Here’s a pic of the simulator on the outside and another with me at the controls. I’m still chasing the plane a little bit, but things are slowly coming together. Kevin reminded me that we are in a transition course and not the actual MD90 ground lab. We have a lot more to go over tomorrow, but I’m sure that everything will come into place.

I executed the Freedom Visual 9L into Philadelphia and had an engine fire prior to V1 departing on 27L. They were both pretty awesome, but the first engine out as FO was quite a shocker. When they said that you would just sit there and not do anything at first, I didn’t realize that I was doing just that. That engine out siren is really loud and making an announcement for the passengers to standby, etc, its crazy! This pic is before I started breaking into a sweat trying to get everything straight.

We got some flight director experience today and did a stall too. I’m loving the jet!

Check out trelijah for a quick update. –> click the phone!

First official student flight in the MD90 in CAPT 511. I did the River Visual into Reagan which ended pretty well. Flying wasn’t that bad with Kevin and Rick doing all the landing checklist items and such, but the actual touchdown included a good balloon and rough touchdown / bounce. No red screen, but definitely not comfortable. I can’t wait till tomorrow!

My flight partner during the first of many late night briefings in the SIM room!

LOFTS: LOFTS stand for (line-oriented flight training) and over the last few days, Kurt, Manoj, Ryan and I have been just flying all over the state of Florida trying to gain some experience and build up hours with the ones that CAPT has allotted us. From Pensacola to Tamiami (twice) I’ve burned off quite a bit. It’s definitely been lots of fun. On the way to Pensacola with about 1.5 hours left enroute, I decided that we not divert for a bathroom break at Tallahasse. It was not a wise choice. I ended up enduring some of the worse lower-abdomen pain in my life. I broke into a cold sweat about 10 mins. prior to touchdown. I was just hurting. Finally running to the bathroom at Pensacola Aviation, I relieved myself and still was feeling some pain. Don’t think that I didn’t use the restroom prior to leaving but I did two times. I didn’t even drink anything in between. It was a good lesson. The weekend prior we diverted for a restroom break and that worked out well to Charleston, SC. I have learned well!

While Ryan and I were at Tamiami, we encountered two pilots who also wanted to grab a quick bite to eat and we all ended up going to a place called Kegs. It was almost like High Jackers but they did have a good selection of food. I had a Gyro (it was alright) and we just chatted away. One of the individuals was the assitant cheif pilot for Flight Safety in Vero Beach. So of course, he asked us quite a few questions about the program and we just compared back and forth. The other gentleman was a flight photographer, and he had a lot of stories to tell. Yesterday, on the way home from Tamiami, we got vectored right over Miami International and that was a site! THere was also some good actual instrument along the way and surprisingly it wasn’t that bumpy at all!

CAPT 511: With the news that the King Air Mechtronic simulator is down for another week, CAPT has decided that we proceed with our jet transition course in the MD90. A great choice that we do not get behind. I’m rather excited that we proceed but I did want to get some experience in the mechtronics. I actually want to fly a King Air and grab a few hours with a pilot out there. If you are reading this, leave a comment.

My plan today is to study some flows with my flight partner and just go over the simple motions of a preflight in the MD90 cockpit. It’s going to be an interesting week. As of now, my first LOFT in the MD90 is at 2000 (8:00pm) tomorrow. Good stuff!

Check it ou! Romaine Lettuce, tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, and some freshly squeezed half lemon. I had to add cheese though. Here’s to my mom’s diet!

The day is done with 1 more test to take (ADX - Dispatcher FAA Written) within the next couple of days while the ATP stuff is still sort of fresh in my head. I can’t say that I did stellar or that I was able to score anywhere where I wanted to be. It is my own fault I guess, but there were a few questions that I didn’t recognize. For those who really want to know, I scored a measly 85%. Trust me, that isn’t that good knowing that the rest of the class scored above you. What does stink is that out of a bank of ~1300 questions you are provided with a selection of 80 random questions. They could be of the hardest or the easiest. It’s just all random. Someone could get away with a 100% or a 70% just by the chance that they got screwed or blessed. I like to think that I got away with being blessed. I didn’t fail or score any lower. Of course, 85% was my line for failure.

I am too many things on my mind at the moment and sometimes, standardized tests don’t mean a thing, ya know? As those who score low would say, “Give me a pracitical situation where I need to demonstrate my knowledge and I’ll do just fine, but give me a test that the FAA expects you to come up with the right answer, I’ll fail…” I mean, some problems were so gross in that each answer was separated by only a few numbers and if you rounded before, in the middle or after you completed the problem, you would wind up in between two different choices. Its just ridiculous! Oh well, on to bigger and better toys!