Max,
First off, congrats on the CJO and class date with Piedmont (PI). Ironically how you mention about the year of passenger flying, I was just reminiscing on a deadhead from Philadelphia to Charlotte with a flight attendant interested in learning to fly. Everything from whom I have talked to outside of Piedmont have applaud those that successfully passed Piedmont’s training because it has a great reputation.
Piedmont’s training department is fantastic (yes, I’m biased). You will receive everything Day 1 when you walk into the Charlotte training facility on airport grounds. They will hook you up instantly with an iPad and documents that are going to be used for training. The biggest learning curve you will experience from flying GA is two-manned crew. During your initial training, hitting the memory items, flows, scans, emergency memory items, and procedures should be a focus. Once thing that many struggle is when they get to the QPT (procedure training) phase they struggle to do a final flightdeck safety scan or procedure. Hanging out in the hotel crew lounge or training center on days off is beneficial. Similar to what I preach here on students going through ATP, spending time around those that have the same goals and mindset will help set you up for success. I have loved every minute flying this jet (granted everything you see online about the “no first class” or “too small”), it’s a pilot friendly jet, has a high workload (from what others have said) and is fun to hand fly when you have the chance.
Every day, set yourself a goal, you are not going to memorize everything in one sitting. We are approved to read company material while flying, I constantly check in with my documents and refresh my knowledge on items like profiles, emergency procedures, systems knowledge, etc. Recently we had to go missed on an RNAV (GPS) approach, and I have only gone around three times (2 ILS, 1 RNAV). The RNAV profile to go missed is a bit more workload than an ILS… I was thankful to have touched up on that profile before the flight. I guess you could say I’ve done 5 missed approaches now, not that I’m counting or anything…
As per FLICA vs. PBS, I can’t speak to much on that, I don’t have any experience on PBS. I don’t mind FLICA, it has a decent UI in my opinion. As for acquiring a line, I am Harrisburg based, it’s a very “undesired” base because it’s a double commute for many. Getting my choice of line depends on variables out of my control, sometimes I get the first choice (which is rare) other times I’m hitting my mid-bid pick. I bounced between REL (relief lines) and a hard line, recently started bidding 10/14 this late winter as more FO’s upgrade and go to other carriers. As for PHL, I know it’s still a somewhat senior base, but there is a lot of movement between PHL and CLT. You will find a few individuals trying to play the FO 750 HR CA pay reserve game, but I think that’s been slowing down a bit. It’s hard to say how long one would get a line coming in, but if you’re 30-minutes from the parking lot, if you had to deal with reserve, I don’t see that being a problem. You may experience RAS (ready airport standby) a few times once you first get to the line.
Brady