Hello everyone, I just want to say how much I appreciate this forum and that it’s really helped me over the years.
I’m a current CFI and I just recently got my CJO from a regional. While I still have some free time, I’m planning to study as much as possible so I can make the transition from flying Pipers and Cessna’s to the CRJ as smooth as possible.
Can anyone recommend some resources, books, articles, or other tools to help me prepare? What areas did you with you knew better before making the switch to the airline world? My airline hasn’t given me any resources to study yet as I’m still a ways out but I want to start getting prepared.
Welcome back and congrats on your CJO from a regional. When is your anticipated start date at the airline?
I think the biggest thing about studying and preparing for the next adventure should be heavy in flows, scans, emergency procedures, and memory items. Your airline may have a “study guide” that you could use to aid in supplementing your study. They will more likely provide you a tiger board when you arrive that you can hang up and chair fly, and practice - flows, scans, memory items.
Is there any way that you could connect with a fellow First Officer at your CJO airline to see what they may have as training aids to get you started? I’m going to jump out of my way to say it’s one of the following regionals: Skywest, PSA, Endeavor, Air Wisconsin, GoJet. A lot of airlines have Facebook groups for connecting with fellow colleagues, maybe you can give that a try?
@Hannah is a former CRJ FO, maybe she might have some specifics or tips about studying for the CRJ?
No start date yet but I’m anticipating hitting my minimums by May so I’m told sometime this summer hopefully. I’ll try and find some First Officers and see if they have any recommendations.
Perhaps my experience is different from others, and it will differ at each airline, but I’d say not to worry about anything too technical until you’re given specific instruction from your regional. Everything Adam and Brady mentioned is really important once you are on property and have been provided that material. Up until then, you have no idea whether the material you are using is really useful (unless you receive it from someone at that airline). Procedures, flows, and even aircraft layout can differ with each operation. At my regional, we were provided a study guide after we went through our new hire meeting (our official date of hire), which was about two weeks prior to Indoc. Once you have that study guide, or any company specific material, you’ll be able to get ahead. Up until you receive that material, I would focus your studies on being VERY proficient with IFR operations and then learn part 121 rules/regulations. This is important because they most likely won’t spend very much time in class on these topics, especially not IFR stuff. The airplane flying handbook has a chapter specifically on transition to jet flying, which is helpful. And the ATP-CTP course will also help introduce the basics.
Our study guide was very bare compared to the company manuals. It was simply the flows, callouts for each procedure, memory items, and some basics on the MCDU/FMS. I remember in the first week of Indoc, the head of our training department would come in and quiz us on flows and memory items. One day, someone asked him about knowing the ‘expanded’ flows, which were the flows in the AOM with each specific detail about what you were looking at for each flow item. He told us not to worry about that yet and to simply know the stuff in the study guide. ‘Don’t put the cart before the horse’. Remember most of these airlines have trained thousands of pilots just like you who came from small piston aircraft. Follow what they tell you and expand once you feel comfortable with that material. Everything should be laid out for you. If you listen to their instructions and memorize what they tell you when they tell you, you’ll be ahead of most people. As Brady mentioned, when you get your cockpit poster, sit in front of it every night and run through the flows as many times as you can and make sure you memorize those memory items word for word. Flash cards and a friend/family member go a long way!
When I was at Skywest, they didn’t provide any study materials until your first day. It sounds bizarre but they wanted to introduce what you needed to know in a manner that was the most efficient for your learning. Some times students would get ahead of themselves and try to learn flows when in reality, there were 2 stage checks that needed to be passed before ever demonstrating a flow. Best to fill your brain with the knowledge needed for those first two stage checks.
Typically you will start by going over the flight ops manual (rules for operating), OP specs and big FAA regs you’ll need to know. After that you will move on to start studying CRJ. Memory items and limitations are a great place to start. Then flows after that…
