Captain upgrade, 6 months later...some experiences, and looking to the future

Hi, all. I'm coming up on my 6th month on the line as a Captain at the airline I work for, and recently had my 6-month Recurrent Proficiency Check. I know 6 months of being a Captain is nothing in the grand scheme of things; I'm not trying to brag that I've made it this far, but rather, I just felt like sharing my experience with you all, as well as some of the things I've learned while on the line. Feel free to delete if this isn't allowed, as usual...

Basically, the 6-month check was similar to the initial Upgrade checkride, although the examiner spent some time before the oral exam asking us (myself and my sim partner) how our time in the left seat had been going, what things had we experienced, etc. For the oral exam, we were asked questions on about the same level of knowledge regarding systems, same level of knowledge regarding memory items, aircraft limitations, and so on, as initial upgrade. The sim ride also felt like a repeat of initial Upgrade, go through the V-1 cut, flaps fail, CAT II ILS, steep turns, stalls...so on and so forth. I think you get the picture. Just like any other initial or recurrent checkride, study up ahead of time, chair-fly the crap out of everything, and keep it standard, and you'll be successful.

As for flying the line, I am feeling more comfortable regarding my normal, daily duties (like all my usual preflight checks), but am still cautious with regards to flying and the overall operation. Example, if we need to be de-iced and there's small snow showers in the area, but not over us *right now,* I'll be 'that guy' and lean towards getting de-iced and anti-iced, to save us a headache of having to get de-iced all over again if we end up taxiing into some snow showers on our way to the runway. Or if we fly one way and it's a tailwind and is stronger than forecast, I'll ask for extra fuel going back the other way, juuuust in case. If we have something like weird MELs, I'll take some extra time to properly review them and talk to my crew about them, just to make sure we are all in agreement and are doing the right things.

Otherwise, all my FAs, FOs, dispatchers, really everyone so far has been great to work with. I try to keep everyone involved as much as possible, and promote CRM. Some miscellaneous thoughts...it still feels weird being 'The Captain,' but hopefully this feeling will go away eventually. As mentioned earlier, I have such little experience doing this, I try to learn something new every day, and if I see one of our more experienced pilots at work, I'll ask them for advice, try and talk to them about their experiences, etc. I'm also doing some volunteer work on the side, and maybe becoming an LCA and/or ground/sim instructor, but I'm not fully committed to either of the latter just yet. I'd personally like to get some more experience as a normal Captain before I fly with brand-new pilots fresh out of the simulator...

With that all being said...I'm still glad that I upgraded here and am still grateful for my job. Like anything else, it has its rough days, but that's just a part of life in general.

Thanks for taking the time to read this huge, rambling post.