Started Mid Florida Tech today

Thanks for the information, very useful and helpful to know!

I have different instructors than you had, but am still pleased with the school so far.

 

Both days were pretty much the same. We have areas set up for the 6 different manuevers we are working on. We rotate in and out of those.

Also, good news to pass along, I got my second chance to go back to the shifting range and did MUCH better! I was allowed to go by myself for about a half an hour and that was awesome!

We are going to start the pre-trip inspection tests next Monday. He is taking volunteers first. I will not be volunterring yet as I don't feel I am ready.

Parallel parking, blind side is killing me!! Hopefully when I go back Monday, it will fall into place for me.

 

Today was a fantastic day for all of us....we were all getting stressed and worn down by last Thursday, we all seemed to be rejuvenated by the 3 day weekend.

4 students got to take their first road trips today. Luckily I was not one of them. I would like at least one more practice on the shift track before I head out into the real world. I did practice on the shift track today and I'm getting better. I also practiced with tight right turns, would like to work on that some more.

The ones who took the road trip said they took John Young Parkway to 192, 192 to 27 and 27 to 50....not sure what route they took back to the school. They all were excited about their first time out, everyone had a story to tell about the crazy car drivers zipping in and out and pulling in front of them. That part is really going to take some getting used to. I deal with it in my car everyday, but I am sure it is quite different in a big truck.

Got to work on my parallel parking again this morning. Happy to report that I finally got that down! Funny thing about the parallel parking is that seems to help with my other backing manuevers. I had to work so much on figuring out the angles, that it carrys over to the other moves. After parallel parking, everything else seemed pretty easy.

No one took their pre-trip today, but at least one person will take it tomorrow, maybe two depending on how the day goes.

Guess that was about it for today....

 

Sorry I didn't keep up with the daily routine, but basically, the days were all pretty much the same through the third week. First thing in the morning, we grade the homework, then the 4 people who are assigned to a truck for the day will go out and pretrip it, and then couple the truck and trailer. After all the trucks are coupled and ready to go, everyone else goes out and starts practicing the manuevers. Two people at a time go out with our driving instructor and each person drives about an hour out on the road. We also go one at a time to the shift track and practice our shifting in a nine speed. However, the truck we drive out on the road is a ten speed.

Also, the only recruiter we have had so far is Werner. We were suppposed to have a lady from Windy Hill come in, but she never showed up, never called either, so who knows what happened with her.......

Pre-trip tests are all done, everyone passed first time except for two guys. One guy has retaken it and passed, another guy has to retake it when he goes back after xmas break.

We all took our Mid Florida Tech midterm test for the skills manuevers and only 3 of 9 passed. In all honesty, the reason people didn't pass is because the scoring system was not properly explained to us.

A week later, we took the test again and everyone passed the first time except for one guy who retook the test the next day and passed that time. By the way, if you fail the pretrip twice, you are kicked out of school, same with the manuever tests, you get two chances to pass, and if you don't you are gone.

That brings us up to the last day of class. I'm a little upset about the way it ended. We finished the manuevers test and everyone was pretty happy about getting through it, then the instructor explains to us that the manuevers test was only for Mid Florida Tech purposes. The actual CDL skills test will be given when we come back from xmas break. The CDL test has only 2 skills we have practiced and 2 others that we have not practiced and we will only have one day to practice before testing begins. The instructor says that the cdl test is a lot easier than the Mid Florida Tech test so we should be fine. I guess we'll see how that plays out. Personally, I would have liked to have more practice time, but maybe he's right...we shall see.

If we pass that, then we will take our road test the same week and upon successful completion of that, we will have our cdl. At this point, I have had 3 road trips, things went well each time. I was absolutely terrified the first time out, mainly because I had never been in the truck before, and was worried about the shifting. Once I saw that I wasn't going to have a problem with the shifting, I settled down, and everything was fine. I should get at least one more time out before I have to take the road test.

After we get our cdl's, we will spend the remainder of our time ( approx 3 weeks) driving in convoys. They place 2 students in a truck and send all five trucks out together and by the end of school, we are guaranteed to have logged 1000 miles, but more than likely we will have around 1200 miles.

Kinghunter, you asked about downshifting.....I have to say that this is the thing I feel I need the most practice at. Most of the time I get it right, but now and then, it doesn't go so smooth. As far as what they teach us, we were told that any time we are slowing down and the rpms drop to 800, that's when we downshift. We have to decide based on our circumstances at the time if we are going to drop one gear or two, and then you need to know how many rpms to bump it up to to drop the gear or two. It's just something that takes practice.

I think that's about it. If someone is planning to go there and has a specific question, let me know. I'll try to keep updating once we start back after the holidays.