Emirates training week 5: what fire week, the pool and the SEP exams were actually like, written on the night before the service block starts
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#1 From Curitiba, in Dubai since week 1, and I have been reading the training threads on here since before I got the call, so I owe one back. This is week 5 as it happened, written tonight because tomorrow the service block starts and I am told that is another world.
Where we are
Batch of 26, we are 24 now. The two who left, one failed the SEP written on both attempts (the second attempt is the next morning, so there is no real recovery time), one had a family situation and deferred. Nobody has been sent home for attitude, which the forum made me expect.
Fire week
The fire trainer is a real cabin mock up. They fill it with theatrical smoke until you cannot see the seat in front of you, then a real fire is lit in an oven, a lavatory bin, or under a seat, and you have to locate it, call it, fight it with the correct extinguisher, and communicate with your 'colleague' by touch and voice while wearing the smoke hood. It is hot, it is loud, and the first time your brain refuses to move. The second and third times your hands do it without you. That is the point of the week.
What I did not expect: the hood fogs, the extinguisher is heavier than it looks, and the instructor will pull a 'passenger' into your path halfway through. Be ready for that.
The pool
At the training college pool. Jump from a platform in full life jacket, swim to the raft, get in without help, help two others in, then the raft drills: canopy, bailing, the survival kit, the roles. Then a scenario where the 'aircraft' has ditched at night and you do the whole thing with the lights down. I am a weak swimmer and I passed comfortably. The life jacket does the work. The getting into the raft is the hard part physically and they teach the technique.
The SEP exams
Three so far, one per aircraft type block, all multiple choice, all 90 percent pass mark, all asking the exact number. Not 'roughly how many extinguishers on the upper deck' but the number. I made flashcards by door and by type and tested every night with two others in the accommodation kitchen. All three of us have passed every exam so far. The people who studied alone have had a harder time, not because they are less clever, because saying it out loud to someone else is what makes it stick.
The days
Bus from the accommodation at 6:20. Classes from 7:30 to about 4. Study from 6 to 10. Sleep. The weekend is one day and you spend it doing laundry and flashcards. It is not a holiday and anyone who tells you Dubai training is a holiday has not done it.
What I would tell week 1 me
Buy a small whiteboard. Learn the door drills as a song, seriously, rhythm helps. Go to the pool at the accommodation before pool week if you are a weak swimmer. Do not go out on the one day off in the first three weeks, the tiredness compounds. Make two study friends by day two, not day ten.
Ask anything. I will answer after tomorrow's service block if I still have a brain.
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#2 Two batches ahead of you and this is exactly it. The service block is a different kind of hard: less memory, more standing up straight and smiling while being marked on the angle of a tray. You will enjoy it more than SEP and be more tired. The flashcards by door and type trick got me through as well.
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#3 Newcastle lad, grade I two years now, and I still remember the smoke hood fogging. Nobody warns you. Good on you for writing it down properly, this is the thread I wish I had read.
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#4 In training in Riyadh right now and the structure is almost identical, same pass marks, same fire week, same pool. The 'learn the door drills as a song' thing is the best tip I have read on here. Doing it tonight.
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#5 @hassanruh the rhythm thing sounds silly until the instructor asks you to do the drill at speed and you realise you are basically rapping it. Works.
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#6 Reading this at 21 with the dream still a dream and it is the most useful thing I have read. The bus at 6:20 and study until 10 is the part that makes it real.
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#7 Italian, five years in, and I want to add one thing for anyone reading before they go: the accommodation kitchen study group is not just about passing. The three people I studied with are still my closest friends in Dubai five years later. Make the group for the exams, keep it for the life.
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#8 Adding for the Americans reading: the pool is genuinely fine, I could not swim a length before I came and passed. The life jacket and the technique for the raft are the whole thing. Do not let the pool stop you applying.