Today was the last day of the "ground school" portion. We met at the airport instead of the classroom so we could pop all the doors, go over the panels and remember what it looks like inside of an actual airplane. Only two of us had MEM SIDA badges, so I wound up trying to find a ramper so we could get ground power on one of the planes. Heh, looking for a ramper to put power on a plane. Sorta like being back flying the line.
Anyway, after popping panels and opening doors, we went back over to the classroom. We went through some severe weather stuff and did the general emergency training. Most of this is so we can check the box and consider the upgrade class as our recurrent training for the year as well.
The company's rep for the ASAP/FOQA program came in and talked to us. Some rumors have been floating around about guys getting the axe due to FOQA, and he pretty much put those to rest. Kinda hard to fire someone when you don't know who was flying the plane, what the flight number was or the date it flew. ALPA is the gatekeeper for that info, and you'd have to pry it from their cold, dead hands. So, lots of questions about that asked and answered, plus examples of how FOQA and ASAP have helped alleviate some problems we'd been having (like guys trying to take off at flaps 0 or landing with the TRs not armed).
Then we took the written test. Since we were working through lunch in order to get finished on time/a little early, the company sprung for lunch again. Wasn't on the plan, but when they found out we were gonna be working during lunch and just ordering pizza, they stepped up to the plate and bought our lunch for us. Unexpected surprise. Written test wasn't easy, but it wasn't hard either. Everyone passed it, so that box is checked in the training folder.
Tomorrow I've got the day off, then we have CRM and security training on Fri. Probably take some time to scour the FOM tomorrow and start getting ready for my oral on Sunday.