Almost done

Well its been a long......long.....very long time down here in the mid south and I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. After spending the past 49 days in training, my checkride is fast approaching. It cannot come soon enough. I am dying to go home. I miss my family and I've had enough of this place.

All our sim sessions went very well and I had a lot of fun learning the new jet. It fly's like the Falcon, but that's the only similarity. The cockpits are as different as they come. The Falcon is dirty, old, outdated and has steam gauges. The CRJ is new, semi-state of the art and a breeze to fly with the FMS and auto pilot. The procedures at the new company are vastly different. The hardest thing to learn was letting go of old habits. The auto pilots in the Falcons were very un reliable and I only used them as cruise baby-sitters. The A.P. in the CRJ is great. When coupled with the FMS, it'll do just about anything you want. Holds are a thing of the past. All you need to do is press a few buttons on the FMS and "presto!" it'll do it for you. Situational awareness is dramatically enhanced as compared to the Falcon. Now I have a moving map display of where I am, where I'm going and where I'm going next. Its great. I've finally learned to trust the auto pilot and let it do the work.

Thankfully there are only a few more days left. After the checkride I have to do a L.O.F.T flight, walk around and 4 fam flights (flight were I just sit in the cockpit and watch) then I'm released to do my O.E (operational experience, I fly with a check airman for 25 hours) then I'll be released to the line. I'm hoping that after the fam flights I can go home. Hopefully in a weeks time I'll be at home, sleeping in my own bed next to soon to be wife.