Once the training was finished I was quite fortunate that the next Type Rating course was only a couple of weeks away. You start down in Exeter with an induction week during which you get chucked in the pool and stuck in a smokey room to find your way out.
Ground school takes around three weeks in total and then off to the simulator. We now use the simulator in Stockholm for the Q400. Initial course is 10 days long. Somewhere during these first few weeks you are asked where you would prefer to be based. At the end of the day though it is completely out of your hands, they try and accommodate as many requests as possible but the fact of the matter is that you have to take whatever is dished out.
