Your first objective is to survive airline ground school - 20 pounds of manuals crammed into a three-week program. Don't worry about the details; get the big picture.
Your flight operations manual, the FOM, was probably written by attorneys for attorneys. You'll soon realize that if anything goes wrong, the company will say that you violated the FOM in some obscure way. This is why most captains act as they do.
Become familiar with the FOM's contents, but concentrate on the requirements for dispatching and operating the company's aircraft. Later, when you're flying the line and wishing for a sleeping pill because your hotel room is next to the ice machine and the elevators, read other sections of the FOM. You'll soon fall asleep.
The airplane flight manuals are next - emergency procedures, limitations, flight profiles, systems, performance, and cockpit procedures (flow patterns). Put the emergency procedures, limitations, and flight profiles on flash cards. You must know them cold.
To study a system, start with its schematic diagram. Don't read about the system until you can draw a reasonable replica of the schematic from memory. With the schematic embedded in your mind, the system description will make more sense and you will save time.
Don't be intimidated by performance charts just because each one seems like a mousetrap. They all have some kind of nuance that will cause errors if ignored. Work a few sample problems and then try to develop a quick rule of thumb that will yield a general answer. Use that answer to check the reasonableness of the answer you derive from the charts. In the heat of battle, you won't have the luxury of a well-lit desk and unlimited time to make these determinations. A last-minute payload, runway, wind, or temperature change requires a quick and accurate determination of takeoff distance.
In six months or so you'll start to feel comfortable with your new position, and after one year when your probation requirements are complete, your attitude will change. Now you will take a hard look at the pilot's contract because you're thinking of that new car, house, boat, and most definitely a Pitts Special aerobatic biplane with a sunburst paint job. Decisions, decisions!
Wow, look at what those Boeing 747 copilots make. It's more than a Boeing 737 captain. With that money I could buy two Pitts. If you say, "I'm going for the 747," you have made your first mistake.
Many copilots do this, and I've witnessed the sad results firsthand. They watch their captains for a few years and soon say, "If they can do it, I can do it." But when upgrade time occurs, these copilots often go down in flames. They don't realize that these captains cut their teeth as copilots on DC-9s, 727s, or 737s and spent years flying the worst weather. When they went to captain's school, flying the airplane was of little concern. Those skills were deeply ingrained.
Don't go for the money or spend your early years as a fair-weather copilot. Go for the experience. I've flown with many fair-weather captains who, when they first spot a towering cumulonimbus cloud on the horizon, immediately ask ATC for a route deviation. To their embarrassment, they frequently wind up on the wrong side of the weather. Ha, ha!
Ignore the money. Go to where the weather is, fly the junior equipment, and master the art of all-weather instrument flying. If you do this early in your career, you will probably become a relaxed, easy-going captain with whom copilots will like to fly. And in the end you will get your financial rewards (unless you signed on with the airlines that are laying off right now...).
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