The One Where SHIFT Wraps Up and the Real Work Begins

Yesterday was our final day of SHIFT, and it ended with a quick recap of everything we have covered during the week. The instructors explained how the rest of our training will proceed. Until now, we have been training together as one large group, but from this point forward it will just be me and my partner. We will go through six sessions of flat-panel training, then move on to the procedures validation and knowledge validation (essentially the oral part of a check ride). After that, we jump straight into simulator training, followed by a maneuvers validation and three sessions of SPOT training, which I believe stands for Special Purpose Operational Training. All of this leads up to our LOE, which is the big check ride itself.

I have been feeling fairly confident about my flows and MCDU procedures. Yesterday, I finally tried out the VR headset, which took about half an hour to set up. Once I got the hang of it, I was surprised by how much it helped me visualize the cockpit layout and remember the correct sequence of button pushes and callouts. The only downside is that it gets pretty warm wearing it for too long, but it definitely beats staring at a 2D diagram. After VR practice, I headed to an Asian grocery store for a restock on ramen and snacks. Next door, we discovered a Korean BBQ restaurant owned by the same folks as the grocery store, so we decided to treat ourselves to an all-you-can-eat feast. I spent much of today revisiting my mental play-by-play of various callouts—normal takeoffs, rejected takeoffs, lost thrust after V1, and both normal and single-engine go-arounds. I feel pretty good about them, though I still catch myself running through each step whenever I close my eyes. Tomorrow, I plan on returning to the lab to polish my flows one more time and brush up on systems knowledge for the upcoming knowledge validation. Despite the intense workload, I am excited about how much progress we have made and eager to see what the next phase of training holds.