During Your Jet Training: What To Expect

Time For Some Fun

By: John Fiscus

Training for your type rating will be a fun challenge.  The aircraft itself is one of the most sophisticated in the air today and is also designed to make the pilot’s life as straightforward as possible.  The Perspective Touch avionics are very similar in structure to the Perspective and Perspective Plus in the SR aircraft.  The autopilot is virtually the same, and a lot of the key cockpit controls are in the same place as they are in the SR, and the display layout on the PFD and MFD are almost exactly the same. 

With that all being true, you’re also in for a workout.  The type rating will focus on making you knowledgeable in all the various new systems and some of them will be completely new to you.  You’ll be learning new memory items, new speeds and power settings, and you’ll be getting a lot of opportunity to think about whether or not you’ve put your landing gear down (or brought it up).

Ground School

Ground School:

Your first four days will primarily focus on ground school with a bit of non-motion avionics and normal procedures training towards the end of each day.  Typically you’re on the campus for eight to nine hours per day and that time will be filled with activity.

Ground school topics will start with a basic overview of the airplane and then dive into a lot of specifics.  How do the emergency exits work?  What are some of the airframe limitations?  How do you lock the back seats into place?  How does the active radar work?  Why *don’t* we need to add Prist to our fuel?

You’re on your way to becoming a Vision Jet expert!

At the end of two of the days you’ll be given a written test to make sure you’re keeping up.  This is a good thing:  You don’t want to have some holes in the knowledge and continue!  Usually a little bit of after class study or discussion on the side with your Vision instructor crew can fill in the gaps. 

Do you need a high altitude endorsement?  If you haven’t flown a pressurized airplane before then you’ll likely need that.  No problem!  It can be worked into the time you’re there for type training and doesn’t take a ton of time.  You’ll be asked about this when you show up for training.  If you want to knock it out of the way beforehand, that’s an option too. 

Things they won’t have time to cover in depth, but things you’ll be expected to be familiar with before type training include weather planning, how your iPad or other flight planning software works, and basic instrument knowledge items.  It is for this reason that we recommend pilots spend some time getting ready for their type training by brushing up on the essentials. 

Take advantage of the Flight Skills Assessment offered by Cirrus. It’s a great way to find out what could use a little polish before you start the training.  If you need some brush up or want to be really ready, contact us and ask about the Vision Jet Jump Start program: Jets@TheFlightAcademy.com

Let’s Fly!

Flight Training

Once ground school is complete, the majority of your flight training will happen in the full motion simulator.  Some will be conducted in the non-motion sims but don’t worry: they’re the same cockpit, same feel, and same… pretty much everything.  They just don’t move around. 

You’ll have some flight planning homework to be completed the evening before each sim session.  Don’t like what the numbers turn out?  Get creative and come up with some alternatives and be ready to discuss them with your sim instructor.

Treat each sim like a real flight.  Show up with a charged iPad, writing equipment, reading glasses, and anything else you’d normally have along with you in an airplane.  The only thing you don’t need to bring is a headset.  The instructor will be making radio calls to you like ATC would and try to keep it real as possible.  

You’ll complete one flight lesson per day and have the remainder of each day set aside for pre/post brief.  Each session in the sim is 2.5 hours and you can assume at least an hour and a half around that for briefing.  The rest of the day will be dedicated to guided study and more ground discussion.  It’s more free-form because each pilot has different areas that need work, but all pilots need something.  There will be dedicated instructors with you, helping you study items or giving you some challenges to see where your skills are.  You’ll usually also have access to the “hot benches” which are boxes containing the avionics.  Your instructors can give you assignments for things to load in, delete, change, activate, and so forth.  If you prefer, you can head back to your lodging and study there instead. 

“A word of advice: STUDY.  Don’t go back to your hotel and spend 5 hours catching up on work each day.  I know, you can’t just shut it off and it pays the bills but seriously – limit that stuff as much as humanly possible.  You have a limited amount of time to get your brain programmed.

Another word of advice:  Step away.  Your brain needs disconnect time each day to help it learn better on the next day.  Give yourself an hour of down time or more before you go to sleep for the day. ”

The flight lessons will cover all you need to know to pass your check ride: normal operations that include takeoff and landing, approaches and missed approaches, icing operations, and more.  You’ll also cover the maneuvers you’ll be doing on your test: stalls, steep turns, unusual attitudes, and slow flight.  Finally, the fun stuff:  fires, engine failures, pressure loss, go arounds, and computer problems.  You’ll get a workout over each 2.5 hour sim session.

You’ll complete a total of five lessons prior to your check ride.  What will that be like?  Check out our article about the check ride to see.