Private jet charter company XOJet is serious about training its pilots.
They are recruited "from all walks of the industry," Chief Pilot Chris DiCara said in an interview, including international, regional, military, and corporate carriers. But before a new hire joins the crew even as a co-pilot, he or she is trained to qualify under FAA rules to serve as the pilot in command, or captain.
Much of that training happens in a classroom. The rest goes down in a flight simulator — an enormous piece of equipment that recreates exactly the experience of being in the air, right down to the rumbling of the engines and the feel of the captain's seat.
The flight simulators XOJet uses are actually good enough that pilots are not required to fly the physical aircraft before going to work.
To make sure they're really ready, XOJet goes beyond the standard procedures required by the FAA, DiCara said. They recreate all kinds of real-world situations, even having someone play a distracting flight attendant or passenger while the jet is malfunctioning.
To give me a taste of what its pilots go through, XOJet invited me to Whippany, New Jersey, to take a flight in a simulator for the midsize Challenger 300 jet, operated by leading aviation training company CAE, which produces and operates the top of the line simulators.
After a brief spin — taking off from and landing at New York's JFK airport in heavy cloud cover — I came away impressed by what the simulator can do, and by the pilots who survive it.
For XOJet pilots, the work starts here — in an ordinary looking CAE classroom. XOJet pilots spend 300 hours in training before flying (combined here and in the simulator), and another 150 hours every six months after that.
Posters on the wall recreate the controls in the cockpit of the plane the pilots are learning to fly.
Once the pilots are ready to start "flying," they head to the simulators, which are lined up in a long hallway. CAE operates a dozen simulators at its NJ facility, for a range of aircraft. Each simulator costs between $8 and $16 million.
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