have zero desire for 3.5-4 hours of block in a 900, doing NYC-Texas. Plus, in terms of quality of life, I'd be on reserve on the 900 in base, whereas I'm almost 50% of the way up the 200 FO list in base. And first year the pay is the same. And realistically when upgrade comes in roughly 9 months, it will be the 200.

Everyone says the 200 isn't nearly as automated as the 700/900, but when you came from a 1960's designed transport, it's a heck of a lot more automated that I was used to.
 
The landing gear configuration helps a ton. Trailing link makes it hard to have a real bad landing. I know people talk crap on the 200, but I enjoy flying the thing.

Ditto. And the real airplane is easier to land in real life than the sim.
 
I've been meaning to ask, how has opening DTW changed your trips in MSP? Less deadheading around?

Yes, fewer deadheads. It should improve overall trip efficiencies. Short term it dropped our total segments by 13% (although we shifted at least that much personnel to DTW), but we're still up 19% over same time last year so we're still scrambling to keep up with all the flying. I'm scheduled for 94 hours this month and am already almost two hours ahead of planned block.
 
Yes, fewer deadheads. It should improve overall trip efficiencies. Short term it dropped our total segments by 13% (although we shifted at least that much personnel to DTW), but we're still up 19% over same time last year so we're still scrambling to keep up with all the flying. I'm scheduled for 94 hours this month and am already almost two hours ahead of planned block.

That's what we heard it was, just a shifting of where the flying was based from, not new flying. Our growth right now is crazy
 
That's what we heard it was, just a shifting of where the flying was based from, not new flying. Our growth right now is crazy

We've been getting new flying out of both hubs every month for awhile. It just hit enough critical mass to justify a domicile there. We've got enough pilots located east of MSP threat they haven't had any problem staffing it so far. I won't miss the deadheads!
 
We've been getting new flying out of both hubs every month for awhile. It just hit enough critical mass to justify a domicile there. We've got enough pilots located east of MSP threat they haven't had any problem staffing it so far. I won't miss the deadheads!

Unfortunately our MSP guys are getting killed, but that's what happens when Delta wants a high performing operation in their most important markets, like LGA and JFK, so our flying is moving east
 
Unfortunately our MSP guys are getting killed, but that's what happens when Delta wants a high performing operation in their most important markets, like LGA and JFK, so our flying is moving east

Yeah, all four of our partners keep throwing more flying at us, despite the mainline guys talking about taking back regional flying. Not sure how exactly they'd do that in this market.
 
Today we had sim 4 which was the meat and potatoes lesson. We had cold weather ops, rejected takeoffs, engine failure in flight, single engine ILS, single engine RNAV, single engine go around, V1 cuts, CAT II approaches, etc. It was a very busy lesson. I wasn't too happy with my V1 cuts so the instructor recommended I do some more in the next lesson. We have one more sim lesson then maneuvers validation.
 
Try to look outside when you lose one and keep the nose straight. Might help some. Damn sim crashes quick doesn't it? lol
 
And if you don't have the aircraft under control (in terms of yaw) don't rotate just because they say rotate. Taking it in the air with yaw makes it way harder.
 
Try to look outside when you lose one and keep the nose straight. Might help some. Damn sim crashes quick doesn't it? lol
Yea that was part of the problem I was having. I wasn't looking outside initially and just let the nose to everywhere. I was also rotating way too quickly for some reason
 
don't know about the 200 (never flew the 200) but in the 700 you never rotate at v1 on a v1 cut. it will dutch roll on you. keep it on the ground a couple of more knots and get the yaw under control and then smoothly rotate. center the brick, which should nail the heading and then let it pick up 5 knot or so and ease it off.

bob
 
There is absolutely no hurry to rotate unless you are out of runway.
This is absolute key.... The best advice ever.
Don't care what v speeds say. Get the mass going down the centerline before you rotate. And then... Very gently.

Correct me if I'm wrong but that holds true for any sim.
No clue if it holds true for the airplane.
 
Huh??? Won't it be basically 0/0 ??
Not quite 0/0 but what is said in the above posts about tracking centerline and then lifting off is pretty much what I meant. You should have a moment to keep the nose aligned w/ the runway before going into the soup. Helps some people, was just a suggestion to try.
 
I like V1 cuts. Losing an engine in our airplane is an abnormal. Emergency doesn't happen until losing 2. I definitely agree with the others, keep the plane on the runway a few more KIAS and it shouldn't be that big of a deal.
 
Did V1 cuts again today and the instructor did a really good job in breaking them down for me. Something clicked today and I nailed them and nailed the callouts too. We did the VOR DME 22L into JFK with two engines and I got too high on short final so I went around. We got vectored around again and did a full stop. Next we did a single engine ILS into JFK (I don't remember specifically which one) into a single engine missed. It was pretty straight forward. Overall I felt a lot better with the V1 cuts and it was good to see progress after each one.
 
Did they simulate taxiing you around for an hour at JFK? ;-)

I was like number 50 something once in the evening push. By the time I was number 3 or 4 had to return for fuel. Taxied out the second time and didn't take us as long to get around for TO, but we were sequenced behind Travolta's Gulfstream going to Paris. He and the GC were bs'ing.
 
No thank god! They set us up holding short of 22L.

At least we have jetways 99% of the time in JFK on the 200. LGA, not so much. That said, personally, I'll take LGA over JFK any day, which means the next 2 days will suck, seeing as I have JFK turns.
 
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