Flying the Boeing 737
As a Christmas present to myself, I signed up for the Airline Training Orientation Program (ATOP). In a nutshell, it is a quick one day crash course covering the Boeing 737-800 systems followed by some hands on practice on a flight training device and the Level D flight simulator at the Continental Airlines training center in Houston. Due to its popularity, I did not get a slot until the end of July when I signed up in December. Finally, this was the weekend to do it!
There were eight of us in the class, some current pilots, some that have not flown in a long time, and a dad/son pair from Puerto Rico that were not pilots, but have built a full Boeing 727 simulator basically in their garage, complete with either original or Boeing manufactured parts. We spent the entire day in the classroom going through each system on the airplane including normal and emergency operations, flight deck flows and checklists. It trully felt like we were drinking getting hosed from a fire hose - even during the lunch we were going over the ATOP flight profile we would be executing later in the simulator.
After we were done with the theory part, half of us jumped on a wooden replica of the flight deck with a few switches and leverels and pictures in place of the rest of the instruments and buttons. We used the Wooden Indian to practice the flight profile we would be doing in the simulator later. The purpose of the device is for the crew to get used to the location of the equipment and go through the appropriate call outs. The flight profile essentially was a takeoff from San Francicso runway 28R, climb up to 4,000 feet, turn downwind and shoot an ILS approach back to 28R executing a touch-and-go on the runway, followed by another ILS approach. This would give each one of us a chance to fly as the captain and as a first officer - trully two different experiences.
After an hour we switched with the other group and jumped on the flight training device that had the real flight deck setup but no outside or motion simulation. We used the FTD to practice our preflight and start up sequence flows. As we were taught, 80% of getting the aircraft ready is setting all the switches and knobs that could be set to AUTO to that setting. The other 20% comes from fiddling with the rest of the switches until all the amber lights extinguish on the flight deck. Pretty simple, eh?
Next day it was time to get down and dirty and log some time in the Level D sim. It is a full motion aircraft simulator that also provides video simulation of the environment outside the airplane. It is so real that the pilots can be (and most are) type rated to fly the airplane without ever flying the actual thing. The saying goes that the first time a Continental pilot flies a real 737 is when there are 150 people strapped in behind him. At $800 per hour it is not cheap, but still is much, much cheaper than flying the real thing.
My training partner Darrel was the first one to fly as a captain from the left seat. I was the first officer manning the right seat. There is a simple division of responsibilities between the pilot flying and pilot monitoring - PF flies the airplane, PM does everything else including taking care of the majority of tasks when there is an anomaly or an emergency. Right off the bat, on climb out, I had to deal with a failure of the right engine driven hydraulic pump. That was followed by a wheel well fire.
Once Darrel’s time was up, we switched seats and now I was the pilot in command of the 150,000 pounds of parts and people rushing down the runway. As we accelerated past eighty knots, the engine fire alarm went off. Since we were below V1, I called for aborted takeoff, cut the power and got on the brakes while trying to keep the aircraft moving down the centerline. At the same time, first officer Darrel was busy contacting the air traffic control and extinguishing the engine fire while being hustled by the instructor. Here is the video of this ordeal taking from the back of the simulator:
After we changed into a set of dry underwear and reset the simulator, we were on a climb out when the right engine decided to quit. Those 150,000 pounds do some funky things when there aint no more power on one of the sides. However, thanks to the auto restart technology, we had the bad boy back up and running momentarily. My landings were nothing to write home about. The picture from the 737 filght deck sure looks different than when I fly a Skyhawk resulting in a late flare and associated jumping down the runway. My session finished off with an ILS category III auto landing with 50 feet visibility. At least that one was right on the needles 
While in Houston, I met up with two groups of couchsurfers and their friends. First, we got together at Beaver’s on Friday with Marsha, Ana, John, and many more people. It was a good time spent talking about traveling, salsa dancing, tasting some Texas BBQ and just having a good laugh. On Sunday after the sim I met up with Maria, Frank, Liz and their friends for a tour of the Beer Can House and a quick burrito lunch at the Freebirds before I had to get on my way back to the airport.