1 Year on from CTC...

I can’t believe that it is already a year ago to this day since I completed my last day of training at CTC, walking out of the simulator feeling proud that I had completed all that training that I once dreamt about, and the hope that a job would be not too far around the corner.

Now a year on, I have been with Flybe for 6 months and have accumulated just short of 300 hours on the Q400 and am just 43 minutes (to be precise) away from 500 flying hours in total. After passing the Flybe interview and sim check in late January, I only had to wait a matter of weeks before starting my 2 month long company induction and type rating in Exeter.

The first month (March) was at Flybe’s training academy for the induction and Q400 groundschool, which meant getting back into the books for the exams (but this time without question bank!!!). It especially helped having a great bunch of people on my course so we all supported each other to pass first time. April was the challenging month. where we had over 40 hours in the full-motion simulator learning how to fly the ‘Dash’, and dealing with the problems and emergencies should they arise. Luckily the great trainers helped with that and before we knew it, it was the beginning of May and the day that we had all been waiting for – base training. With an instructor and an empty aircraft, 3 of us flew from Birmingham to Doncaster Airport where we had to demonstrate 6 take-off and landings; with the weather on our side, it made for a brilliant and fun day out.

Licence Skills Test & Q400 Type Rating Complete

After a week off, we then began our line training. This involves around 2-3 weeks with a line training captain where we put together everything we had learnt during groundschool and the simulator and applied it to real life commercial operations. It was a tough few weeks, but by the end I felt very confident ‘flying the line’. After completing much of my line training in Manchester, at the beginning of June I began to fly out of my base in Edinburgh. From Edinburgh we only really fly short routes within the UK. It means we can do up to 6 sectors a day and get very good at time management (but it means we don’t get much time for reading the newspaper and doing the crosswords!). A couple of night stops we do, allows us to fly a bit further afield to Jersey and Amsterdam, and positioning to other bases adds variety. As I have only been flying during the summer so far, I’ve been quite fortunate not to have had that many bad weather days (especially considering I’m based up in Edinburgh), however I’m sure the next few months and a Scottish winter will soon sort that out.

UK Sunset

Northern France after departing Jersey

It has been a great start to my aviation career and would advise anyone thinking about becoming a pilot, or to anyone who is currently doing their training, it really is worth it in the end.

CTC Graduation 2014 - Dibden Manor

WOW! WHAT A WEEKEND

On Friday (12^th December), CTC hosted their annual graduation event at Dibden Manor for all cadets who have successfully completed their training. The day started off at CTC’s Nursling Training Centre, where all the simulators were open to cadets and their guests – it was quite interesting to see how some of the guests who have never flown before, were so good.

After a couple of hours at the training centre, everyone then made their way to Dibden Manor for a buffet lunch. A marquee had been set up in the gardens and made for an amazing venue for the day ahead. With canapes eaten and Prosecco drunk (I dread to think how much) it was time for the main event. Over 200 cadets were eligible for graduation; however a few couldn’t be there due to their flying commitments with the airlines. Even so, the marquee was packed with cadets, their guests and representatives from so many of CTC’s partner airlines (such as Flybe, British Airways, easyJet, DHL).

Everyone with their certificates

We were first treated to a speech from Rob Clarke (CTC’s Chief Executive) and then to an amusing, but inspirational talk from IAG’s Chief Executive Willie Walsh. It is so good to see even the most senior figures in aviation show support and interest in CTC’s training and their graduates. Every cadet was then presented with a glass trophy and certificate from Rob and Willie – well done everyone!!! All that was left was for 2 special awards to be presented:

- Best Groundschool Cadet and Runner Up

- CTC Wings Diamond Pilot of the Year and Runner Up

Amazingly, and I'm so thankful, all the commitment and hard work over the last couple of years paid off, as I was awarded ‘The CTC Wings Diamond Graduate Pilot Of The Year Award’ which as the trophy says is “presented annually to the highest performing CTC Wings graduate pilot who has shown true commitment to excellence throughout all phases of training”. I just want to say thank you to all my family, friends and everyone who I met during my training at CTC (especially everyone off CP106).

Me, my award and some of CP106

The marquee transformed for the night

With the day event over, it was time for the nights entertainment – CTC’s Graduation Dinner & Ball. With the marquee transformed ready for a black-tie event, we were treated to a sit down meal, musical entertainment and a free bar. We were once again joined by representatives from CTC and the airlines. It was a brilliant night and a chance for everyone to celebrate their success, it is just a shame I can’t remember the last hour of the night – maybe, just maybe the free bar got to me……..

So nice for everyone to show their concern for me :)

A big thank you to everyone at CTC for organising the event, and to everyone there during the day and night for making it a day to remember……

AQC - Week 3

For the last week of AQC, the remaining 4 flights were all flown manually. The first 2 flights were a review of the previous weeks profiles (take-off, approaches, landings and single engine work), however this time without the automatics. For me, I found the 737-300 quite easy to fly manually as it just sits at the attitude you set and does what you want it to; its sheer size and weight clearly helps it from getting knocked about in the air, compared to the props we’ve been flying. I found, the most challenging part of manual flight is when operating with a single-engine – a lot, and I mean a lot of rudder and precise control is required.

The remaining 2 flights were LOFT exercises. Both mine and Jonny’s flights went really well and we managed to land all safely so was a pretty good result really. Fortunately there were no engine failures on the last flight but I did have a passenger suffer a cardiac arrest and had a drug smuggler on board, so a diversion was required.

After our last flight, we got an AQC report summary from our instructor, which me and Jonny were really happy with. Now the whole 3 weeks get reviewed by the training manager and we should get his report in the next week. After that we then get passed onto ARL, the company responsible for airline pilot placement, and we will all be hopefully entering the holdpool.

So that is the end of the 18 month CTC Wings course for the 8 of us on the AQC course: Jonny, Tom, Christian, Sean, Ben, Ross, Tessa and myself. Now there is just the wait for an airline job. Recent news has suggested a positive outlook for the months ahead, so with any luck it won’t be too long.

For now though, thanks to everyone who has read my blog over the last year. All being well, I will continue the blog when I commence training with an airline. In the meantime, if anyone has any temporary jobs going I’m open to all offers…..

Groundschool....where it all began

AQC - Week 2

Well it was worth it; the week of groundschool as well as the endless hours and evenings spent learning checks and SOPs got rewarded with our first week in the Boeing 737-300 simulator.

For the simulators, we are all paired up with another cadet who we do the whole AQC with. I’m paired with Jonny (a CP106 coursemate). Each session is 4 hours long where we do 2 hours of pilot flying (PF), before swapping, then doing 2 hours of pilot monitoring (PM).

During the first week we have been allowed full use of the autopilot and autothrust systems, and we have been practising a whole manner of profiles. In the first couple of sessions we practiced the basic jet flying procedures such as take-offs and landings (which always come in useful), go-arounds and basic jet handling – the 737-300 is supposedly one of the more difficult jets to fly. The next couple of sessions looked at ‘non-normals’ and emergencies. We practiced engine fires, engine failures, engine seizures, rejected take-offs and many other system failures making us work as a crew and methodically. Rapid depressurisations were certainly interesting, diving from 37000ft to 10000ft in just a few minutes, at maximum speed while wearing oxygen masks.

pretty lights

The final flight of the week was a LOFT assessment exercise where we flew a mock passenger flight from A to B (Manchester to Stansted). As far as luck goes, LOFT flights normally offer very little – poor weather, engine failures, system failures, and closed airports all often happen simultaneously in this one flight. The aim is to assess both our technical and non-technical skills. Both mine and Jonny’s flight went quite well; and I managed to land in Stansted for my flight rather than divert – thankfully the weather improved!

For the last week of AQC, we have all the automatics taken away and fly manually for the 4 sims. Myself and Jonny are on late shifts this week, one session finishes as 2am - we might as well get used to it considering our choice of career..............

Airline Qualification Course

Well it has been a while, but I can now continue my blogging as I have completed the first week of AQC (Airline Qualification Course) which is the intermediate stage of the CTC Wings Programme. The AQC course is designed for us to transition from single-pilot to multi-pilot operations and ensures we are ready to be put forward into the hold pool for airline placement

The first week was spent in groundschool at the Nursling training centre where we had 2 days technical training for the Boeing 737-300 aircraft and the remaining 3 days were spent on Crew Resource Management where we learnt the skills needed for multi-crew operations.

Practising on our cardboard cut-out of the 737-300

During the rest of the week when we weren't in the training centre, we have been learning and memorising all the checks and order of proceedings which has taken a very long,long, long time. We now have 9 simulator sessions, each 4 hours long, in the 737-300 to hone our multi-crew and jet aircraft handling skills.

Lots of stuff to learn....

Short and sweet, but hopefully more photos to come....

Instrument Rating Skills Test............ :)

So after 6 months in ground school, 8 months on the other side of the world in New Zealand and flying down in sunny Bournemouth for 8 weeks, I am pleased to say that I have now got my EASA CPL/IR, having passed my IR Skills Test yesterday.

The even better news is that everyone in CP106 have all got first time passes.

Backseating down to Cherbourg (France), the day before my IR

The IR test is made up of 6 sections: Departure, General Handling, Enroute IFR, Precision Approaches, Non-Precision Approaches and flight with one engine inoperative. The flight started with a route from Bournemouth to Exeter where I completed an RNAV (GPS) approach, followed by an engine failure in the go-around, then straight into a single NDB hold. After leaving the hold at Exeter, we then made our way back to Bournemouth with me demonstrating stall recoveries, unusual attitude recoveries and limited instrument flying (including compass turns). Once these exercises were completed I then returned to Bournemouth using just one engine for an asymmetric ILS approach and circuit.

Fortunately there wasn't a long wait for the result, and I can't explain in words how much it was a relief to hear I had passed.....

So that's the basic phase with CTC completed; looking back, the last 16 months have gone so fast, even though it seems an absolute age since the day we started. The next part of training is the Intermediate phase which is a 3-week course (AQC) down in Southampton, where we get to eventually fly the Boeing/Airbus simulators which we were dying to go in last year during groundschool. All that's left in Bournemouth is the final part of signing out......home tomorrow !!!

BA 747 as I backseated to Oxford

Flying down south.....

Hello all. The last couple of weeks have been fairly busy for CP106 as we enter our last week down in Bournemouth. Due to us becoming so close to the IR Skills Test we have been in for flights (flying and backseating) nearly every day.

The first flight in Bournemouth was just a 1 hour sortie overhead the airfield. After departing we went and flew a couple of holding patterns as well as flying a couple of approaches - NDB and ILS. As well as getting us use to being back in the plane it also exposed us for the first time to UK air traffic control and CTC SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures).

After this first flight, we then got straight in with some IR (Instrument Rating) routes, all of which are potential routes for the actual IR test. So far I have flown to Alderney in the Channel Islands, Cardiff and Exeter and have backseated all of these too. The next 2 flights I hope to fly myself are to Oxford and Cherbourg in France.

Alderney

Barry Island on finals to Cardiff

Yesterday was my birthday, and after having a flight of my own in the afternoon, I backseated a flight to Oxford and was treated to some fantastic views and sunset from 7000ft, before heading to the pub for a few celebratory drinks.

Birthday Sunset from Oxford

After the Oxford and Cherbourg routes which I am scheduled to be flying on Monday and Tuesday, I then have a F170a (a kind of mock IR) and then the big test........