During my university free time, I am training to become an airline pilot.
I am due to start my CPL/IR on 23rd May 2012 at Professional Air Training in Bournemouth.
I will be regularly updating this blog as I go through my training. I hope it will offer an insight into what I am doing this summer, as well as helping me keep a record to look back on in the years ahead.
Since my last post I have ditched the CPL and changed onto the IR due to some very poor weather. I will move back to the CPL afterwards but in the meantime, I have now amassed 32.5hrs on the FNPT 1&2.
This consists of 10hrs on the FLPT1, as seen in the last post, and the remainder in the FNPT2:
Although this sim actually has graphics, they are only used for about 20secs at each end of the flight. The rest of the time the screen is just blank and you are flying on instruments.
Today was the first day back in the aircraft. I will have 20hrs to complete over the next month and then it's onto the IR test. Every time we fly, the instructor puts up screens so that P1 can't see out, but P2 can. It looks something like this:
Today was just general handling, stalls and unusual attitudes, just designed to familiarise us with the aircraft again.
Tomorrow is NDB Holds, NDB Approaches and ILS Approaches. Should be fun.
I'll get the GoPro in action for some video fun...
Until next time..
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
Wow – Its been 5 weeks since I last
blogged…. But in that time I have only logged about 6hrs. The weather in the UK has been outstandingly
poor. In fact, it has been the wettest June on record. I should point out that
the lack of flying isn’t all down to the weather, but I have averaged 1hr every
2days for the last few weeks, in which I have been training ‘full time’. If this continues, I may still be here in
12months time….. But at least we got to look around the tower and radar rooms...
As the UK weather outlook looks ever
gloomy, I am considering swapping onto the IR now and going back to the CPL
afterwards, since the IR can be done whatever the weather. Final decision will
be made soon…
So… The CPL
For each flight there is a lot of
preparation. There is also quite a bit of book work to get through throughout
the course as well.
So far I have done 3hrs towards the CPL, of
which all has been navigation. The standards are pretty high: +/-100ft, +/-5deg
and +/-2min at all times, and we are navigating between small villages, not
large towns as in the PPL. It’s quite difficult, but practice really helps.
I have just done a few hours in the FNPT1
(Flight Navigation Procedure Trainer) AKA Simulator. This sim has no visual,
and is purely for getting used to flying on instruments. At the moment I am doing ADF and VOR tracking/ intercepting.
So that’s all really. Not too much to
report. I do finally have some video of asymmetric and normal circuits, but I
haven’t had a chance to edit this yet. Standby for that. Hopefully I will soon be able to report of some more flying!
Today I completed the MEP. Tomorrow, the CPL starts.... The real work begins.
Day 4. The day started by watching a chap in the simulator preparing for his IR renewal. He had not flown for a year, so was a bit rusty, but I was still surprised as to how well he performed. It seems that if you learn it properly first time, you won't forget!
After some comedy landings last week, it was time to nail the circuits. We flew to Lee-On-Solent and bashed around their very tight circuit doing all sorts of go-arounds and landings with both one and two engines. We then returned back to the airfield, where I performed a 'creamer' of a landing! (Instructor's words, not mine)
Day 5. I had a few hours to kill this morning, so I took my checklists and books down to the beech..
Today was a MEP consolidation, so we returned to the sky for more stalls, engine failure drills and Critical Speed practice. One engine was failed, the other on full power, and we kept raising the nose until we started to loose control of the aircraft due to the asymmetric thrust. I can't begin to tell you how hard this is on the legs. My legs felt like there were about to fall off, and all my instructor is doing is shouting "BE A MAN!!". Well, I was trying to be a man, but obviously not hard enough...
We then returned to the airfield where I was asked to put the wheels on the ground before the PAPI's, which I did, with a thud. This prompted a response from my instructor, something like, "Well, that was certainly down before the PAPI's".... not sure it was quite what he envisaged.
Tomorrow the CPL begins my my favourite thing... NAV!
So a few tips:
1. Include at least one t-shirt per flight in your flight bag - In this current heat you end up sweating like a walrus. It was 23deg on the ATIS this morning at 0930!
2. Don't go waterskiing the night before starting asymmetric flying. You leg starts shaking violently.
3. Do not underestimate MEP/CPL/IR training!
I started training on Wednesday morning. Back to ground school for the Multi-Rating was the first thing (yawn) - ironically you cover the same things as in ATPL theory, but in less detail - figure that out if you can...
Day 1 - We climbed aboard the Duchess for lesson 1 - Aircraft Familiarisation. I tell you what, I was mentally overloaded even by the time I got the hold... I had memorised all these checklists, but I couldn't even remember the radio calls I have been using for 2 years! Very strange. I likened this first lesson to trying to climb a mountain in roller-skates - very difficult.
After a comedy weaving takeoff (in the video below) it felt like learning to fly all over again - lesson 1 was climbing, descending, turning, effect of flaps, stalling etc. Luckily the GoPro ran out of memory by the time we came to landing because we bounced so high, tower nearly passed us back to radar!
Day 2 started with an IFR flight, breaking cloud at 700ft on the ILS, just to get into Bournemouth for my lesson. Nerve racking, but being real IFR all the way from takeoff to landing is great fun! At least my IMC licence is still getting used.
After all this excitement, it was back into ground school to learn some more things I forgot from ATPL, and to brief the next lesson - Aircraft Familiarisation 2. Guess what; this lesson was still as hard, but I started to feel like I got a grip on things towards the end.... but more stalling and a bouncy landing followed.
Part of the training process is to 'backseat' other students so you can learn from their mistakes. I was fortunate enough to get a ride down to Alderney. The weather was truly awful, but when all you are doing is go-arounds and holds behind a screen, this really doesn't matter!
Day 3 started with guess what.... GROUND SCHOOL. I then had 30mins to practice my engine failure drills on the cardboard cockpit before the lesson, as today's lesson was Asymmetric Flying 1. Finally, today I felt like I got a handle on the aircraft, after 2.5hrs of flying. We practiced engine failures, and even stopped the left engine and feathered it - that was certainly interesting. However, after flying for 5mins on one engine I was regretting my Thursday night's waterskiing antics as my left leg was starting to shake, almost uncontrollably. Quick - get the restart checklist out!
We then returned back to the airfield, via a practice emergency descent, which are a lot of fun, and then another bouncy bouncy landing. I expect I am providing quite a bit of entertainment to the other airfield users, but hopefully I will sort these landings out in lesson 4 - circuits.
My basic take on the first 3 days is that this training is not to be taken lightly. The work is seriously intense, and unlike PPL, you don't have a week between lessons to let it all sink in, nor do you get the opportunity to perfect things. As soon as you have feel like you're getting on top of something, a new thing is introduced. I have become so tired, and my mind is constantly going through checklists and procedures at all times of the day. When the training is so expensive, you really need to make the most of every airborne minute, which is why I am only flying for one hour a day.
I am really looking forward to next week, and getting some more hours, and hopefully smooth landings, under my belt!
Below is a video of some of the highlights from the last three days. Unfortunately I didn't get much footage due to a memory card which was far too small for HD video. Expect a bit more video, and improved audio, next week....
After a night with only 3 hours sleep, this morning I handed in my final piece of university coursework for 2011/12. I only have 4 exams left in June before I break up for summer. This now means I can let my mind wonder back to my CPL, which starts next week.
I received a large magnitude of briefing documents from PAT for the Duchess. The most important was the checklists, of which a large quantity need to be memorised and performed in the cockpit without reference to the checklists. I have written out each block onto an A4 sheet of paper, and stuck then on my bedroom wall.
The first two columns are standard procedures such as 'after take off checks'. I have managed to learn all of these. The other two columns are all emergency drills such as 'engine fire after take off'. Its a boring process, but learn them I will, and i'm sure they will become useful in the cockpit. If you break them down into a block per day, it doesn't take long to memorise them.
I'm really looking forward to starting this flying training. There is no doubt that the CPL/IR is the most challenging, but rewarding, training a pilot will do. The next blog from me will be next week, after my first day. Wish me luck..
It is my intention to keep this blog solely for the purpose of documenting my path down the road to a ATPL.
Going along with the theme, it is important to let you know that the post-exam celebration is a very important part of that path! At Oxford they have a black tie dinner to mark the occasion. In Loughborough, we do it slightly differently.
Well, here we are! The day I never thought would come.
This morning I received conformation that I have passed all my ATPL ground exams, with an average of about 86%, and just in time. If I had failed any, there is a real chance I could have been forced to re-take a lot more exams as european integration takes a hold of the UK flying world.
Anyway, what a massive relief, and it's now onto the Commercial Pilots Licence and Instrument Rating, which I am due to start on 23rd May 2012 at Professional Air Training in Bournemouth.
I will be regularly updating this blog as I go through my training. I hope it will offer an insight into what I am doing this summer, as well as helping me keep a record to look back on in the years ahead.
Today was the first day back in the aircraft. I will have 20hrs to complete over the next month and then it's onto the IR test. Every time we fly, the instructor puts up screens so that P1 can't see out, but P2 can. It looks something like this:
