First (and second) IFR flight

I would love to be able to show you some photos of my first IFR flight. Something along the lines of clear blue skies above, surfing a layer of white fluffy cloud below. Unfortunately I can't do that. My first IFR flight was mostly spent at six thousand feet in the cloud and rain of New Zealand's winter.

We had eight simulator sessions over the last two weeks. This helped us to avoid the wind and the rain that has plagued most other courses of late. These were a good chance for us to get to grips with the much more involved and procedural techniques of flying under IFR.

It's a strange sense of relief emerging from cloud with the runway straight ahead of you, on descent profile with the ground visible for the first time in two hours. The aircraft we are learning to fly in have some very sophisticated pieces of equipment to aid with navigation during flight and following it's direction by use of the instruments is quite a challenge, especially when you now have no visual reference to fly on. It is quite easy to become disorientated and it happens surprisingly fast. So that said you imagine the sense of satisfaction I also felt when presented with Hamilton's wet runway ahead of me.

In complete contrast, my second IFR flight was full of fantastic views and a very bizarre moment of seeing snow in July. As we (EZMP02) are now quite pushed for time in which to compete our lessons before we go home next week, we are doing multiple flights a day. This means that two cadets and an instructor take an aircraft for the day and get as many lessons done as possible. For the most part of today the sky was clear and smooth. However the trip back from Napier had us flying through and above cloud, awarding us some spectacular shots of an altitude where the temperature was -7 degrees C. It was pretty cold to say the least. Here are a selection of photos from today's jaunt about New Zealand.

Departing Napier

Climbing above the mountains between Napier and Taupo

Snow capped mountains of the North Island

The view flying through cloud

Breaking through the top of the cloud

A sunny afternoon after all

Lake Taupo

Afternoon sun between cloud layers

I can no longer see where I'm going

It has been a busy week here in New Zealand. I have had six events in as many days, passing my first professional flight test, completing the first three IFR simulator sessions and fulfilling the night flying requirements of the MPL course.

At the end of our VFR flying training we have something called a Competency Assurance (CA). This is effectively a flight test equivalent to the first progress test that the guys and girls on the wings course have. The CA encompasses most of what we have been taught to date, including navigation, circuits and emergency procedures. It also means that the next time I get a chance to fly solo will be when I get round to taking it up as a hobby again at some point in the future.

At first night flying felt quite uncomfortable. Not being able to see any definition in the ground and being unable to see any of the mountains that surround Hamilton make it quite nerve racking. Once I got over that initial unease the rest of the night flying I have done has been great. During the first flight the instructor took us off for a bit of navigation towards Auckland to give us a feel for navigation in the dark, with just the urban lights of towns and cities that look exactly the same. This also included a trip to the Sky Tower in Auckland for a couple of orbits around the Southern Hemisphere's tallest building, before transiting Auckland's controlled airspace between a landing 737 and a 777 on approach, it's very bright landing light making it look as if it was bearing down on us.

Sky Tower and Auckland City by night (thanks Dean for the photo)

It's very exciting to move onto the next bit of the training and to start learning something new. As enjoyable as the nav flights were, there were a lot of them and most of us were very much looking forward to moving on. One of the best things about this next phase is that we are now not so restrained by NZ's wintery weather.

In the first three sim sessions we have been looking at flying holding patterns using radio navigation aids. All of this has been done in IMC (Instrument Meteorological Conditions) so I have no visual reference to fly to and have to spend the entire time looking at the instruments. It's suprisingly disorientating flying with no visual cues as the human body is very easily tricked into thinking that it is in a different position to the one it really is. This makes flying in cloud very difficult and dangerous. The flying itself is surprisingly straight forward in IFR, but there is just so much more to consider and so much more mental arithmetic that makes it all the more challenging. I like a challenge so roll on the IFR flights we have coming up before we go home.

Radio Navigation

Over the last ten days I have been quite lucky to fly in the gaps in bad weather and complete all of my solo circuit lessons in the Cessna. Many of the people on the course have not been so lucky as the rain and the wind has hampered any progress while making the grass significantly greener.

As I have been fortunate with the weather, I have now done the next three simulator sessions in which we start learning how to fly in IMC (instrument meteorological conditions, essentially bad weather) using radio navigation aids such VOR's (Very high frequency Omnidirectional radio Range), NDB's (Non Directional Beacons) and GPS. These simulator sessions have been great fun as they gave a chance to start using some of the more procedural aspects to flying and navigating using departure, approach and arrival plates. In my GPS lesson, the instructor had me set up an entire Instrument route between Auckland and Hamilton  which I subsequently flew, executed a missed approach at Hamilton due to fog, and returned to land at Auckland.

Plate for Standard Instrument Departure from runway 23L at Auckland Airport

It has been really good learning how to use navigation aids and procedural plates as it gives much more of a sense of what we will be doing day to day in the jet we will eventually be flying. As much as the basic flying up to solo standard has been enjoyable, its this next stage that really starts to build some excitement in us as we are here to be airline pilots, not just hobbyists flying light aircraft on weekends.

A few of us were also lucky to not be scheduled at all during the Easter weekend so a couple of us managed a touristy trip to Auckland for some sight seeing. It's a really laid back city with some fantastic views in the right places. We spent a day walking up the volcanic island of Rangitoto, the reward being a superb view across the city, the harbour and the Hauraki Gulf.

The view from Rangitoto Island

Having completed the simulator sessions the next thing coming up is navigation in the Cessna, with more emergency procedure training. Until then, or whenever I have something interesting to write about, cheerio.

Oh, and for those of you that are interested in the MPL program, easyJet and CTC will be opening their MPL course for applications in the near future, so make sure you keep an eye on the CTC website for updates. I can't believe that his been a year since I applied and went through the selection process. How time flies eh!

First Solo

Although I have taken an aircraft to the skies on my own before, yesterday was the first time I flew a powered aircraft (a Cessna 172) solo, and the first solo of my professional aviation career. So quite a momentous occasion really.

At the start of the day I didn't think that I would get to do my solo as it was raining for most of the day and many people had had their flights cancelled, but after an hour or so of waiting around at the airport, the rain showers stopped and the cloud cleared enough for me to go up for my check flight. The check went really well and it was quite evident that everything had come together nicely. Radio calls are now not so daunting and my flying is significantly better than when I started three weeks ago. I wasn't at all nervous beforehand, but when the instructor got out and left me to it the realisation of having to do it all on my own without the metaphorical safety net (instructor) suddenly made me quite apprehensive. I suppose it didn't help that I had to wait a while for two Air New Zealand aircraft to land and depart. That is actually one of the cool things about learning to fly here in Hamilton is that we have to contend with commercial air traffic. It's great waiting at one of the runway holding points and have a Dash 8 Turboprop land or take-off right in front of you.
 

Taking off past an Air New Zealand Dash 8

It was a great experience but a little anticlimactic. Doing one circuit and being in the air for only a few minutes didn't really give the feeling of something special, and no congratulations from the tower like some of the others on the course received!

In the last couple of weeks a few of us also managed to get a trip to the control tower. This was a brilliant experience to get a feel for the air traffic controllers job and put a face to a voice. I also found that it helped with my confidence of making radio calls as they gave us some tips and made them feel friendlier, rather than just the people that tell you what to do.

So what is next? Well there are a few more solo circuit lessons before starting some navigation training. This inevitably means more time in the simulator and some more classroom based learning. But for now I'm off to the cadet function laid on by CTC to celebrate cadets achievements in the preceding few months.

First Flight

Hurrah! After seven months of being a trainee pilot, I have finally had a go in a real aircraft. It's been a very busy week, flying most days, including a trip to the nearest gliding club at Matamata.

Last weekend saw me take to the skies in one of CTC's Cessna 172's equipped with the rather nice and easy to use Garmin G1000 glass cockpit instrumentation system. The week before I completed the four simulator sessions. These were great fun with a chance for the instructors to put me to the test with some rather challenging scenarios. For example during my last session the instructor put me in a situation where I was completely lost and flying in cloud. This required a little bit of brain power to determine where I was using the instruments as well as keep control of the aircraft. All in a days work! There was a serious side to these sessions as well teaching us how to use the G1000, basic flying and general handling skills.

Since then I have flown three more times and had another simulator session to teach stall recovery techniques and some circuit practice. It has been great being back in the air. The scenery over New Zealand is fantastic with lots of rolling hills and mountains. During my first flight my instructor and I flew out to the North East of Hamilton via somewhere called Scotsman's valley, a very distinctive valley in the hills which you practically fly right through. In other flights we have been out to Raglan on the west coast providing views over Raglan harbour and Mt Karioi to the south.

Those of us with previous flying experience have found that it has helped a little with our learning but, predictably, it has been quite challenging so far. This style of accurate, airline type flying is very demanding. There are many different checks to be doing as every few minutes as well as navigating and contacting ATC (Air Traffic Control). The radio calls I find are what is making most difficult, especially as I haven't got used to the Maori place names yet. Some of them can be a real tongue twister.

Gliding in New Zealand is fantastic. It's autumn here and the weather is virtually better than summer back home. The gliding club at Matamata is located near a substantial ridge providing excellent ridge and wave soaring potential along with the thermals stronger than I have ever experienced before.

Here are a selection of photos from the past week of flying:

DA42 Simulator

Hamilton Airport

Kiwi countryside

Clearways. CTC accommodation

Climbing through a gap in the cloud

Flying in the gaps in the cloud

Sunny New Zealand from the air

Piako gliding club's PW6 with the ridge in the background

Kaimai-Mamaku Ridge

Wairere falls and the city of Tauranga behind on the east coast

Life in New Zealand

We have now been in New Zealand best part of two weeks, and its definitely easy to see the appeal of this place. Life seems so much more laid back and the people are really friendly. The scenery is pretty good too. Yesterday I wasn't rostered for any "events" (sim sessions, mass briefs, flying) so I went for a walk up one of the nearby mountains. This provided excellent views across North Island, as well as some much needed excercise.

The view from Mt Pirongia

It was nice to take the time to go and explore, as free time will be quite hard to come by over here due to quite a tight schedule. However my first lesson is coming up soon (this weekend hopefully) which I am really looking forward to. It has been best part of eight months since I last flew, so it will be great to get my hands on the controls again.

You may remember in my last post I mentioned doing some more exams. Well we all passed both the NZ PPL Air Law and NZ differences exams with ease. Having spent a week in the classroom learning these two subjects, guess what, more time in a classroom. We had two more days in the classroom for the first bunch of mass briefs. These are briefings preparing us for the next few flying lessons. The first ones were about general flying skills preparing us for what we are going to be learning during our first couple of lessons, which happen to be in the simulator this weekend. As the MPL (multi-crew pilot license) is taught differently to the traditional ATPL (airline transport pilot license), we spend four lessons in the simulator getting to grips with basic aircraft handling while learning how to use the Garmin 1000 glass cockpit instrument system, similar to what we will be using at an airline.

Living in the CTC accommodation over here is great. It has a really good communal feel about it, with spacious rooms, good facilities and barbeques at each block. So while the weather here has been very warm and sunny we have certainly made the most of cheap meat and barbeques.

Well that's it for the time being, I should go and read the training manual for tomorrow's lesson.

Arriving half way around the world

Arriving in New Zealand hasn't been the exciting journey that it was supposed to be. After thirty hours of traveling, via Dubai and Brisbane, I arrived in Auckland only to be told that my luggage had been left in Dubai. The journey itself with Emirates was very peaceful, very long and very tiring, but there were some fantastic views along the way. After much umming and ahhing about whether or not to have the fish (universally known as a bad choice when it comes to airline food) discovered that the salmon was in fact absolutely lovely.

Our carriage awaits

Sunrise somewhere over Iraq

Morning Rush Hour at Dubai Airport

The tallest building in the world

Somewhere over the Indian Ocean

Taking off from Brisbane for the final leg to Auckland

Remote Island in the Tasman Sea

Forty eight hours went by before my bags arrived in Hamilton (where the training with CTC is carried out) which put a downer on the whole first weekend really. I would have written this sooner, but my power cables were in my luggage! In a bid to try and forget my troubles and to start exploring this much acclaimed country, a few of us went to visit the renowned volcanic area of Rotorua. This small city, smelling terribly of sulphur from the bubbling mud pools and thermal springs is a rather quaint place, with a lake as clear as glass. The scenery on the drive there and back is simply stunning, and the whole place seems so friendly and laid back. Arriving here at the start of Autumn, we get very hot days with cool mornings and nights.

Living just up the road from Hamilton Airport in CTC's very nice accommodation, with sliding patio doors to each room and the sun shining so unlike back home in Britain, I can eat breakfast outside in the fresh morning air and look out onto the approach path for the airport.

A room with a view

Today we started the ten day long ground-school. As I passed all fourteen of my ATPL exams all I have to do is a New Zealand differences exam and a New Zealand Air law exam. This first week comprises sitting in a classroom studying for these two exams, though it is amazing to be here and able to see the aircraft that we will be flying in the coming months.

For now though, being thirteen hours ahead of the UK it is time for bed here, so I shall wish you all a good day.

A feeling of emptiness

After five months of hard work (and stress) the ground-school phase has come to an end. Yesterday we finished our last exam, HPL. With this, today brings a rather pleasant feeling of calm (admittedly everyone's hangovers from last night has a part to play in that) and emptiness as we have nothing to do. The last few weeks of stress have now paved way for the excitement of our trip to New Zealand. We received our tickets earlier this week which started to make it all seem a little more real. However there is still some anxiety over the exam results which are yet to be made available to us.

In my time off, I thought I would reflect on ground-school a little and give you all a concluding view of the first hurdle to becoming an airline pilot.

• Have I enjoyed it?

Yes I have. It's been very hard work, and very time consuming, but I knew what I was letting myself in for and training to be a pilot is something that I really want to do. Having a genuine interest in what we were learning as helped a lot. It lessens the feeling of necessity and helps to motivate yourself to study and work as best you can. Having a background in a Maths and physics based subjects has helped too, meaning that underlying principles I already understand and have not had to learn from scratch.

• The teaching

The instructors have been excellent. They have really tried there best to get us all to the same level of knowledge and have presented the lessons in a well structured and engaging manner. Some of the subjects not so much, but they are naturally boring and hard to teach resulting in us just wanting to use the question bank.

• Free time

What free time? On our first day, a group cadets at the stage we are at now said that you basically have to write off five months of your life. To be honest it's not that bad, but there is very little time to waste. Taking a day off now and then is absolutely necessary for your sanity but if you work hard there is just about enough time in which to relax, see friends and family and take your mind off things.

• Is it difficult and what to expect?

The subjects themselves are not difficult to learn, especially with the resources made available to us. The difficulty is the amount of material there is to learn in the relatively short space of time. If you put the effort in then it is perfectly manageable. So what to expect? Well you'll be in lessons 9-4 most days and expect to study for a few more hours each evening and at weekends. Oh, and make sure you get a comfortable chair. You'll be spending a lot of time in it. 

For the time being though I'm going to enjoy the next couple of weeks, I'll let you know when I get to New Zealand with a few photos of my trip. As ever feel free to ask any questions.

Left is right, right is left

Happy New Year everyone. This week saw the end of 2013, as well as our Human Performance and Limitations subject. I have found it a very interesting subject, even though a lot of it is basic anatomy. Biology was never my strong point at school, and I never cared for it either. I was surprised though, at just how useful my GCSE Biology has been in understanding some of this subject.

Monday brought us a visitor to class. An aviation medical expert came to talk to us about illusions and how even some of the most simple things while flying can/will cause pilots to suffer from sensory illusions. This included much more discussion on past accidents and their causes, as well as a fun ending in which we all took turns to try on a pair of goggles that reversed our vision. Much hilarity ensued as we all stumbled across the room making it look as if we had had a few too many drinks.

In the last two days we have started our final subject, Radio Navigation. Its quite daunting yet exciting that in just over a month we will have finished ground school and are enjoying a couple of weeks relaxing before going to the other side of the world. Anyway, Radio Navigation teaches us about radio communication and radio navigation aids such as VOR (Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range), NDB (Non-Directional Beacon) and GPS, among others. It's another topic where A-level physics and my degree have come in useful in helping to understand some of the science. I've also found it rather captivating, helped by the excellent teaching, for the reason that we are learning about something that we will use so regularly and that underpins most navigation of aircraft around the sky. It is interesting to finally understand how all of this works having tried to grasp it in my free time before even enrolling on this course.

I'm afraid that's it for now until my mock exams in two weeks time, but I will keep you updated on anything exciting that happens. There are murmurings of a go in the simulator again, but we will have to see. We still haven't been in since the last time there were murmurings. For now I wish you all the best for the New Year!

A rather exciting week

Our New Zealand Visa application forms have arrived and we have been given the dates of travel out to the other side of the world (dependent on passing the next set of exams).

New Zealand Visa Application form

It's rather exciting that in almost exactly two months we will be embarking on the horrendous 30 hour flight down to New Zealand. Before that though there is the "small" matter of sitting and passing the next seven exams.

This week has been spent looking at factors that negatively effect the performance of pilots. I have found it to be quite an interesting subject and relatively medically based. A lot of it is fairly straightforward, i.e. consuming alcohol before flying is bad and some basic anatomy. I hated biology at school and never thought that I would have to use any of what I learned all those years ago again, but it has actually come in surprisingly handy for some of the stuff we have been learning. Other things that we have been studying are optics, psychology, hypoxia and the depressing air crash investigation videos.

It has been quite depressing watching them, but they have been eye opening to some of unforeseen circumstances and errors that humans can make while flying the highly strung, complicated machines that modern aircraft are. The most famous and harrowing incident in recent times is that of Air France flight 447 which crashed in the middle of the Atlantic in 2009. A tragic incident which shows that it is quite easy for pilots to get into a state of confusion if something out of the ordinary happens. I find it good to watch these videos so that we at least have an appreciation for past incidents and so we can learn from them. It hasn't just been this subject that AF447 has cropped up. It's a good example to illustrate a number of lessons that should be taken on-board by all pilots, in training or experienced, for example why thunderstorms are to be avoided.

Learning from experience is also something for you to think about if you are going through selection processes. One of the things interviewers look for is for you to demonstrate that you have learned from some of your mistakes and feedback you may have been given at times.

On that cheery note, I wish you a Happy Christmas. I hope you all have a lovely festive period.

Preparation is everything

In aviation preparation is nearly everything. Life is made significantly easier if you prepare well for a flight, and as such makes the task of transporting passengers safer. The last couple of weeks we have been studying Mass and Balance and Flight Planning. These two modules really carry on the theme of being able to see the practical use outside the classroom. Admittedly as airline pilots, a lot of this will be done for us, but it is necessary to understand what is done in order to get a flight ready for departure. We will have to do this out in New Zealand anyway, and if we ever do any general aviation flying.

Mass and Balance is another small topic but is a very important one. It is because of this subject that airlines have strict rules on your luggage. Adding weight to the aircraft causes an increase in fuel usage as well as changing the CofG (centre of gravity) of the aircraft. According to the design specifications and safety regulations the CofG must be kept within certain location limits on the aircraft to keep it flyable. There are also more of those horrible looking graphs to learn how to use, but once you understand what's going on it's all fairly straightforward.

Flight planning, funnily enough, involves planning a flight, from routing and navigation to calculating the amount of fuel to uplift.There is a lot of reference material for this one with even more charts and graphs. There is not a huge amount of facts to learn in this subject, as most of it is contained in the Jeppesen manual or the CAP documents, so it's a case of knowing where to find the information. For example we have been learning how to read Instrument approach plates (seen below).

Approach plate for Southampton ILS/DME RWY20

Approach plates show the procedure to follow while making an approach for landing into an airport while flying under IFR (instrument flight rules) normally done in poor visibility, or by Airlines. Above you can see an example of an approach plate, this one being for Runway 20 at Southampton.

For those of you embarking on assessment days in the future, being prepared will help you enormously. My advice on this matter would be to make a list of scenarios and skills they could ask you about and write down everything about yourself, with examples, that could answer their questions. Being prepared definitely helped me with my easyJet assessment days, and I learned my lesson by not being so during my previous attempt at getting into a pilot training program.

There is no rest for the wicked here as there are still three subjects to go, so for now its back to the graphs.

Exam Performance

This week has been a combination of the nerve racking receipt of exam results as well learning about aircraft performance. Firstly, I'm happy to report that I passed all of my exams and achieved a good average, so I'm pretty pleased and as such enjoyed an evening at the pub with my housemates for a celebratory drink, or two! The results of the group as a whole were really good, and it's great to see a few months hard work pay off. Now we just have to repeat that success and it's off to the other side of the world.

In the mean time though, the performance subject that we have now finished, has been making our brains ache. It is only four days of teaching, but there is one heck of a lot of information to take in. It's a cross between Principles of Flight and Air Law focusing on achieving performance regulations and calculating the performance of an aircraft under specified conditions. This means that there are lots more seemingly arbitrary numbers to store in the ether of our brains. For example, if a runway is wet, a jet aircraft should stop within 52% of the runway length. This module also contains lots of graphs with which we can work out all manner of things from required take-off distances to ideal flap setting for landing.  The graph below is one of the graphics studied, used to calculate the take off distance of a single engine aircraft with flaps up.

Figure 2.1 from CAP 698

All this means the wholly enjoyable (tedious!) task of reading through the regulatory requirements of CAP698 (the document containing aircraft performance requirements) and learning how to use the multitude of graphs within. The practicality of this subject is often labour intensive, and achieving the required accuracy takes more concentration than usual, but it's quite nice learning about something that is going to be part of our preparation every time we go flying. It's quite difficult doing five months of ground-school with nothing to reference our learning to, but this second set of subjects helps to put some of the theory already examined into practice.

That's about all that is interesting from the past couple of weeks, so until next time, take care.

How to get from A to B

Another week has ended and more knowledge has been consumed. This week we have been studying General Navigation, a topic based on calculations navigating us around the globe from A to B. So it's all pretty important stuff. Now that the topics are more practical, we have been given the Jeppesen Airway Manual. This hefty binder contains all the charts that we need to complete the exams. There is a range of charts in this manual including airway (motorways of the sky) charts and airport charts showing taxiways, terminals and gates.

Jeppesen airway manual and one of the included low level airway charts

The majority of what we have done so far has been learning about longitude and latitude, Great circles (the shortest distance across the globe) and rhumb lines (lines that cross each meridian at the same angle). This involves looking at different types of charts and the various properties of each one. This all becomes of use when working out where we are and where we need to go. In the picture above you can see some thick lines criss-crossing seemingly randomly across the page. These lines are in fact airways and follow great circle lines from radio-navigation aids. In light aircraft with basic equipment these lines and angles aren't the ones displayed on the instrument so we need to know how to convert them to useful headings and bearings for us to navigate accurately. The modern highly automated aircraft that I will be flying day to day will do all of this for me, but during training, in light aircraft, flight planning and when it all goes wrong this knowledge will probably come in quite handy.

The CRP-5

We have also started learning how to use the CRP-5 flight computer. It's affectionately know as the "crap 5", but in all honesty its a brilliant piece of equipment that saves time on numerous calculations such as fuel unit conversions and wind, velocity, track and heading calculations. At first it's quite a daunting thing to use but like most things once you get the hang of it, it becomes far easier and far more useful. It's also known as a whizz wheel because the centre of it rotates enabling the plethora of calculations that it is capable of. Admittedly its not as accurate as a calculator, but its much quicker and the value obtained is close enough to real answer for it to be used in flight.

We have another week of this before moving on, so until then Adios!

The Great British weather

Disclaimer: Not representative of normal British Weather!

The weather is a peculiar thing that us Brits never seem to be happy with. We love to complain about it but in reality there is absolutely nothing we can do. We can however learn how this planet throws up such contrasting conditions and use this knowledge to try and provide the passengers the smoothest and safest ride possible.

Meteorology, arguably the most important of the topics covered, is a monster, with the longest exam and six days to get through a list of learning objectives the length of an Airbus. It, like the other topics, is actually fascinating, but without a geography degree this very full on crash course in Met seems pretty complicated. Topics covered include altimetry, cloud spotting, humidity and wind among other things and once you sit down and get to grips with the content I find it surprisingly straight forward. That said there is still a lot of it and by no means to be underestimated.

Admittedly I have acquired some knowledge of meteorology from the amount of gliding I have done, which makes things a little easier. It also means that I have seen a few of the plethora of charts that can be used for deciphering the weather conditions at particular times. It's great now being able to understand these (and more), be able read them properly and do a little amateur weather forecasting in my spare time! The weather conditions are a very important part of gliding, and aviation in general, so having a good understanding not only makes you a better and safer pilot, but can make for some very enjoyable experiences. More on that another time! I am often asked about the best conditions for flying gliders. Well the picture above is just that! Lots of fluffy cumulus cloud and lots of blue sky for the sun to shine through. Just beautiful!

As the nights draw in and the day gets noticeably and depressingly shorter, the reality that our exams are only a month away is starting to hit home. I have definitely started to feel the pressure, even being on top of it all. Slowly but surely everything seems to be falling into place which is helping to carry that motivation through the long hours of study. Don't let that put you off though, as if you have a passion for aviation you will find ground school really interesting and actually rather enjoyable. Enough from me today, so Au Revoir!

Ps. Quite a few people asked me how they can follow the blog, so there is now a facebook page www.facebook.com/cwbpilot where you can follow the blog and where I will put additional interesting stuff. So please go and "like" the page to keep updated!

My soon to be office

Flight deck lit up at night (dawn to be pedantic) Photo courtesy of Bristol Ground-school

This is where, all being well, I will end up working in approximately thirteen months time.  Now it may look like the Starship Enterprise and with all the electronic and automatic systems in modern aircraft, comparisons to Flight Simulator computer games can be drawn, but this is the office window I have dreamed of for many, many years.

Yesterday brought an end to the Instruments topic, pretty much covering the entire inner workings of the flight deck and getting to grips with how all of those computer screens work. All of this electronic gubbins is actually quite incredible. The flight management system controls the autopilot which can fly and navigate the entire flight, even down to the landing, so us pilot's don't have to do anything more than read the paper and talk to Air Traffic Control! On the face of it, it all seems fairly straightforward, but I dread to think of the complexity of the electrical systems behind the scenes. The two large square screens on the very right of the picture are two of the three most important instruments. The one on the right with a blue top half and brown bottom half is called the Primary Flight display (PFD), and the one left of that with the big splodge of red in the middle is called the Navigation Display (ND). The PFD gives the main flying data, airspeed, altitude, vertical speed and an attitude indicator known as an artificial horizon. The ND, as the name suggests, provides aircraft navigation. It's the flying version of a Sat Nav which can also display weather obtained from the on-board radar and collision avoidance from something called TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System). The majority of the other lights you can see in the picture are autopilot controls.

Our job as a pilot is to monitor this bank of screens and make sure that nothing goes wrong, and deal with it when it does. It has been really interesting to learn how all of the computers work and finally understand what is going on when watching videos on youtube or playing flight simulator. It's also been pretty motivating to be honest. It really feels like I am close to getting my paws on the airbus!

Ground School

Apologies for the lengthy and boring nature of this post, but I was asked a question about what I actually have to learn during Pilot Training. I'm now three weeks in and havn't actually revealed what Pilot training entails, so I thought that I would give you a run down of the course here at CTC. 

There are 14 ATPL (Airline Transport Pilots License) theory exams, the material for which is taught during the ground school phase over the first five months. The material is delivered via the classroom and the previously mentioned CBT (computer based training).  The topics are:

• Aircraft General Knowledge
• Principles of Flight
• Instruments
• Air Law
• Meteorology
• IFR communication
• VFR communications
• Mass and Balance
• Flight Planning
• General Navigation
• Flight Performance
• Operational Procedures
• Radio Navigation
• Human Performance 

Yesterday we started the Instruments topic, but only after we had all filled in our exam registration forms.  It's quite scary thinking that in six weeks we will have completed half of the ground school.  It's also amazing to think that in that time we will have consumed all of this knowledge.

Time for some more advice, when it comes to academia, always try and do things that you enjoy.  It will make a massive difference to the outcome of your learning.  I spent three years at University and really didn't enjoy my course, and as such I achieved a relatively poor grade at the end.  Now I'm here studying for what I have wanted to do for such a long time, I find it so much more enjoyable and as such I find it significantly easier to study long hours and learn all of the material.  That said, ask me again around exam time and I will probably tell you otherwise.

How do aeroplanes fly?

Not a lot has happened since last time, but we have now completed the Principles of Flight material. One exam's worth of material in five days. To put this into context, in those five days we have covered the majority of the Aerospace-y stuff in my degree, which took three years.  Well, two if you take into account the ludicrously long holidays! So in answer to my question, some strange airflow causing pressure differentials over the wings. Its all very complicated, so I won't bore you with the long winded scientific explanation and just call it magic.

Proof of my magic explanation

Having done Aerospace engineering at University this topic doesn't cause me any undue anxiety, especially with all the abbreviations to be learnt.  Having said that, it is perfectly manageable even if you don't have a background in Aeronautics. The majority of people on my course don't have scientific degrees, so don't be put off by this seemingly complicated subject and the technical knowledge that needs to be memorised to pass the exams. Now, top tip number 2; if you are thinking about a career in aviation make sure that you learn to love Maths and Physics as soon as you can. It will make life for you a lot easier! When I first wanted to be a pilot I hated Maths and Physics but I learned to love them and they became my favourite subjects at school, hence the degree in Engineering.

So last night a bunch of us went for a curry! It was a great evening with good food, good company and a chance to spend the evening away from the books.  True free time is hard to come by here, so it is wise to make the most of an evening off. Plus, studying 24/7 will make you soon want to throw the books out of the window. It really is a case of work hard, play hard. But hey, I'm still loving it. To be honest, I have been given such a wonderful opportunity that I just want to make absolute most of it, do as well as I can, and set myself up for the best career possible.

It has been mentioned a few times that we are going to get a go in the Simulator before too long. So hopefully in the next update I will be able to tell you how CP111 got on in our first attempt at flying an airliner.  Until then, bye bye!

Oh, and feel free to ask me any questions you wish about any aspect of the training, CTC, flying, or even career advice. You can use the Contact me form on the right  --->

1 down, 23 to go......

Not that I'm counting! The first week is over and I am settled into life here.  The early mornings took some getting used to, but it's been great so far. 

Last week during APD 1, a bunch of cadets that are further down the road than we are had a chat with us, and they all told us that the difficult thing about the ground school is the quantity of material not how difficult it is to learn.  Well they were certainly right. This week has been spent doing the first half of AGK (Aircraft General Knowledge) and while the subject matter is really interesting and I have enjoyed it so far, there is a lot of it and my brain is now overloaded with aircraft hydraulic systems, flight controls and de-icing systems among other things. To those with a sweet tooth like me, that's not cake icing unfortunately!

Motivation or Procrastination.....?
 

Flybe Embraer departing Southampton

Today was a scheduled "day off" for us to do some CBT, so Darryl, Josh (two of my housemates) and I went to Southampton airport to do some study while being provided with some motivation.  They didn't seem keen on providing viewing areas, so after a bit of discussion of where we could get cheap flights to and subsequently through the security barriers, we decided to go home. So in conclusion a bit of both!


Right enough of that, we're off to the pub!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Now I apologise in advance for the title of this post because I hate any mention of Christmas before at least the start of December, but today it did feel like Christmas.  We all received some rather important goody bags! I say goody bags, flight cases with some rather important items that we are going to use for our training, and later on in our careers, meaning that we all left the training centre today feeling a little more professional than we did this morning.

Flight case and it's contents

So in this case of tricks we have; a calculator, a pair of dividers (compasses), a knee board, a ruler, a logbook and a flight computer.  The flight computer is the white item on the left of the picture that is used for various maths problems that are encountered on the flight deck.  But we will get taught how to use it properly at a later date.


Right, I'm now heading back to the CBT (computer based training). There is one heck of a lot of material to cover and its only been two days! Oh well this is what I signed up for. Just keep thinking about New Zealand.  Ciao!

First Day at School

So I find myself wandering along a beach (admittedly a fairly scruffy pebble beach), watching some sailing on the south coast having moved house and all my worldly possessions for the third time in as many years.

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to train to be an easyJet Pilot down here in Southampton at CTC Wings and yesterday, with a smile the width of the Grand Canyon, saw me finally start this hugely exciting 18 month course.  Becoming an Airline Pilot has been a dream of mine, like many people, since I can remember and has been something I have tried to prepare myself for my whole life.

What I shall be flying in 18 months time, all being well.

Having spent three years at University studying Aerospace Engineering, hating it and spending most days wishing I was at 35,000ft admiring the view, watching youtube videos for motivation, it is a very welcome change for me to be here about to embark on the mammoth task of learning 14 ATPL (Airline Transport Pilot's License) ground school subjects in 5 months.  The thought of flying that jet and the trip to New Zealand in February is definitely helping to get settled down and ready to crack on with the classroom based learning.  I only hated my course, the friends I made, the people I met and the things I did made for a fantastic time in Liverpool.  The course, and social life, gave me a lot of life experience and having gone through a few Pilot Training and airline selection processes in the last couple of years, I don't think that I would have done so well without my time at University.  So I can't complain too much, and I do now have a degree, which can't be a bad thing.

Anyway, how did I get into flying?  At the age of 15, I took up gliding.  It was the easiest way for me to learn to fly, it was also relatively cheap.  I was also a member of the Air Cadets, giving free flying.  One of the best pieces of advice I can give anyone thinking about a career in Aviation as a Pilot is to join the Air Cadets.  As well as it giving you the chance to have some free flying, it starts to instil many non-technical, interpersonal skills that are vital if you are to succeed as a pilot, such as teamwork and leadership.  So I flew solo (gliding) at 16 and have continued to do as much gliding as I can.  I now, 6 years later, have just under 200 hours, a Silver badge and fly competitions when/if I can, such as the Junior National Championships.  I love the challenge of cross-country flying and competitions and I'm sure that some of this will help with my flying and training later on!

Me Finishing a task at 2012 Junior Nationals, in Discus SH3

Yesterday was the first official thing on the agenda, Airline Preparation day 1 (APD 1).  It was the first day in Uniform, which felt great, with a chance to meet all of my fellow course mates, CP111 (our course number), and start to prepare and equip ourselves at this early stage with some of the skills needed to work well as a crew.  Everyone seems really friendly and the different backgrounds we have all come from should make for an interesting discussion and some fun times ahead.  Last night we all went for a few drinks in Southampton, so now just having a lazy weekend getting ready for Monday Morning.  I will try and keep you up to date with progress and anything interesting that happens, and please feel free to ask me any questions you wish about the training, gliding, selection etc. 

So until next time, Cheerio!