Another Mid-Lifer Story: IOE

Last I wrote I was sitting in a hotel in Chicago just outside of Ohare waiting to start my first trip. I was really anxious about it, but more in a nervious kind of way. I always thought my first time in a Jet would be exciting. Normally I am always very excited to fly a new airplane. This time though, I was letting my nerves get the best of me. IOE (Initial operating experience) is the first time you actually climb abroad the actual airplane. Up to this point it has all been in the box...or the simulator. My first trip would be ORD-TYS-ORD-RDU.

So the moment arrives and I finally meet my IOE Captain in the ORD crew room. He was a very nice guy. Very patient. Our first plane was running late, so we went outside to use another airplane to do a preflight inspection on. Finally our plane arrives so we head down to start preparing for our flight to knoxville Tenn. He took care of the walk around because he knew I would be needing the extra time to get my duties done. He took the first leg, I had to handle the radios while on the ground in ORD. I felt like a brand new student again. I think I said "what did he say" on every other call. I thought I was pretty good on the radios, ha, not as good as I thought. So we finallyu made it TYS. We once again did our preflight duties and now it's my turn. The take off was pretty smooth. I wanted to get a feel for the airplane so I hand flew it up to about 14,000 before turning on the autopilot. It's a very comfortable airplane to fly. The flight went pretty well. I was very much behind the airplane, but CA McCarthy kept up with me, and the plane. My first approach in the airplane just had to be in Ohare, no, not some smaller airport. I had to fly the 27L ils and land at one of the busiest airports in the country. Well, I made it. we got on the ground and prepared for our next leg to rdu where we would overnight.

The next day was a return to ord, then an Omaha turn. Again I would fly the ORD inbound legs.
Day three and four was a repeat of the previous two except I did the outbound legs

This was my plane for the Omaha leg. it was an interesting flight. The controller actually put us in a bad spot, but we managed to get a visual on the runway just before the Capt was about to call a go around. He asked if I had a visual, and If i could get it down. I said sure. It actually ended up being a descent approach and I even got a compliment for salvaging the approach.

this was not my first flight but this shot remind of the first time time I flew to 36,000. I though cool I'm at FL360, then I thought, How am I going to get down?

I am now done with 6 days of IOE. I will probably do two more before being signed off. I'm currently at home waiting for the call. I hope I hear something soon.

Here are a couple more pics from the trip.