Being a Proficient Pilot

[yowflyer23]

Good day,

For all of you airline pilots out there, I was wondering what you do to stay proficient and to try and improve/be on top of your game. I’m about to start flying at a 705 and just looking to set myself up for success as someone with relatively low experience. Some ideas I have are:

- Constantly review emergencies, especially memory items
- Review SOP’s, FCOM, COM, etc
- Take notes after every pairing about what went well and what didn’t and how to improve
- Stay up to date with advisory circulars
- Read CADORS and tsb accident reports and try to learn something or reflect on how to mitigate the risk of repeating mistakes.

Any other ideas?

[cdnavater]

Good day,

For all of you airline pilots out there, I was wondering what you do to stay proficient and to try and improve/be on top of your game. I’m about to start flying at a 705 and just looking to set myself up for success as someone with relatively low experience. Some ideas I have are:

- Constantly review emergencies, especially memory items
- Review SOP’s, FCOM, COM, etc
- Take notes after every pairing about what went well and what didn’t and how to improve
- Stay up to date with advisory circulars
- Read CADORS and tsb accident reports and try to learn something or reflect on how to mitigate the risk of repeating mistakes.

Any other ideas?

Hey yowflyer23,
Great question, your first two are your main methods and combined with recurrent training every 6 months is going to keep you somewhat proficient.
For your initial training as FO the focus will be the AOM(SOPs) which includes your memory items and emergency procedures, main topics of focus will be, normal procedures, abnormal procedures and limitations, at Jazz that’s sec 2,3 and 4.
The COM comes more into play for upgrade training, so after initial and line Indoc would be the time to start looking at that, not two days before your upgrade training.
Once on line, review your AOM and the more you do this the better you will understand and remember. Myself, on the RJ nearly 20 years and I still review the winter operations section before winter, just to refresh my memory.
As instructors, we can tell the pilots who only crack the books two days before SIM versus those who keep up with their studies.
As for the remaining three, it’s a personal preference on how you learn, I myself never took notes but always did a review of the previous flight to look for improvement. Last question on our shutdown checklist is “crew debrief”, I use this as a tool to have a discussion on anything that came up during the flight, I didn’t like it when, as FO I read it and the response was “good flight”, really! Nothing to improve on!
As for you just starting out, unless you plan to stay where you are for an extended period, you likely won’t fly the same aircraft long enough to be truly comfortable with it before moving on to the next type or company, good luck and absolutely keep asking good questions!

[PropDog]

Good day,

For all of you airline pilots out there, I was wondering what you do to stay proficient and to try and improve/be on top of your game. I’m about to start flying at a 705 and just looking to set myself up for success as someone with relatively low experience. Some ideas I have are:

- Constantly review emergencies, especially memory items
- Review SOP’s, FCOM, COM, etc
- Take notes after every pairing about what went well and what didn’t and how to improve
- Stay up to date with advisory circulars
- Read CADORS and tsb accident reports and try to learn something or reflect on how to mitigate the risk of repeating mistakes.

Any other ideas?

Don’t forget to read through the AIM occasionally, there is a lot of pertinent information that gets rusty over the years. I personally find reading through Section VII of the cars with a focus on 705 is helpful.
Take some time once you’re comfortable with the aircraft and “meat and potatoes” manuals ie: FOM, SOPs and read through the lesser used manuals like your FMS operators manual, AFM, AOM, GADPM, Weight and Balance manual etc. There isn’t a big focus on these manuals in your initial training other than “hey these exist” but they also are full of Important information.

If your company uses Jepp plates, Jepp has a free online legend that you can use to study and become familiar with chart symbols. I find that to be a weak point these days.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Just taking a bit of time every day or every other day makes a big difference in the long term.

Hand fly the aircraft when you can. If you’re not flying into RVSM airspace hand fly all the way up to cruise. It’s a skill you will lose quickly without using it. The FAA is huge on this. TC not so much.

[Eric Janson]

Any other ideas?

Watch what your Captains are doing - there is a only so much you can learn from books.

You can learn something from everyone you fly with - in the worst case how not to do things.

Don't be afraid to ask questions. I wish more people would.

Speak up if you are not happy with how things are developing.

Don't get complacent - happens if you are continually flying the same route(s).

[nohojob]

Good day,

For all of you airline pilots out there, I was wondering what you do to stay proficient and to try and improve/be on top of your game. I’m about to start flying at a 705 and just looking to set myself up for success as someone with relatively low experience. Some ideas I have are:

- Constantly review emergencies, especially memory items
- Review SOP’s, FCOM, COM, etc
- Take notes after every pairing about what went well and what didn’t and how to improve
- Stay up to date with advisory circulars
- Read CADORS and tsb accident reports and try to learn something or reflect on how to mitigate the risk of repeating mistakes.

Any other ideas?

Don’t forget to read through the AIM occasionally, there is a lot of pertinent information that gets rusty over the years. I personally find reading through Section VII of the cars with a focus on 705 is helpful.
Take some time once you’re comfortable with the aircraft and “meat and potatoes” manuals ie: FOM, SOPs and read through the lesser used manuals like your FMS operators manual, AFM, AOM, GADPM, Weight and Balance manual etc. There isn’t a big focus on these manuals in your initial training other than “hey these exist” but they also are full of Important information.

If your company uses Jepp plates, Jepp has a free online legend that you can use to study and become familiar with chart symbols. I find that to be a weak point these days.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Just taking a bit of time every day or every other day makes a big difference in the long term.

Hand fly the aircraft when you can. If you’re not flying into RVSM airspace hand fly all the way up to cruise. It’s a skill you will lose quickly without using it. The FAA is huge on this. TC not so much.

Conditions permitting, disconnect everything at 280 and hand fly it to the ground, it's fun !

[yowflyer23]

Thanks everyone. Lots of great info. Much appreciated!

[CaptDukeNukem]

Good day,

For all of you airline pilots out there, I was wondering what you do to stay proficient and to try and improve/be on top of your game. I’m about to start flying at a 705 and just looking to set myself up for success as someone with relatively low experience. Some ideas I have are:

- Constantly review emergencies, especially memory items
- Review SOP’s, FCOM, COM, etc
- Take notes after every pairing about what went well and what didn’t and how to improve
- Stay up to date with advisory circulars
- Read CADORS and tsb accident reports and try to learn something or reflect on how to mitigate the risk of repeating mistakes.

Any other ideas?

Don’t forget to read through the AIM occasionally, there is a lot of pertinent information that gets rusty over the years. I personally find reading through Section VII of the cars with a focus on 705 is helpful.
Take some time once you’re comfortable with the aircraft and “meat and potatoes” manuals ie: FOM, SOPs and read through the lesser used manuals like your FMS operators manual, AFM, AOM, GADPM, Weight and Balance manual etc. There isn’t a big focus on these manuals in your initial training other than “hey these exist” but they also are full of Important information.

If your company uses Jepp plates, Jepp has a free online legend that you can use to study and become familiar with chart symbols. I find that to be a weak point these days.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Just taking a bit of time every day or every other day makes a big difference in the long term.

Hand fly the aircraft when you can. If you’re not flying into RVSM airspace hand fly all the way up to cruise. It’s a skill you will lose quickly without using it. The FAA is huge on this. TC not so much.

Conditions permitting, disconnect everything at 280 and hand fly it to the ground, it's fun !

And severely increase the work load for the other pilot……

[nohojob]

Don’t forget to read through the AIM occasionally, there is a lot of pertinent information that gets rusty over the years. I personally find reading through Section VII of the cars with a focus on 705 is helpful.
Take some time once you’re comfortable with the aircraft and “meat and potatoes” manuals ie: FOM, SOPs and read through the lesser used manuals like your FMS operators manual, AFM, AOM, GADPM, Weight and Balance manual etc. There isn’t a big focus on these manuals in your initial training other than “hey these exist” but they also are full of Important information.

If your company uses Jepp plates, Jepp has a free online legend that you can use to study and become familiar with chart symbols. I find that to be a weak point these days.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Just taking a bit of time every day or every other day makes a big difference in the long term.

Hand fly the aircraft when you can. If you’re not flying into RVSM airspace hand fly all the way up to cruise. It’s a skill you will lose quickly without using it. The FAA is huge on this. TC not so much.

Conditions permitting, disconnect everything at 280 and hand fly it to the ground, it's fun !

And severely increase the work load for the other pilot……

To each his own but handflying for an arrival in Cuba doesn't increase by much the PM workload unless the PM is very green.
Also handflying the plane is a great confidence builder which makes the extra work worth it. But again, you can disconnect at 50 feet if you want.

[PropDog]

Don’t forget to read through the AIM occasionally, there is a lot of pertinent information that gets rusty over the years. I personally find reading through Section VII of the cars with a focus on 705 is helpful.
Take some time once you’re comfortable with the aircraft and “meat and potatoes” manuals ie: FOM, SOPs and read through the lesser used manuals like your FMS operators manual, AFM, AOM, GADPM, Weight and Balance manual etc. There isn’t a big focus on these manuals in your initial training other than “hey these exist” but they also are full of Important information.

If your company uses Jepp plates, Jepp has a free online legend that you can use to study and become familiar with chart symbols. I find that to be a weak point these days.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Just taking a bit of time every day or every other day makes a big difference in the long term.

Hand fly the aircraft when you can. If you’re not flying into RVSM airspace hand fly all the way up to cruise. It’s a skill you will lose quickly without using it. The FAA is huge on this. TC not so much.

Conditions permitting, disconnect everything at 280 and hand fly it to the ground, it's fun !

And severely increase the work load for the other pilot……

Pick your battles I guess? You don’t have to do it going into every single airport. Hand flying is a perishable skill.

[PropDog]

Good day,

For all of you airline pilots out there, I was wondering what you do to stay proficient and to try and improve/be on top of your game. I’m about to start flying at a 705 and just looking to set myself up for success as someone with relatively low experience. Some ideas I have are:

- Constantly review emergencies, especially memory items
- Review SOP’s, FCOM, COM, etc
- Take notes after every pairing about what went well and what didn’t and how to improve
- Stay up to date with advisory circulars
- Read CADORS and tsb accident reports and try to learn something or reflect on how to mitigate the risk of repeating mistakes.

Any other ideas?

Don’t forget to read through the AIM occasionally, there is a lot of pertinent information that gets rusty over the years. I personally find reading through Section VII of the cars with a focus on 705 is helpful.
Take some time once you’re comfortable with the aircraft and “meat and potatoes” manuals ie: FOM, SOPs and read through the lesser used manuals like your FMS operators manual, AFM, AOM, GADPM, Weight and Balance manual etc. There isn’t a big focus on these manuals in your initial training other than “hey these exist” but they also are full of Important information.

If your company uses Jepp plates, Jepp has a free online legend that you can use to study and become familiar with chart symbols. I find that to be a weak point these days.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Just taking a bit of time every day or every other day makes a big difference in the long term.

Hand fly the aircraft when you can. If you’re not flying into RVSM airspace hand fly all the way up to cruise. It’s a skill you will lose quickly without using it. The FAA is huge on this. TC not so much.

Conditions permitting, disconnect everything at 280 and hand fly it to the ground, it's fun !

I can’t fly that high!! But I love the sentiment

[CaptDukeNukem]

Conditions permitting, disconnect everything at 280 and hand fly it to the ground, it's fun !

And severely increase the work load for the other pilot……

Pick your battles I guess? You don’t have to do it going into every single airport. Hand flying is a perishable skill.

The food you packed is also perishable, eat it on descent with the autopilot on, before customs confiscates your meals. Yes this is picking battles; I don’t need my fellow pilot who shares a very small volumetric cubic space with me for hours to “prove his flying skills” from TOD to the runway. You wanna hand fly? Cool, buy yourself shares in the 172 at the local flight school. Disconnect at a 1000’ and embarrass yourself trying to hold a 3.0 slope, I don’t care.

[PropDog]

And severely increase the work load for the other pilot……

Pick your battles I guess? You don’t have to do it going into every single airport. Hand flying is a perishable skill.

The food you packed is also perishable, eat it on descent with the autopilot on, before customs confiscates your meals. Yes this is picking battles; I don’t need my fellow pilot who shares a very small volumetric cubic space with me for hours to “prove his flying skills” from TOD to the runway. You wanna hand fly? Cool, buy yourself shares in the 172 at the local flight school. Disconnect at a 1000’ and embarrass yourself trying to hold a 3.0 slope, I don’t care.

It’s about being proficient not about proving anything. Yeah sure flying from ToD to ground may be excessive depending on where you’re going but you can take the autopilot off at some point in between. A happy medium. Plus if you practice you won’t embarrass yourself . Transport Canada is a little bit behind but the FAA is very big on using an appropriate level of automation and being proficient at all of them and full automation all the time isn’t all of them. Have some pride in your work and put in the effort to be more than “good enough”.

[CaptDukeNukem]

Pick your battles I guess? You don’t have to do it going into every single airport. Hand flying is a perishable skill.

The food you packed is also perishable, eat it on descent with the autopilot on, before customs confiscates your meals. Yes this is picking battles; I don’t need my fellow pilot who shares a very small volumetric cubic space with me for hours to “prove his flying skills” from TOD to the runway. You wanna hand fly? Cool, buy yourself shares in the 172 at the local flight school. Disconnect at a 1000’ and embarrass yourself trying to hold a 3.0 slope, I don’t care.

It’s about being proficient not about proving anything. Yeah sure flying from ToD to ground may be excessive depending on where you’re going but you can take the autopilot off at some point in between. A happy medium. Plus if you practice you won’t embarrass yourself . Transport Canada is a little bit behind but the FAA is very big on using an appropriate level of automation and being proficient at all of them and full automation all the time isn’t all of them. Have some pride in your work and put in the effort to be more than “good enough”.

I’ve seen too many pilots attempt to be “proficient” and destroy a perfectly stable approach. You wanna hand fly?… cool, brief the 9 degree turn at 1100 feet ASL and once you get there, ask for autopilot. The FAA also makes everyone fly 300kts to 10000ft before they even know which runway they are gonna be landing on, so yea they probably handle that stuff better at southwest.

Even a simple sidestep to the parallel runway is enough to throw the PF into disarray. Never mind the workload increase for the PM.

Monitor the systems, Collect your paycheck, and start complaining about schedules.

[digits_]

The food you packed is also perishable, eat it on descent with the autopilot on, before customs confiscates your meals. Yes this is picking battles; I don’t need my fellow pilot who shares a very small volumetric cubic space with me for hours to “prove his flying skills” from TOD to the runway. You wanna hand fly? Cool, buy yourself shares in the 172 at the local flight school. Disconnect at a 1000’ and embarrass yourself trying to hold a 3.0 slope, I don’t care.

It’s about being proficient not about proving anything. Yeah sure flying from ToD to ground may be excessive depending on where you’re going but you can take the autopilot off at some point in between. A happy medium. Plus if you practice you won’t embarrass yourself . Transport Canada is a little bit behind but the FAA is very big on using an appropriate level of automation and being proficient at all of them and full automation all the time isn’t all of them. Have some pride in your work and put in the effort to be more than “good enough”.

I’ve seen too many pilots attempt to be “proficient” and destroy a perfectly stable approach. You wanna hand fly?… cool, brief the 9 degree turn at 1100 feet ASL and once you get there, ask for autopilot. The FAA also makes everyone fly 300kts to 10000ft before they even know which runway they are gonna be landing on, so yea they probably handle that stuff better at southwest.

Even a simple sidestep to the parallel runway is enough to throw the PF into disarray. Never mind the workload increase for the PM.

Monitor the systems, Collect your paycheck, and start complaining about schedules.

If anything, that's an argument as to why they would need to hand fly more, not less....

[PropDog]

The food you packed is also perishable, eat it on descent with the autopilot on, before customs confiscates your meals. Yes this is picking battles; I don’t need my fellow pilot who shares a very small volumetric cubic space with me for hours to “prove his flying skills” from TOD to the runway. You wanna hand fly? Cool, buy yourself shares in the 172 at the local flight school. Disconnect at a 1000’ and embarrass yourself trying to hold a 3.0 slope, I don’t care.

It’s about being proficient not about proving anything. Yeah sure flying from ToD to ground may be excessive depending on where you’re going but you can take the autopilot off at some point in between. A happy medium. Plus if you practice you won’t embarrass yourself . Transport Canada is a little bit behind but the FAA is very big on using an appropriate level of automation and being proficient at all of them and full automation all the time isn’t all of them. Have some pride in your work and put in the effort to be more than “good enough”.

I’ve seen too many pilots attempt to be “proficient” and destroy a perfectly stable approach. You wanna hand fly?… cool, brief the 9 degree turn at 1100 feet ASL and once you get there, ask for autopilot. The FAA also makes everyone fly 300kts to 10000ft before they even know which runway they are gonna be landing on, so yea they probably handle that stuff better at southwest.

Even a simple sidestep to the parallel runway is enough to throw the PF into disarray. Never mind the workload increase for the PM.

Monitor the systems, Collect your paycheck, and start complaining about schedules.

So because people are bad at hand flying we should just be content with being bad at hand flying? It sounds like a lot of those problems would be solved with more practice hand flying and a good instrument scan.

Be mediocre and collect your pay seems to be a common attitude these days amongst all professions. Let’s be better than that.

[PropDog]

It’s about being proficient not about proving anything. Yeah sure flying from ToD to ground may be excessive depending on where you’re going but you can take the autopilot off at some point in between. A happy medium. Plus if you practice you won’t embarrass yourself . Transport Canada is a little bit behind but the FAA is very big on using an appropriate level of automation and being proficient at all of them and full automation all the time isn’t all of them. Have some pride in your work and put in the effort to be more than “good enough”.

I’ve seen too many pilots attempt to be “proficient” and destroy a perfectly stable approach. You wanna hand fly?… cool, brief the 9 degree turn at 1100 feet ASL and once you get there, ask for autopilot. The FAA also makes everyone fly 300kts to 10000ft before they even know which runway they are gonna be landing on, so yea they probably handle that stuff better at southwest.

Even a simple sidestep to the parallel runway is enough to throw the PF into disarray. Never mind the workload increase for the PM.

Monitor the systems, Collect your paycheck, and start complaining about schedules.

If anything, that's an argument as to why they would need to hand fly more, not less....

My thoughts exactly. His argument really isn’t helping his position.
“Pilots are incapable of hand flying a stable approach so we should continue never hand flying approaches or anything. Be mediocre and collect your pay check”

[CaptDukeNukem]

Yup. Good points. I love when the FO says…. Can I handfly until RVSM….

Flying the first 10000 and the last 10000 by putting a circle over a magenta dot exactly like the autopilot would do. Rent a katana if you want stick time.

[flyinhigh]

Don’t forget to read through the AIM occasionally, there is a lot of pertinent information that gets rusty over the years. I personally find reading through Section VII of the cars with a focus on 705 is helpful.
Take some time once you’re comfortable with the aircraft and “meat and potatoes” manuals ie: FOM, SOPs and read through the lesser used manuals like your FMS operators manual, AFM, AOM, GADPM, Weight and Balance manual etc. There isn’t a big focus on these manuals in your initial training other than “hey these exist” but they also are full of Important information.

If your company uses Jepp plates, Jepp has a free online legend that you can use to study and become familiar with chart symbols. I find that to be a weak point these days.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Just taking a bit of time every day or every other day makes a big difference in the long term.

Hand fly the aircraft when you can. If you’re not flying into RVSM airspace hand fly all the way up to cruise. It’s a skill you will lose quickly without using it. The FAA is huge on this. TC not so much.

Conditions permitting, disconnect everything at 280 and hand fly it to the ground, it's fun !

And severely increase the work load for the other pilot……

He did say, Conditions permitting. Would I do this into YYZ, no not at all. Into YQT, why not.

Hands and feet are one of the first skills to deteriorate in an airline environment so one should keep up on it, you know for those days where the autopilot is MEL’d.

[nohojob]

Conditions permitting, disconnect everything at 280 and hand fly it to the ground, it's fun !

And severely increase the work load for the other pilot……

He did say, Conditions permitting. Would I do this into YYZ, no not at all. Into YQT, why not.

Hands and feet are one of the first skills to deteriorate in an airline environment so one should keep up on it, you know for those days where the autopilot is MEL’d.

Exactly, and yes, it happens, autopilot do fail and you may have to handfly an ILS in actual. I would hate to do it without practice. Also my company recommands that we practice handflying.

[genetic jack hammer]

Don’t forget to read through the AIM occasionally, there is a lot of pertinent information that gets rusty over the years. I personally find reading through Section VII of the cars with a focus on 705 is helpful.
Take some time once you’re comfortable with the aircraft and “meat and potatoes” manuals ie: FOM, SOPs and read through the lesser used manuals like your FMS operators manual, AFM, AOM, GADPM, Weight and Balance manual etc. There isn’t a big focus on these manuals in your initial training other than “hey these exist” but they also are full of Important information.

If your company uses Jepp plates, Jepp has a free online legend that you can use to study and become familiar with chart symbols. I find that to be a weak point these days.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Just taking a bit of time every day or every other day makes a big difference in the long term.

Hand fly the aircraft when you can. If you’re not flying into RVSM airspace hand fly all the way up to cruise. It’s a skill you will lose quickly without using it. The FAA is huge on this. TC not so much.

Conditions permitting, disconnect everything at 280 and hand fly it to the ground, it's fun !

And severely increase the work load for the other pilot……

Severely increases the workload for the other pilot IF hand flying isn't briefed and discussed during the take-off briefing, while parked at the gate.The issue becomes when, right after gear up, the PF says that they're going to hand fly, then proceed to tell you what they'd like you to select for them (i.e. ALT changes, direct TO, V/S mode, NAV mode, etc). A critical phase right after take-off is not the place to have a discussion on this. That's my issue. Otherwise, fill yer boots. I've hand flown RNAV SID's out of Boston. No issues at all. How does the auto-pilot do it? It follows the flight director. Do the same thing. The same would apply to an arrival.

Agreed with some of the posters that hand flying skills is problaby the first to be lost in the airline world. It does build confidence in the pilot flying.