So per the syllabus we have 8 sims to learn everything we need to know about this airplane. We have learned how to take off, how to fly approaches, how to land. Then we start learning dangerous things about the aircraft and if these things happen, how to get out of it and save the lives of the people in the back as well as our own. We learned how to get out of dutch roll’s, unusual attitudes, and even upset recoveries. Then we started getting into engine failures, wind shear, and v1 cuts this morning. All this is only 4 lessons and thats not all we did! I should explain the sim to you a little bit. The sim is this giant box that moves around on hydraulics. On the inside is a mock up of the cockpit. All the knobs, switches, lights, bells and whistles work in it just like if you were in the real thing. They even have screens that look like windows so it looks like you are looking outside the airplane. This thing is realistic, so realistic sometimes it seriously feels like your in the airplane flying.

Today was one of those days where I needed a little bit more sleep before I came in. I was tired to start off and we had a tough lesson and so needless to say those to things do not really work well together. I completed everything as I should have and was within standards, but what really got me was that I realized that my job isnt all that easy nor is it all that safe. The past couple of sims we have been doing things that you would only see in abnormal situations in the airplane. For example we actually crashed today. We had severe wind shear on landing. There was no way my partner could have gotten out of it. He did a lot better than I would have, but still we crashed. As we were coming in just past the minimums on our ILS approach we got the wind shear warning.  “MAX POWER, SPOILERS IN”, check I did it. Now hold on for dear life. As we were attempting to climb out the wind shear was so bad that my partner was losing control of the airplane. The downdrafts were severe enough that it pushed us down and lucky for us we hit the runway soft enough were there was no damage done…yet. Now we are still at 147 kts just touched down and we cant really stop with all this wind shear or we will have big problems. So we have to keep going. We start to lift off again and as we are climbing out we still get pounded by all the shear, and battling the stick shaker that we finally crash. No remember this is in the sim, this did not happen in real life, and with all the fancy high tech equipment we have now days this probably wont happen. This was just to show us what could happen. I have actually felt nervous but not necessarily scared when doing all this stuff because to me it feels so real. I love flying and I know I always will, but I have finally realized that if im not careful my job could really turn dangerous, and in the real plane there is no reset button. I appreciate all my instructors and the company for putting me through all this training because not only will it make me a better pilot but I will be safer too. Now I am really going to sleep and I will post more later. To all the pilots out there be safe and happy landings forever.

I came back to ATL on New Years Day. The flight was one of the smoothest ive been on until we were making the descent into the airport. We started to get bumped around pretty good. The crew made a good landing despite the winds gusting up to 30 knots. I was able to talk one of my buddies from class into picking me up at the airport. Akro and I decided to run over to Flight Safety to check our company mail boxes. I ran inside and picked up our first airline pilot pay stubs! What a day haha. It was nice to see our names on this check with our airlines seal on it.

Later on through the week we decided to do some running around. We went out to akro’s neck of the woods, to check out Smisson Field. Smisson Field is a private airport with a huge house a few of us pilots are planning on renting. It truly is a pilot heaven. It has everything you could ever want to do. Swim in a lake or pool, play in a jacuzzi, work in the hangar, hunt in the woods, there is no end to what you can do. We also went to this airplane boneyard. That was one of the most interesting things I have seen. It was a little unnerving to see all these airplanes that have been totaled in accidents. Some of these airplanes were unidentifiable. We did see a whole bunch of things we wanted to get to make furniture and things with. We found a wing we were going to turn into a bar or table. I found some airline seats, as well as a few other things I think would look awesome in a pilots house. I didnt think I would like ATL, but I think its growing on me.