Wannabe to Watkins Shepard Driver

Second Week of School (monday and tuesday)
Backing, backing and more backing. I have had a lot of experience backing trailers of all sorts. I've backed boats, campers, hay racks, wagons, fifth wheel, car haulers and the like. All of that helps a little but I think some people have the natural ability and others don't. I say this because of all the experience I have, my ability on the driving range is average. And that's OK, but a couple of guys in our class have next to zero experience backing anything and they are average. Therefore, I suggest they have great ability. And to my point, if you haven't backed a trailer before chances are you are going to do OK. We are using an old day cab with 53' trailer. The exercises are to perform the straight back through 100' of cones and the alley dock where you pull up at a 45 degree angle and then back straight into a dock.
Pre trip inspection is a big part of your DMV examination so we spend an hour every morning going over that. Also did a "drop and hook" with a trailer yesterday. We can only drive in 1st gear around the range so we haven't really started shifting yet. One thing we have been learning (and unlearning) is taking off from a dead stop. In a semi type truck you don't touch the accelerator when starting out. The engine has so much torque it doesn't need it. Just smoothly let out the clutch and you start rolling.

Had a recruiter from TMC come by the school on Monday. Temperature in the state of NC rose 5 degrees from all of his hot air. But he did let us keep the cheep a%$ pen he gave us and made a big deal out of it. Told us you could make over 2K a week with them. So I'm thinking, if that were true you wouldn't need a recruiter now would you? But being the considerate person I am, I didn't interrupt his dog and pony show with my observations. Just keep it to myself and smiled, he probably thought I was enjoying his show. And I was, just not in the same way he was thinking.
Ok, back to the driving range fellas (no pun intended)

 

2nd week finished!

Not a whole lot to report. We spent the week doing three things, pretrip inspection, straight backing, 45 degree alley docking backing. All impotent none the less but a tough week. We have five people in our class and one truck, so 4/5th of the time you are watching someone else, that's the tough part.
Next week we will be on the road. Then they will use two trucks so I will be able to get a lot more seat time. Really looking forward to it.

 

Started Week Three Today

Started off today in a large parking lot. We started off in 3rd gear with no throttle. Then shifted to 4th no throttle and then 5th. Did this several times and then started adding throttle. Took the engine up to 1500 RPMs and then shifted at 1000 RPM. Double clutching all the time. After everyone had a chance to do this several times we headed out to a 4 lane divided highway and pulled off on a on ramp. Then took turns running down the highway 8 miles and back. Shifting through the gears to 65 mph in 9th and then down shifting at the next ramp. Real hard to remember to double shift all the time. Tomorrow we will be driving in town. All the time we are pulling a 53' trailer. I'll get a photo of the training truck and post it. This was definitely a fun day!