NZFF

Gawd ..... I'm on yet another refresher course. I know things change, but as an H&S rep I get to read all the stuff anyway ...but, I digress yet again.

There are 6 of us on this course ...and I'm..... 40!! years older than ALL the other 5 So how can they be on a refresher?
Today was all classroom, I really struggled to stay awake ....tomorrow is practical, which should be better.

Hey, don't put a number on it, Marty, at a certain ahem, age, the numbers just get too big. How old do you feel?
In one of my favourite songs, Like a Rock, Bob Seger says:
"Twenty years, where'd they go, twenty years, I don't know, I sit and I wonder sometimes Where they've gone..."
I'm getting to the stage where I'll need to sing "fifty years, where'd they go "
...which is just ridiculous, and not anywhere near as charming.

You know you're getting old when walking past a toilet is an opportunity !

I used to be good at leaning stuff in my younger days.
Now, it just makes my brain ache, and I have to lie down in a dark corner.
I leave it to other folks to show me stuff.

Just making a Chicken Balti Curry with Rice for my supper at the moment...
...and hoping that I've remembered all the ingredients!

Paul...Long past; "Learn By" Date.... ...!

I know how you feel Marty. I'm back in the classroom too undergoing a B777 to B787 Dreamliner conversion/transition course. I thought that I had done my last type rating when I moved from the 767 to 787 but alas Covid put paid to that.
Fortunately they are very similar (Ergonomically similar but with around 15 years worth of modern tech added).
It still requires a course of 237 CBTs (Computer Based Training modules) learning about the differences between the two. That takes 3 x 12 hour days to get through, mostly listening to a monotone American male voice telling me to place the XXXXX switch in OTTO (Auto in english). Still it is better than listening to the 777 cbt modules which amounted to more than 670 odd!
Then read and digest a 1596 page FCOM ( Flight Crew Operations manual), a 388 page FCTM (Boeing's Flight Crew Training manual), various other supplementary manuals/policies plus additional supporting company produced videos and CBT packages.
3 sessions in an IPT (Instructional Procedures Trainer) Sort of a flat panel simulator with some knobs and switches. 5 Full flight simulator details. and 6 sectors flying the line.

All up the training will take just under a month until checked out on my own without training wheels. In comparison my very first type rating with the company was on the Fokker F27 and that took 3 months. Mostly 'chalk & talk' (no computers then). It took 3 days just to cover then engine/prop combination and just under a week to learn to be able to "sketch and describe" the electrical system. According to one of our pilots, who worked for Boeing instructing new Boeing operators how to operate their aircraft, only 2 people in Boeing know the full 787 electrical system.......and they don't talk to each other! The electrical system is about as easy to understand as quantum physics.

So Marty I know just how you feel!

Some great stories here!
Last week, on what would have been mum's birthday, my sister and I took a roadtrip to revisit our childhood in New Brighton/South Brighton. It was weirder than I expected, but the main thing I can't get out of my mind is the sheer disconnect between me and that young lad who was the Central New Brighton School Dux back in 1969. He was proud to lead the school around the streets of New Brighton once a week in the Drum and Fife band (he played the fife.) Fifty years is a long, long time, and that lad with his hopes and dreams never really had a chance. Here we are in this post-apocalyptic world, ready for our pension, and what the hell happened to all those years?
By the way, like a lot of Canterbury schools, CNB School no longer exists. Neither does our old high school. New Brighton is an abandoned dump now, but 50 years ago it was the Saturday Shopping mecca, and vibrant as hell.
On the other hand, yesterday I set off with a spring in my step to vote, like I have every three years for most of those fifty, with the weather warming up and kids on holiday in the streets. Life is good.

cowpatz wrote:only 2 people in Boeing know the full 787 electrical system.......and they don't talk to each other! The electrical system is about as easy to understand as quantum physics.

Goodonya CP... don't forget the Fine Print, eh?

Fozzer wrote:I used to be good at leaning stuff in my younger days.
Now, it just makes my brain ache, and I have to lie down in a dark corner.

Same, and a couple of motorcycle accidents haven't helped!
Which is a PITA since work have me doing some certification exams right now and instead of reading something once I now need to read it a half dozen times, and even then it may not stick -- and I'm not even 50 yet -- the future could be a time of fresh daily discovery at this rate!

Wait till you get up to my age, I can still recognize a face but then Oh! what the hell is his or her name again.
Many time now when I get into a conversation with someone I know but feel so embarrassed when I can't remember their name
Maybe its just old age has caught up with me

Charl wrote:

cowpatz wrote:only 2 people in Boeing know the full 787 electrical system.......and they don't talk to each other! The electrical system is about as easy to understand as quantum physics.

Goodonya CP... don't forget the Fine Print, eh?

Just do what I do CP, get through the ground school and then figure out how it really works on the job.

Thanks for the comments gents....glad its not just me.
CP ..mate ....if you want a study buddy PM me great response skipper.

Just remember that getting older, one year at a time, is better than the alternative !!

cowpatz wrote:I know how you feel Marty. I'm back in the classroom too undergoing a B777 to B787 Dreamliner conversion/transition course. I thought that I had done my last type rating when I moved from the 767 to 787 but alas Covid put paid to that.
Fortunately they are very similar (Ergonomically similar but with around 15 years worth of modern tech added).
It still requires a course of 237 CBTs (Computer Based Training modules) learning about the differences between the two. That takes 3 x 12 hour days to get through, mostly listening to a monotone American male voice telling me to place the XXXXX switch in OTTO (Auto in english). Still it is better than listening to the 777 cbt modules which amounted to more than 670 odd!
Then read and digest a 1596 page FCOM ( Flight Crew Operations manual), a 388 page FCTM (Boeing's Flight Crew Training manual), various other supplementary manuals/policies plus additional supporting company produced videos and CBT packages.
3 sessions in an IPT (Instructional Procedures Trainer) Sort of a flat panel simulator with some knobs and switches. 5 Full flight simulator details. and 6 sectors flying the line.

All up the training will take just under a month until checked out on my own without training wheels. In comparison my very first type rating with the company was on the Fokker F27 and that took 3 months. Mostly 'chalk & talk' (no computers then). It took 3 days just to cover then engine/prop combination and just under a week to learn to be able to "sketch and describe" the electrical system. According to one of our pilots, who worked for Boeing instructing new Boeing operators how to operate their aircraft, only 2 people in Boeing know the full 787 electrical system.......and they don't talk to each other! The electrical system is about as easy to understand as quantum physics.

So Marty I know just how you feel!

Come have a try in the -600. Same aircraft as the -500 but less screens and some more commuters to operate it. 1 week in the classroom and 5 sims then 30-40 sectors I think..

Lindstrim wrote:Come have a try in the -600. Same aircraft as the -500 but less screens and some more commuters to operate it. 1 week in the classroom and 5 sims then 30-40 sectors I think..

The 600 seems like a very nice bit of kit. The ATR sim is parked right along side the 787 one....hmmm.
At least I'm not doing the A320 type rating. That's 3 months worth!

Chopper_nut the expression "let in wash over" is used quite a bit, as the analogy "feeding from a fire hose" describes some of the condensed learning. It is not possible to learn everything at once so some of it does have to wash over initially....just not "wash away"
There is a fair bit still learnt out on the line. In aviation you are always learning (even if it's "I wont do that again"), however, proficiency has to be demonstrated for the issue of the type rating. As it should.

Last night's sim detail was very interesting (and challenging).
The 787 is capable of taking off with a visibility of only 75m. This requires the use of a HUD (Head up display). Accelerating to just under 300 kmh in thick fog, on a skinny bit of concrete, and either stopping or going, is quite exhilarating.
Derated thrust take offs are the norm and can be significant. The ground roll is around 45 sec. That might not sound like much but sit there and time it.

If I can find the time (and there is any interest) I will try and write a few bits about the more interesting aspects of the Dreamliner. If I can remember

Oh dear ... I'm only 68 and haven't even finished my 1st childhood yet ...

cowpatz wrote:If I can find the time (and there is any interest) I will try and write a few bits about the more interesting aspects of the Dreamliner. If I can remember

Would be fascinating to read, please do.

Competency must be there obviously but I feel that some C+T captains expect perfection after (in the rotary world) three hours in the seat. Just not a realistic target. I bumble my way through the ground school most of the time and it's when I take the machine out by myself that the real learning starts. I'm hopeless at retaining numbers so to be honest, I don't give a rats what the TOT red line is on the LTS 101 in the BK... because I know what it looks like on the gauge. That sort of thing. After time in the aircraft, that information starts to sink in.