I’ve very much enjoyed myself since training started. Which is good since as I expected, FA Training has indeed killed my social life. In the last week I’ve seen my partner twice, and only for a few hours each time. Outside of class we get a lot of homework, so when I’m home I’m either studying, sleeping, or eating. (Maybe a little blogging too!)

At a minimum our homework is to read the chapters of our manual that were covered in class and to more or less have it memorized. That’s because most days we’ll have an exam on the subject. In addition to reviewing the chapters, we are often assigned to memorize briefing procedures, emergency situations, or speeches. What seems to be once a week (on Friday, for the weekend) we’ll also be told to download a PDF of additional material that is to be studied and fully understood, as there will be an exam on it on the following Monday. I know this sounds like a lot, and it is, but it’s very manageable. I’m finding the course to be very well planned out in regards to the amount of work we receive. It seems like as long as we review everything we are told to review then we’ll do just fine. In fact I’ve now had 5 exams since my last post, and on 4 of them I pulled 100%! Unfortunately today was the first day where I got an answer wrong. I was enjoying that perfect streak too!

The second half of last week was spent on aircraft familiarization and there was a little bit on fire safety as well. For the familiarization we learned about all the equipment on the aircraft. We covered material like how to arm/disarm/open/close the doors of the plane, where all the emergency equipment is and how to use it, how to complete a pre-flight check for each piece of equipment, and all sorts of fun things like that. By Friday we started covering fire emergencies; How to get passengers off the aircraft, what happens inside the cabin during all stages of a fire, and how to deal with fires concerning personal electronics such as laptops.

At the start of this week we put all of our fire knowledge to work! We were put into a simulated aircraft cabin where we each had to fight a fire in a unique scenario. I was given the most difficult scenario in the class. Lucky me! (Seriously though, I really enjoyed the challenge.) In my scenario I had to find a fire in an aircraft that was full of smoke as the plane is making an emergency landing. I have 15 minutes to touch down and am working in almost complete darkness. The flames don’t show up right away, so I have to keep looking until something starts to burn. I find out mid-simulation that some of my equipment is inoperative and there are other unforeseen setbacks. I’ll give you the spoiler: I was able to successfully put the fire out, get back to my seat before the plane touched down, and evacuated the aircraft safely. Go Me! Of course I couldn’t have done it without my trusty backup to hand me equipment and follow other orders as I directed.

The rest of the week was less hands on, as we covered more of the administrative side of things. We learned more about the proper maintenance of our manuals, detailed information about our crew briefings, and regulations concerning cabin safety inspectors.

Next week I’ll be telling you about my experiences doing drills aboard an aircraft from our fleet, as well as our drills in the pool! Until then I wish you a pleasant flight. Thank you for choosing theflyingpinto.com 🙂