Volcano tour of New Zealand's North Island

The weather on Tuesday was epic! Blue Skies, sunny, smooth flying and fantastic visibility. It made a very welcome change to having my flights cancelled for a fourth day in a row, and enabled a couple of us to plan a nav trip encompassing the four main volcanoes on the North Island, Tongariro, Ngaruahoe (Mt Doom in Lord of the Ring's), Ruapehu and Taranaki, as well as landing at some further afield airports. I won't bore you any longer and as I will dedicate the rest of this post to pictures from this incredible trip.

The spidertracks GPS log of our adventure

Tongariro National Park in the distance

Approaching Taupo town

Lake Taupo and Mt Ruapehu

The view across Lake Taupo

Helicopter leaving Taupo over the lake

On final for Taupo Airport

Laving Taupo with the Volcanoes in front of us

Lake Taupo

The volcanoes

The Volcanoes

Tongariro steaming away

Mt Ngaruahoe (Mt Doom) and Mt Ruapehu to the right

Looking back at Mt Ngaruahoe

Passing Mt Ruapehu

Mt Taranaki poking out of the clouds 100 miles away

Mt Ruapehu

Descending through a large gap in the cloud

The desolate Sanson Region

Circuits over the sea for approach into Wanganui airport

Wanganui Airport

Mt Taranaki

Final for New Plymouth Airport

Departure from New Plymouth

Sunset from 7500ft

The very last rays of sunshine

Just make out Mt Ruapehu in the distance, taken at 7500ft off the west coast

The west coast at dusk

Hamilton City at night

Landing at Hamilton in the dark

Flying about

The last couple have weeks have been quite exciting. We have started the VFR navigation stage of the training and to date I have completed the five dual nav flights. Some went better than others, but that's all part of the learning process, and I have now been cleared to go on nav flights solo.

Flying through a nice gap in the weather

Unfortunately the day I decided not to take my camera was the day that we were treated to spectacular views of New Zealand. The first leg of the route took me from Hamilton to Taupo, a town on the northern shore of Lake Taupo which is about forty miles north of the three main volcanoes of Tongariro National park. The visibility was jaw droppingly clear giving us excellent views of the snow capped volcanoes as well as the volcano Taranaki (or Egmont) on the west coast further south past New Plymouth. The departure from Taupo, after a touch and go, takes us over the lake before heading to our next turning point of a small town called Kawhia, on the west coast. This leg was quite long so the instructor decided to put me "under the hood". The hood is a device that obstructs the pilots vision enabling him to practice flying in IMC (instrument meteorological conditions) so flight with reference to the instruments can be practiced, rather than flying according to what you can see outside.

The last flight I did took me for a very scenic flight up and down the Coromandel Peninsula, a very picturesque part of New Zealand. This is why we are all enjoying the navigation stage of training as we are able to plan and carry out flights to go and see different parts of the country. I have also had the chance in some of my previous navs to approach and land at some interesting airports, for example Rotorua where you approach over the southern edge of the lake past a hill, turn over the town and land on the runway situated next to the lake. I find it really good experience to do this as went as challenging my ability, and there are still many flights to come. Hopefully in the next few I will be able to share some more scenic shots of New Zealand.

Having not flown a huge amount in the last few weeks, we have had quite a lot of free time, so I used some of this free time to have a couple of days exploring the capital city, Wellington. It is a lovely city with lots of things I could rave about for hours, but I won't bore you here. I did however get to experience the interesting and challenging approach into the airport as Air New Zealand were kind enough to let me ride in the jumpseat (a third seat in the flight deck) of the ATR72-600 for the trip there from Hamilton. It was a great opportunity to see where I will be in less than a years time and to see that a lot of what CTC teach us really is applied during day to day airline operations.

On final into Wellington from the flight deck

Since then the weather has turned again and the forecast for the next few days suggests a lot of cancelled flights. It gets quite frustrating doing so much planning and not flying, but that's the way it is. But for now, I'm off to have another flight cancelled!

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!

Exams are over, for now!

Exams are finished, beer has been consumed and everyone is feeling a lot happier than 12 hours ago. Three months have passed incredibly quickly, which I personally see as a good thing as it means we are three months closer to our rather exciting trip to New Zealand.  It's nice that the exams are now out the way for a few much needed days of relaxation. But a few days is just that, as we are back in the classroom on Tuesday to start the process all over again. According to instructors and previous cadets the next set of topics are much more practical and a little less daunting. We shall see!

Now for a little bit of what the exams entail for those of you that are interested. All of the exams are multiple choice with some exams as few as 24 questions in half an hour to some with as many as 80 in two hours. The timing for the exams is perfectly reasonable as after much practice on the question bank, we soon find ourselves getting through questions rather quickly. The CAA like to catch us out and you can soon find yourself making stupid mistakes, and with a pass mark of 75% there isn't much margin for error! The exams this week havn't been too bad. There were a couple of tricky questions here and there but for the most part, with effective preparation, there wasn't anything too troubling. I now want to forget those for the time being and focus on relaxing. Results should arrive in a couple of weeks and there isn't anything I can do about them now. It, however, is a strange feeling now having to deal with life without four possible options. Give any of us four possible answers and I'm sure we could pick out the correct one. For now though, I'm going to unwind properly and enjoy the time off.

As ever questions about the training, selection, CTC etc are more than welcome. I know a few of you are probably wanting to ask a few things prior to the British Airways FPP opening on Monday. I know I'm on the easyJet MPL but the skills required during selection are fairly common across airlines and the ground-school training is the same.

Please switch off any electronic devices and stow your tray-tables in the upright position!

This time last week we had finished our mock exams and were settling down for a week and a half of revision. Well that was the plan! Having done well in my mocks I find a week and a half a long time to sit about going through the question bank. For some people too much preparation can be a bad thing and I have found myself slotting into this category. So in my boredom (ok, a bit of an over-exaggeration) I try and keep my mind distracted now and then with aviation news and walks to the beach. Which brings me onto the point of this post. In recent months there has been a lot of talk about allowing the use of electronic devices throughout commercial flights, including take off and landing. A news article yesterday announced that US Airlines are finally going to introduce plans to allow such use of smartphones and tablets etc. You can read about it here. Fortunately the use of mobile phones remains banned, so poor cabin crew will still have to deal with that one (there's always one) passenger who hasn't switched off their phone!

Now this topic is very open to discussion and many will disagree with me, but I don't agree with this proposal for two main reasons. The first being that once everyone is sat in their seats the cabin crew give a rather important safety demonstration, as I'm sure you are all aware. Frequent fliers can probably recite this to you in their sleep, but for most, listening to it might actually save your life in the highly unlikely event of a crash. Allowing the use of electronic devices will inevitably distract many people from the safety demonstration, especially children immersed in computer games and I personally disagree with airlines and regulators even considering it.

The second reason, which will lead you to think I'm older than I actually am, is that I can't understand why people can't go without their gadgets for ten minutes during take-off and landing! For some people it might be a welcome distraction to their anxiety of flying during the most critical stages, but I hardly feel that is an acceptable reason to suddenly change the rules. I am also aware that being stuck in a metal (or composite) tube for a number of hours to most seems incredibly dull and tedious, but aircraft are designed with very modern in-flight entertainment systems with some airlines providing more films than you can watch in a lifetime. Conversely, you can always read a book.

I know that I am writing from a very biased point of view having loved air travel my entire life, and every time I'm on an aeroplane I like to enjoy the experience. I'm probably being overly cynical but I will be interested to see if this is a success.

Air Law, Comms and Mock exams!

Eight weeks have flown by (pun intended!) which means that our mock exams are literally just around the corner. CTC require us to pass a set of mocks, starting on Monday, before they let us take the real ones. It's all good practice though, so there isn't much inconvenience to us and it gives us a chance to find out where we are with our learning. The real ones are in two weeks, so still plenty of time to iron out the creases in our knowledge.

International Rules of the Air

Today brought to an end the taught aspect of the first seven topics, having finished Air Law in a flurry of seemingly random numbers and letters. I have heard it referred to as Air Bore, and I can see why as it is just a lot of facts to learn. There is no rhyme or reasoning to it either so it is just a case of going through as many practice questions as possible. Studying for ATPL exams is made considerably easier by the existence of "question bank", various online databases of actual/similar questions to the exams. It's a great tool for us to pass our exams but it isn't the best way of truly learning the material. There are differing opinions on the use of question bank but considering the short space of time in which we have to learn it all, it's unavoidably invaluable to us.

Next thing. We finished both VFR (visual flight rules) and IFR (instrument flight rules) communications last week. They are both very small topics with only 150 possible questions each in the question bank and two timetabled teaching days. Very important none the less and impossible to fly without communication, especially with the number of aircraft flying through our skies. It is also something that has to be demonstrated to high standard to get onto a pilot training program, so if you want to be an airline pilot learn how to communicate effectively.

Unfortunately, due to them being fully booked with cadets in their final stages of training, there has been no trip in the simulator. Having a background in Aerospace engineering, and a relatively large amount of flying experience, this doesn't bother me so much as I can relate what we are doing to the flying I have done. For the less experienced on the course it's a pretty important thing to do so that what we have been learning in lessons can be seen in practice, rather than just theory written on a piece of paper. It would also have helped to make sense of the more complicated principles. It's a bit late now as we have to revise, but hopefully we might get a go after our exams. Speaking of which, I'm going back to revision, so wish me luck!

Rest and Relaxation

Unfortunately I haven't been here!

Slightly off topic from the training today, but taking time off every now and then to recuperate is very important no matter what line of work you are in. Flying especially when a Pilot's ability to safely handle the aircraft are hugely dependent on his, or her fatigue, or lack of! My logic here brings me to the conclusion that it's only right, that even during intensive studying during this ground-school phase, that I too take a break every once in a while to rest and generally recharge the batteries, as well as let the material settle.

Anyway, there have been a few instances reported recently of Pilots falling asleep at the controls, one flight subsequently overflying it's destination by 150 miles. Worrying isn't it that the safety of potentially a few hundred people is being compromised by pilots having long working hours.  Fortunately, thanks to the help of our MEPs, in the last week, plans to change the rules on pilot working hours have been rejected. The plans, which according to the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) would "almost never happen", would see a potential for pilots to be landing after 22 hours awake. I'm pretty sure that you as the passengers wouldn't be happy with that, let alone the pilots. Here is the link if you wish to go and read about it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24327366

As much as us trainee pilots like to think that we aren't going to fall asleep at the controls, reality and statistics suggest that we might! The result of this vote was certainly a good thing to safeguard the relatively high safety standards we currently enjoy.

Well that's my break over, it's time to hit the books (computer software) again! Until next time, Adios!

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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!