T-t-t-t-training Day Four.

Actually, day last. The only thing left for us is the checkride tomorrow morning. In class today we finished up all the other systems we hadn't covered in the last 3 days. Things like Ice & Rain Protection, Oxygen, Landing Gear, Drag Chute, Hydraulics. Then we had the mandatory test of everything we've covered over the last four days. Multiple choice, open book, but still a test all the same.

Sim was sort of the same thing. We covered the last bits of our training syllabus; Emergency Descents, Fuel Emergencies, Overspeed, Evacuation, Inadvertent Thrust Reverser Deployment, Fire and the Circle-to-Land approach.

Don't blink, a circle to land approach at night, in bad weather will kill you deader than shit if you're not on the ball. And having a thrust reverser hanging out when your trying to fly, well, think of it as one engine pushing you forward and the other pushing in the opposite direction. Fun.

My instructor continued to be the magnificent sadist. I had a fuel pressure warning light come on AS I'm blasting through 25,000 ft. It would sort of be like trying to suck a can of pop through a straw from 2 stories up. A failed engine inside the final approach fix on a precision approach. Yes, I know it's called the outer marker, but we're not all pilots reading this, are we. Not one, not two, but 3 reverser deploys are various phases of flight. The worst being just micro seconds after starting my rotation on take off. Try maintaining directional control when everything goes wonky like that in a transitory phase. What else... Oh yeah, I had a runaway engine followed by the other engine catching on fire on an ILS set to 1800 RVR. "Let it burn, it's the only thing that's get us to the runway." But say it calmly. It's a nasty situation. We train to pull a burning engine. But if you've already shut the other one down.... You have to think BEFORE you react to the pretty flashing red lights.

Like I said tomorrow is the checkride, then I get to drive several hours home, repack and catch a plane up to pick up another one coming out of maintenance the next day. Because you know, getting some time off after a recurrent pressure cooker is really ridiculous.