The First Time a Pilot Flies a 737 is with Passengers

You can get your type rating in a simulator. Been that way for a long time. Simulator training can be very thorough, and extremely exhausting, because you can reset anytime without having to fly to the start point. Flying the actual plane will be a non-event. Of course in a real emergency in a real airplane the pucker factor is infinitely higher since there is no reset switch.

 

An old friend who is retired now was an ATP for many years flying airliners. I guess I was surprised too how seldom and for a very narrow range of reasons airliners are flown empty. He was mostly a cargo pilot, he liked that a lot better than passenger service. He switched while I knew him from 737 to 747. As was said several days in a Sim and he was in a 47 flying Jeeps to Dubai, China and Anchorage.

He was rated as an engineer and pilot so they really like having him on long hauls to make crewing an earlier 47 easier.

 

That is really old news. I believe that has been going on since the 1980s. My first actual flight in the Falcon 50, neither the other pilot nor I had been in the actual airplane before. We didn't have any passengers, but still... my second flight, we did have passengers.

 

The sim part of training is intense. I just finished a check where I had dual PFD failures with a simultaneous engine fire as I went missed on an IMC ILS; I was busy perhaps my FO even more so as I commanded this and that. Aviate (fly the damn jet first), Navigate and then Communicate.

The sim is realistic to the details of the proprioceptive feel of the divots in a taxiway. The sim affords emergencies in adverse conditions which, I believe, some don’t understand.

However…I vividly recall my first time disengaging the autopilot, with passengers, on a STAR into PDX…I told myself, “This is just an airplane and you’re a pilot.”

Seeing children board the jet made it truly real.

 

Brian- Good news is Austin, TX area is not real high on the strategic targets list and where you are moving even less so.

 

Hey, if some idiot starts turning keys and pushing buttons I hope he puts the first one on my head.

The aftermath will be far too big a mess.

 

Brian- Good news is none of us are slinging the old multi-megaton city killers anymore. Will not be as bad as the science fiction books and movies make it.

Not that I am a volunteer to try it. Will definitely be glad for the Reaper MkII if things really go to pot.

 

All very true. I am probably more concerned about civil unrest. Remember the panic from a toilet paper shortage? Jeeze people for the most part are going to go off the deep end. Yes your Reaper will be mighty handy as will my M14 in concert with my Distinguished Rifle and Hiigh Master badges.

 

American paid for my first commercial flight on an airliner to go to Dallas to interview about becoming a pilot with them.

 

Whoa