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Road to the Left Seat (part 7) – Type Rated
After having sat in the right seat for nearly 9 years, it’s time for the next step in my career. I look forward to taking you along on this new adventure of mine and to share my unfiltered story with you once again. Welcome to my ‘Road to the Left Seat’!
WE DID IT! Earlier today my colleague and I passed our Type Rating Exam on the Embraer, meaning we are now ready to progress to the next part of our training: the Operator Conversion Course.
It’s been a hectic few weeks with a lot to learn, so let me take you back in time and tell you all about the steep learning curve we went through!
Into the virtual sky
Entering the simulator for the first time really felt quite special, but mostly because I could now take a seat on the Captain’s side of the “aircraft”. However, it didn’t take long for this slight feeling of pride to make way for a voice in the back of my head, asking me why all the buttons looked so weird and why the control column looked as if it was seemingly ripped off from a children’s bike.
Like I said before, the Boeing 737 felt like a backpack I would simply throw around my shoulder and take with me. It felt effortless and intuitive. Flying the Embraer for the first time did NOT feel like that in any way, shape or form.
There were many new procedures to learn, aircraft systems to make sense of and flying a 40-tonne jet with the hand I’m unable to brush my teeth with is quite funny, but also confronting. I noticed I got frustrated at times because things just didn’t go the way I was used to. I couldn’t fly as sharp as I could with the 737, the way information is portrayed on the instruments felt strange to me and I noticed that simply flying the aircraft took a lot of effort.
In the end I couldn’t have expected any less, especially given the fact the 737 has been my only reference for the past 9 years. I simply needed to trust the process and give it all some more time. After all, we had only spent about 6 hours in the simulator at this point.
No time to waste
The thing about Type Ratings is that a regular flight from A to B is not part of the syllabus, far from it. Every sim session, we are trained to deal with abnormal situations. From simple electronic failures to engine fires in low visibility, we had to learn how to deal with it all.
The Embraer really is a lot more modern than the 737. It’s mostly fly-by-wire, has plenty of features which make flying easier and when it comes to failure-management everything is a lot clearer. Issues can easily be identified and if there’s one positive about flying with a big computer, it’s that there’s always an easy fix you can try: just turn it off and on again.
Embraer stands for ‘Every Mechanical Breakdown Requires An Electronic Reset’.
Oh, and perhaps it’s time for another fun fact! When Embraer was designing the Embraer E1 in the late 90’s, they wanted to move away from conventional flight controls and develop their new aircraft with Fly-By-Wire technology. To do this, they had separate teams working on every flight control surface: the rudder, elevators, spoilers and ailerons. Unfortunately, the team designing the ailerons didn’t meet the deadline set by Embraer and to avoid delaying the project, the airplane manufacturer decided to slap some cables onto the ailerons and call it a day. Brazilian efficiency at its finest.
Slowly, but surely
As training progressed, the normal procedures started to settle in and there was more focus on failure management and working as a team. Fortunately for me, my colleague in the right seat is very experienced and we’re easily able to support each other wherever necessary.
It was also unfair for me to judge the Embraer so soon and in the end a simulator is still just a simulator, but flying does feel rather artificial. I do hope the real aircraft will change that feeling soon. Either way it’s nice to be challenged and to see how much progress we made in such a short time.
As we approached the end of our Type Rating, scenarios became more complex, the instructor gave less input and it was up to us to demonstrate our skills and knowledge. Slowly but surely, we were feeling ready for the exam and fortunately for us we didn’t have to wait very long for it.
The Big Day
Today, on September 21st 2026, my colleague and I passed our Type Rating Exam! We felt well-prepared, knew what to expect and it’s safe to say we were both very relaxed throughout it all. Rejected take-off’s, engine failures, go-arounds, manual flying in low visibility… in the end the exam we did today was exactly the same as the one we have passed in all previous years when renewing our license. The only difference now was that we were flying an Embraer.
After our last landing, followed by an inextinguishable cargo fire and an evacuation on the runway, the examiner congratulated us on passing our exam. We are now officially Type Rated!
We can close this chapter of our training with pride and can now look forward to the OCC at KLM Cityhopper, but first it’s time to relax for a few days. See you soon!
Thank you for reading this new post about my Road to the Left Seat! Should you have any questions whatsoever, don’t hesitate to get in touch via my Instagram: @bobthebelgian
