I finally got to the hard part. Training for a part 121 airline. I am a first officer candidate for the Canadair CRJ-200 in a class totalling 27. I will not be able to post every day due to the busy schedule but I will try to update when I can.

Day #1:
Two days ago I drove from Dallas to Memphis and checked in to my hotel. It isn't too bad as it has a kitchenette so I can save a lot of money by getting food at the grocery store and eating it. The downside is that we have two to a room. I am pumped up and ready for the biggest challenge of my life. Now its Monday and we walk into the training room where there are several binders and papers over a small desk, each with a name tag. I take my spot and we all start putting together our flight manuals, operating manuals, and systems manuals. Most of the day is spent learning about the airline. It was pretty much a parade of people coming in and telling us who they are and what they did in the company. It was pretty cool in that we got to meet the COO, VP of Flight Ops, and several other big wigs. It also turns out that of all the memory items I had been studying, they now only have 1/3 of them. Oh well. :-) I also picked out a sim partner. We both have the same study habits, so it will work out very well I think.

Day 2:
This was primarily an HR day. Those who hadn't been drug tested before arriving at training did so, we watched some videos on culture, etc., and filled out a multitude of forms for benefits. We also put in our bids for our base preferences (which we should find out about in a week) and learned about our travel and jumpseat benefits. In the evening, a group of us studied our memory items, limitations, and some cockpit flows. Group study is very helpful and I think will be a major part of my successful completion of training here. There is something about hearing someone else say something that makes you learn it better. We also spent time figuring out the locations of some of the cockpit switches that are part of our memory checklist, even though we haven't covered this yet in training.

Day 3:
Today we reviewed some of the basic FAR's that apply to IFR flight, ATC communications, and how our op-specs relate. Much of it was a review of stuff we should already know from the ATP written, but some was also company specific. Another theme of the day was how dispatch and the crew communicate and the responsibilities of both parties. This is an aspect of the 121 world that will be completely new to me. We also had our first experience doing revisions. What you would think would be a simple task turned into a circus of 27 students and an instuctor going crazy trying to figure out pages to remove, replace, etc. I thought it was quite amusing how a room of us "accomplished" pilots had so much difficulty in putting papers in 3-ring binders.