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!