This Reddit post, drawn from r/flying, captures a moment familiar to nearly every pilot who has gone through initial type rating training: the gut-punch of a bad simulator session early in the syllabus. The poster, working toward a CJ3 type rating, describes physical nausea from the motion platform, slow checklist flows, a poor circle-to-land maneuver, and a flap overspeed during a go-around, all by day two of training. While the post itself is brief and informal, it reflects a training reality that rarely gets discussed openly outside pilot forums—namely, that even experienced aviators can struggle significantly in the early days of a Level D full-motion simulator curriculum, particularly when transitioning into a new aircraft type with unfamiliar systems, automation logic, and performance characteristics.
For working pilots, particularly those in Part 91/91K and Part 135 business aviation, this scenario is instructive on several levels. The CJ3 type rating is a common rite of passage for pilots moving into light jet operations, often from turboprops or piston twins, and the compressed timeline of most type rating courses (typically five to seven simulator days at a training center like FlightSafety or CAE) leaves little room to "settle in." Motion sickness in the box, often triggered by the disconnect between visual cues and vestibular sensation, is a legitimate and underdiscussed challenge that can degrade performance independent of a pilot's actual proficiency or knowledge. Flow speed, checklist discipline, and precise flap-speed management are exactly the muscle-memory skills that training is designed to build under pressure, and a rough day 2 is far more common than pilots often admit to each other, let alone to chief pilots or training departments who may be evaluating them for a new job.
The broader significance here ties into ongoing conversations in the industry about pilot mental health, training culture, and the stigma around admitting struggle during evaluation-based training events. As business aviation continues to see a wave of pilots transitioning from regional airlines, military backgrounds, or turboprop fleets into jets like the CJ3, Phenom, or King Air upgrades, type rating courses are increasingly the first high-stakes checkride-style environment many of these pilots have faced in years. Training providers and operators alike have a vested interest in normalizing rough simulator days as part of the learning curve rather than treating early struggles as predictive of ultimate failure. Given that redoing a sim day is a routine and built-in contingency in most training contracts, it should not automatically alarm hiring departments or program managers.
For online pilot communities like r/flying, posts like this serve an important peer-support function, allowing pilots to vent, benchmark their experience against others, and receive reassurance from those who have been through the same syllabus. The candid, self-critical tone ("I suck") is typical of the imposter syndrome that surfaces during type-specific training, especially for pilots earning their first rating in a swept-wing turbojet with more restrictive V-speeds and unforgiving energy management. The takeaway for training departments, mentors, and check airmen is that early sim struggles, including physical symptoms like nausea, are common enough to warrant proactive discussion during initial briefings, and that framing day 2 setbacks as data points rather than failures helps preserve the psychological safety pilots need to perform well by the time they reach the checkride.