I had the opportunity to travel with an assistant chief pilot on a B737-800 flight to Boston, MA and back. What was especially neat was that the First Officer was a former Newark intern. They both taught me a thing or two and gave me advice, which has helped me thus far in training.

Just before I left Newark to come to Houston some changes took place. United began operating internationally from the Continental’s Terminal C. In return, Continental began flying international routes from United cities. With these aircraft swaps also came additional routes; Continental now flies from Newark to Stuttgart, Germany. The inaugural flight took place a day before I left and I got the opportunity to attend the pre-flight celebration.

Since I last wrote I’ve temporarily relocated to Houston, TX for Boeing 737 training at the Continental Airlines Pilot Training Center. I’ve been staying at a hotel at the airport, courtesy of the airline. The experience so far has been very parallel to new-hire training.

So far I’ve taken two classes on the 737 Flight Management Computer (FMC). The FMC, also known as “the box”, is an interface found on all modern airliners and therefore a highly valuable system to learn.

I’ve also completed two Flight Training Device (FTD) activities that consisted of learning normal & non-normal procedures. For all activities I am paired up with another intern. In the simulators each day we switch roles [Captain & First Officer] to make sure we have equal amount of time in each seat. The first FTD activity was a simulated flight from Atlanta to Cleveland, with a diversion back to Atlanta. The second was a flight from Cleveland to Houston. Both flights demonstrated use of the FMC, autopilot, navigation displays and various other systems and components. The use of checklists and flows were practiced during these units.

The upcoming week will consist mostly of ground school classes. Crew Resource Management (CRM) and Extended Operations (ETOPS) will be the topics.

In other news, I travelled this weekend to Los Angeles, CA to visit my cousins. While there I got a chance to visit Hollywood! I saw the Kodak Theatre, Guinness World of Records, Capitol Records, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Hollywood sign, and ate at the famous In-N-Out Burger.

With each week being such a thrill, I look forward to the next even more!
Over and Out.