ananoman
New Member
When I was an instructor at FSI, they ran us through a 12 hour short course in the SAAB 2000. It included a short ground school and 12 hrs in the Sim. The whole thing was free.
For the most part the ground school was worthless, as there was too much to cover. If you did not already know how turbine systems generally worked it was almost a complete waste of time. Most of the instructors probably did not get much out of it, other than to realize that they had alot of reading to look foreward to when they got hired somewhere else. The exception was a pretty good class on high altitude physiology and aerodynamics by an old instructor who was ex. RAF.
The Sim was fun, but again we did not spend much time memorizing checklist and 12 hours is not much time. The main benifit was that we were shown how to use the computer trainers for the FMS and could spend as much time as we wanted on them. I got to the point that I was reasonably proficient at this at the time.
I forgot most of what I learned in class, as it was almost 1 year later that I left the academy. Even without spending thousands on a pseudo groundschool and hours of time in a FTD simulating a jet, I was able to pass an initial type rating in a FMS & EFIS equipped jet. Total training time was two weeks, Monday through Saturday, Sunday off, then Monday through Friday with the checkride on Friday. It was not a pleasant experience and I was not sure what would happen until the last few days, when I was starting to feel pretty good about the whole thing.
So, it is possible to pass a groundschool without paying to go through a 'make believe' one first. Just read some books while you are a CFI and you will be ok. There is no time for the instructors to fill any gaps in basic systems knowledge. They only have time for the specific airplane you are learning.
If I could recommend anything it would be to spend some time in something with a good autopilot. The most confusing thing for me was all the different modes of the autopilot and how they would interact with each other.
Now that glass cockpit aircraft are going to become common in the training environment it will also be easier to get an instrument scan going as well. I had never flown glass before and it is alot different. I never really had a good scan in training, but other than steep turns and stalls you can just follow the flight director like a monkey, as long as you make sure the autopilot/flight director is set up properly.
The same thing could be accomplished using MS Flight Sim. You could easily buy one of the add on programs for a jet that includes a working FMS and autopilot along with some decent manuals. I recommended this to my students when I was a CFI but was always too lazy to actually do it myself....
Overall I do not think it is worth the money to go through something like the ACE program (I have heard it cost something like $7k) when you are a student. It will be over a year before you actually go to an airline and you will not remember alot of it unless you continually study and spend time in the sim. After all this you could end up in a different airplane. It may make things a little easier, and learning is never wasted, but the cost is rather steep in my opinion.
For the most part the ground school was worthless, as there was too much to cover. If you did not already know how turbine systems generally worked it was almost a complete waste of time. Most of the instructors probably did not get much out of it, other than to realize that they had alot of reading to look foreward to when they got hired somewhere else. The exception was a pretty good class on high altitude physiology and aerodynamics by an old instructor who was ex. RAF.
The Sim was fun, but again we did not spend much time memorizing checklist and 12 hours is not much time. The main benifit was that we were shown how to use the computer trainers for the FMS and could spend as much time as we wanted on them. I got to the point that I was reasonably proficient at this at the time.
I forgot most of what I learned in class, as it was almost 1 year later that I left the academy. Even without spending thousands on a pseudo groundschool and hours of time in a FTD simulating a jet, I was able to pass an initial type rating in a FMS & EFIS equipped jet. Total training time was two weeks, Monday through Saturday, Sunday off, then Monday through Friday with the checkride on Friday. It was not a pleasant experience and I was not sure what would happen until the last few days, when I was starting to feel pretty good about the whole thing.
So, it is possible to pass a groundschool without paying to go through a 'make believe' one first. Just read some books while you are a CFI and you will be ok. There is no time for the instructors to fill any gaps in basic systems knowledge. They only have time for the specific airplane you are learning.
If I could recommend anything it would be to spend some time in something with a good autopilot. The most confusing thing for me was all the different modes of the autopilot and how they would interact with each other.
Now that glass cockpit aircraft are going to become common in the training environment it will also be easier to get an instrument scan going as well. I had never flown glass before and it is alot different. I never really had a good scan in training, but other than steep turns and stalls you can just follow the flight director like a monkey, as long as you make sure the autopilot/flight director is set up properly.
The same thing could be accomplished using MS Flight Sim. You could easily buy one of the add on programs for a jet that includes a working FMS and autopilot along with some decent manuals. I recommended this to my students when I was a CFI but was always too lazy to actually do it myself....
Overall I do not think it is worth the money to go through something like the ACE program (I have heard it cost something like $7k) when you are a student. It will be over a year before you actually go to an airline and you will not remember alot of it unless you continually study and spend time in the sim. After all this you could end up in a different airplane. It may make things a little easier, and learning is never wasted, but the cost is rather steep in my opinion.
