Earlier this year the pilot shortage reached my lowly position as a retired geezer with a jet type rating but who hadn’t flown jets regularly for over 40 years. I accepted a job offer to fly copilot in a Cessna Citation Sovereign Plus. That meant I needed a second-in-command type rating. The company’s insurer required that I complete simulator-based training. I fervently agreed with the requirement—I’d been through such training before.
I was scheduled into CAE’s (www.cae.com—one of the big dogs in simulator training) facility in Morristown, New Jersey. I would undergo all of the classroom and procedures training for the PIC type rating, but have three, rather than seven, full motion, Level D simulator sessions. I would not take a checkride but would have to demonstrate performance of all of the tasks set out in CAE’s FAA-approved training program to ATP standards.