I finished my first trip of IOE on Thursday evening. I would say that it went pretty well overall and it was lots of fun! It is definitely an adjustment going from the sim to the actual aircraft. Things like working with maintenance, flight attendants, passengers, ATC, and using ACARS aren’t easily replicated in the sim. So it was nice getting first hand experience with all of those aspects. Here are some pictures I got during our trip:
I would say my biggest challenge at the moment is having a consistent stabilized approach to landing. At the moment, I feel a half step behind for the last 200-300 ft or so and find my self not correcting enough or over correcting. Regardless, it is something that I will focus on during this weeks trip with my next IOE captain. I’m excited to keep learning and improving with each flight. If anyone has any tips, please feel free to let me know!
With all due respect bud, if you weren’t feeling a little behind after just one trip on IOE I’d be calling BS! It’s a HUGE transition from a light twin to a jet. Relax, listen to your LCA and it’ll come.
Congratulations completing IOE. It can be pretty surreal to be behind the controls with all those passengers in the back for the very first time. The only way you’ll get better at your approaches and landings is with repetition. Take constructive feedback from the captains you fly with and do your best to hand fly departures and when work load is low to make you feel more comfortable with the way the plane handles. You’ll gain more “feel” and get better with time.
Thank you. Not hiding that I was behind in all aspects on my first trip! The approaches/landings were just something that we discussed extensively during the debriefs. I even mentioned to my check airman that I felt like a student pilot again, but that’s all part of the learning experience! I’m sure I’ll feel more comfortable after a few more trips.
Thanks! I hope your training at United is going well! I was very thankful that my check airman encouraged me to hand-fly as much as possible on our first trip, it made me feel more confident and comfortable on the controls. I’m excited to get a second opinion on everything this week with a different check airman. Hopefully everything pulls together with more experience!
Welcome to my every landing. As one senior airline pilot told me: “I just get down low, close my eyes and hope it works out well”.
In all seriousness though, those last 200 feet are the hardest 200 feet in aviation. It takes time to really get that down, far more than just one trip of OE. Keep plugging along, it will come to you.
Very awesome friend! Super excited to see you had your first trip of IOE. I wish the simulator gave a good representation of ACARS, but it’s quick to adapt with a few tries. How many hours did you log total on your first trip?
Thank you! Luckily ACARS isn’t too bad, at least normal use of it for a typical flight. Once it starts getting into reporting maintenance/communicating to dispatch using it, I’ll probably have no idea what I’m doing again. Something I wish they had done during our sim training would have been making us type out what we would send on ACARS, rather than just saying aloud that “I would use it to do this…”. But I guess they expect us to learn it during IOE and on the line. My first trip was a fairly short one. We logged just over 13 hours of flight time over 4 days. We are required to have at least 25 hours of IOE, but they typically schedule us for at least 30.
Awesome post! I’m actually looking to starting my journey at the same location so this is huge getting feedback on Lunken. Good luck with everything and congratulations!
The best location is the one that is the most convenient for you! No matter where you choose the program curriculum is the same. You can expect the same quality training wherever you go.
If you live near a location, great place to start. If not, do you have friends or family that live near a location? If not, student housing is available at most locations. From there, schedule an intro flight with the admissions department at that location and see what you think. Lastly, start date availability can vary from location to location so best to get the process started when you can.
