PT1 Passed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry for the slight delay in this post but I have my family visiting me at the moment, so I have finally started to explore more of New Zealand. The big news though for this week is that I have passed my PT1 - the first progress test with CTC.

After waking up to poor weather on Friday morning, I wasn't expecting the test to go ahead as the poor cloud base meant there wasn't much height for my navigation legs or stall recoveries. However, we went ahead and after 1.9 hours of me trying to hold my nerves as much as possible, I was informed of me passing as I taxied in after landing. I was quite happy with the actual hands-on flying of the aircraft during the flight, I now just need to work on expanding my checklists, ensure I always complete thorough lookouts and I make sure that I use my feet!!!! It means I now only have 3 more night flights on the Katana, but apart from that I should be ready to start my next stage of training on the 20th January - hopefully with a lot of time off in-between.

With my parents arriving during Friday afternoon, I have spent the weekend visiting 'Bridal Veil Falls', Raglan, 'HellsGate' and Rotorua. Saturday we visited the coastal resort of Raglan and Bridal Veil Falls, which is a 55m high waterfall around an hours drive from Hamilton - I didn't quite realise the drop until I was stood over it!!! 

HellsGate is a geothermal park near Rotorua which features boiling mud spots, hot springs and a mini mud-volcano. The downside of visiting this place is the amount of sulphur released - producing a rotten-eggy type of smell, now lingering on me and my clothes.

Anyway, some of the pictures of my exploring are below. I hope to be visiting Auckland for New Years so hopefully there will be a few firework photos next week.

55m Drop @ the top of Bridal Veil Falls

Bridal Veil Falls from the Bottom

Kakahi Falls @ Hellsgate

Mini Mud Volcano

Boiling Mud

I Hope You Had A Great Christmas & Have A Happy New Year

Our Christmas Table ready for food!!!!!

Last Few VFR Flights............

When I ended my blog with “I just hope next week will be as eventful as the last.......” last week, I didn’t quite expect the amount of flying I have done this week; this week has been the busiest yet with me completing another 9 flights and it means I should have only 3 more day flights on the Katana Aircraft (+3 night flights) before moving onto the next stage of training.

Early start this week

With 17.6 hours of flying completed this week, I now only have two more solo-flights before my PT1. PT1 is the first progress test here at CTC. It is an in-house test which is run in a similar format to the final Commercial Pilot’s Licence skills test. I will be examined on my planning, departure, steep turns, stalling, navigation, instrument flying, emergencies, circuits, arrivals, cockpit management, aircraft knowledge and radio work; in essence everything I have been practising over the last 49 flights. Today I had a mock-PT1 which went well so hopefully the same will be said for the real thing.

This week has been my opportunity for many navigation flights. So here are just a few pictures from the last weeks worth of flying.

Geysers Close To Rotorua - shame they produce a eggy-sulphur smell when overhead

East Coast

East Coast Cliffs

The "White Cliffs Of New Zealand"

I hope that over the next week (excluding Christmas Day & Boxing Day), I will have completed and passed my PT1. This means that I will have finished the VFR (Visual Flight Rules) stage of my training and I will then be on the IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) stage. It means I will only be flying the Katana aircraft 3 more times at night and I will only have 1 more solo-flight for the rest of my training, before flying the Cessna 172 and then eventually the twin-engined 'Twinstar'. The VFR stage involves around 80-90% of your time looking out of the aircraft, while having quick glances at the instruments. The IFR stage is completely different where you spend nearly all of your time focusing on the glass-cockpit displays and instruments.The glass cockpits are very much airline-orientated and with these flights it means I will be able to finally enter cloud and use a lot of the navigational aids at the airports.

Anyway, I will finish this post by wishing you a Merry Christmas from a sunny & warm NZ

Qualifying Cross-Country

One thing that I wasn't expecting this week was to be completing my CPL Qualifying Cross-Country. Essentially, everyone who trains for a CPL has to complete a solo flight which is at least 300 nautical miles long which includes two full stop landings at two different airports to your home base. 

On Monday and Tuesday I completed two normal navigation flights. On Monday I eventually completed FK032 after cancelling it 6 or 7 times. I managed to get over the Kamai Mountain Range and land at both Tauranga airport and Rotorua airport. These 2 airports are the 2 nearest controlled airfields to Hamilton and are quite fun and scenic to land at. On Tuesday I got to venture further up north and flew around the Coromandel Peninsula which is the red area on the map below. There is some great scenery in that area of NZ with a fair few islands to fly to. I managed to go overhead 'Slipper Island' on my way down to Tauranga for another touch & go.

After these two flights, Wednesday was my day off, but Thursday soon came around and my 300nm qualifying XC began. I headed Easterly out of Hamilton just after midday to intercept and then track down the east coast. After tracking down there and revisiting Whakatane overhead, I then tracked south-easterly for my first arrival at Gisborne. I managed to get Runway 14, which meant I flew straight-in without having to join the circuits. After a quick refuel, both food and for the aircraft, I visited the control tower for them to sign-off my paperwork to prove that I had landed there. I then jumped back in the aircraft for a short-leg down the coast to the next airport - Napier. Again I refuelled and visited the tower, and made a quick escape out of Napier due to poor weather beginning to build between me and Hamilton. I was lucky enough to get some scattered (which means 3-4 8ths of the sky is covered) cloud, which meant I was able to fly above and away from the pouring rain and get back into Hamilton just after 5 o'clock. It was a long day which went very quick, but I was glad to get it over and done with on my first attempt. Many cadets have to cancel this flight due to the weather so I was very fortunate.

Below is a snapshot of my track and a few snaps along the way:

My Clockwise Track

Moutohora Island

Whakatane Township

My Flying Machine @ Gisborne

Cloud departing Gisborne

Departing Napier

The Cloud Building On My Way Back To Hamilton. Flying @ 5500ft

Friday was another eventful day, with another dual flight in the morning, then a trip in the afternoon & evening to Rotorua for a bit of luging. The luging was brillant, with much more fun than I had expected. The competitive edge did get to a couple of us as we hurtled down the hillside track and the last race did cause me to crash a few times and get a few grazes along the way. If you don't know quite what luging is, this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0aNryXYwj4 shows us going down. I'm the person directly ahead in the first video with the green helmet. 

I just hope next week will be as eventful as the last.......

The Bad Weather Continues......

This week started off to be nice, weather-wise, however it has since deteriorated with rain and low cloud being dominant. I have therefore only managed to complete 2 flights since last week. My first flight was my 7th Navigation flight and I made a trip from Hamilton towards Port Waikato, then to Thames enroute to Tauranga, where I made a touch and go before returning to Hamilton.

You can see the track that I took for this flight below, with each point taken every 2 minutes. There was only 1 leg where I ended up a bit off track (the one at the top) but it was easily fixable and I was therefore happy with the resulting flight. My second flight of the week was IF4 which meant I was back under the hood for a southerly trip, before a couple of diversions and then a recap on what I had done so far in all the IF flights.

Nav 7 Track

After Tuesday, the weather then got worse and I have therefore had to cancel the same flight (#032) 3 times. Baring in mind that I have already cancelled it 3 times before, its a total of 6 cancellations for the same flight.

Thames Estuary

Away from flying, a few of us from our course went 'Drift Karting' a few nights ago. Apparently the track we went to was the world's first drift-karting track and it is a must-do for anyone visiting New Zealand. With not much grip and slippery surfaces, it allows for some great drifting around corners and is such great fun. We will be definitely returning some time soon.

High Ground Approaching Tauranga from Thames

On Friday night, we had our first CTC 'Cadet Function'. These functions are held quarterly throughout the year at the training centre, and their purpose is to congratulate everyone who has achieved at CTC within the last 3 months; first solos, PT1 Passes (the first progress test) and Licence issues are the 3 things that we get certificates for. We were also treated to speeches from senior management at CTC and Airways NZ (the people who run Air Traffic Control). After this, we were then offered a hog roast which I had 3 servings of, before having 2 servings of Mr Whippy from an on-site 'Ice Cream Van'.

Thats it for this week, hopefully this awful weather will get better soon....

Hampered by the weather...

This week I have been very busy flying….mainly filling out cancellation forms. The last few days have been unfavourable in terms of the weather for flying, with gusting winds (today we have had 30kts of crosswind, the limit which for me is 8kts). There has also been heavy rain and low cloud, so all in all not that great. The forecast has given a few sunny days starting tomorrow, but it is only supposed to last 3 days before it returns to raining.

When the rain wasn’t around at the beginning of the week, I was able to complete 3 flights. Two of the flights were my first 2 solo-navigation flights which were the reverse tracks of the first 2 navigation flights with my instructor. These were really great fun and allowed me to get away from Hamilton and explore more of New Zealand. I managed to maintain my plan and with the sun shining, there was plenty of camera-action, some of the pictures I have attached below and to the 'photos' page. The 3^rd flight was an instrument flight, flying to and landing at 2 other controlled airports. My next flight will be doing this flight again, in the reverse.

My plane, fresh out the hangar

Kawhia Harbour

Waikato River - tracking back towards Hamilton

Away from flying, we have been joined by two more of our CP106 coursemates. Both arrived at Clearways on Friday afternoon after enduring the 28-hour flight and have both moved in next to me. It seems surreal that their arrival now means that we are just over a quarter of the way through our New Zealand stage.

I leave you with a quick question; can you spot whats wrong with this plane? The answer is below.

Whats wrong???

*If you didn’t get it, look for the missing wing. I have no idea why its wing was missing, but I hope to not be flying that aircraft soon*


   Update: My 2013 Christmas Advent Calendar Is Now Up Ready For Chocolate Feasting

The start of navigation......

Since speaking last week, I have completed a further 6 flights, a combination of duals and solos. On Sunday, Monday and Wednesday, I flew my first 3 'General Handling & Circuits' solo flights. For these flights I get around 1.5 hours to go within 25nm of the airport and practise anything that I have done so far (such as stalling, turns & PFLs), and then return to the airport for 30 minutes in the circuit. These all went really well and I have been able to highlight the areas that need working on such as the PFL pattern and Steep Turns; however the turns were improving.

On Wednesday, I also had my first Navigation flight and it meant with my instructor I got to go north on a 115nm trip. The weather wasn't too good so the whole flight was flown between 2000-2500ft, a little lower than I would like to have been. 

Navigation 1 Plan

The navigation flights mainly comprise of checks. When approaching a turning point we have to run through, what we call, 'Pre-Hat checks'. We have to check that instruments are aligned,  and that we are sure about our next heading, altitude, airspeed and timings. When we have identified our turning point, we then turn onto our next leg and then do the 'Post-Hat checks' ensuring that we are now on the correct heading, speed and altitude, while the timer is restarted. 

After the 'Post-Hat Checks' we then do a Gross Error Check to make sure that we are heading in the right direction, otherwise we could end up with no clue where we are. After this, it is then time for the general cruise checks using the acronym CLEAROF. We then keep tracking for that leg and keep on track using 'Event Cycle Features' which are features we can look out for along the way to make sure we are heading in the right direction. For these short flights, its then time to approach another turn and the process starts all over again....

I'm not sure how boring all of the above is, so here is some pictures from my second navigation flight which I did today (Saturday), south of Hamilton.

Navigation 2 Plan - the big black line is a diversion that we practised in flight.

Lake Taupo on a sunny but hazy day.

Lake Taupo - the white dot just above the centre is one my coursemates flying the same route in reverse.

Not much has happened this week, most of us have been rather busy flying nearly every day. Hopefully we will be keeping this pace up, as we seem to be racking up the hours and pushing quickly through the course.

I've added a few pictures from the last week or so on the photos page, and with the sun being around, hopefully there will be many more sunny pics to come.

Solos & IFR

This week started off well flying-wise with me managing 4 flights. I have had 2 solos and 2 duals. My solos were 1 ½ hours of circuits, and 2 hours out-of-circuit PFLs and Steep Turns. The 1 ½ hours of circuits was the same as before, however it was the first time that I have done it at Hamilton Airport, where it is rather more busy and controlled compared to Whakatane, where I had done the rest of my circuits so far.

The 2 hour solo (PFLs and Steep Turns) was the first time that I have left the airport’s control zone by myself. It meant I had to fly the departure away from the airport to a point called Scotsman’s Valley, hang around a place just north of Morrinsville for around an hour and a half, while practicing the exercises and then returning via the reverse track back for an arrival into Hamilton. All went very well and you can see my track below. You can see just how many turns & PFLs I did !!!!!

The above tracking system is what we call Spidertracks. It uses a little bit of kit inside the cockpit which reports our position every 2 minutes so that we can be easily tracked throughout our flight.

Other than flying solo, I have had my first 2 IFR flights. These basically consisted of me wearing a non-fetching hood, meaning that I couldn’t see anything outside the cockpit. This allowed me to practice flying entirely on the instruments, which could be very helpful if we ever inadvertently entered some cloud where we would have no outside cues. I have a further 4 IFR flights in the Katana practising much of the same sort of stuff.

IFR Hood

Away from flying, not much else has happened this week. We have just seen on our notice board here at Clearways that 3 of our CP106 coursemates are supposed to be joining us at the end of November. Bearing in mind that we’ve only been here just under two months now, it feels that we have been here for a lot longer than that; we have though been very lucky to have got so much flying done so far. Hopefully, the weather will stay true to the forecast as we have sunshine and 22/23 degrees for the next 5 days (none of the snow like back in the UK). It just better stay nice tomorrow as I have my second out-of-circuits solo with a Sunday alarm of 06:30AM. Nice.

Speak next week….

The beginning of early starts.....

This week I finished my fortnight of no flying and managed to get up in the air for just a couple of flights. My 2 lessons this week were steep turns and PFLs (Practise Forced Landings). The steep turns lesson mainly focused on making 45 degree turns, as well as collision avoidance turns and recovering from spiral dives. The PFLs lesson looked at the pattern we have to fly if we experienced an engine failure, and how to make a landing in a field below - with no power. A couple of my patterns left me a bit too high but should have got me down!!!

A very early morning check, for a flight that eventually didn't happen.

I was supposed to have gone up for a 2 hour solo for me to practise PFLs and steep turns on my own, but unfortunately the weather has been pretty bad for the last few days and it meant I had to cancel the same lesson 4 times. To make matters worse, 2 of the days I was scheduled to fly meant my alarm was set for 04:15AM - too early especially when I didn't get to fly, but I better get use to them.

Aside from flying, not much else has happened this week, except for 4 new additions to Clearways - kittens. As you will probably agree from the picture below they are quite cute. There are two tabbies and two black-striped ones, all from the same tabby mother.

2 New Additions

The weather has got better today and from the NZ forecast we are set to have 10 days of sunshine, so hopefully there will be lots of flights this week for me to tell you about in my next post.....

At least the grass has grown......

You may have read the title of this post and thought how boring can it be...well this week it has been very boring with another week passing without any flights. I was scheduled for one but just as I was walking out towards the plane, reports of strong crosswind forced me to cancel the flight.

The grass outside my room is growing phenomenally fast.

As you can see in the picture, we have cats here at Clearways. So far I have seen 5 with 2 only being official residents. One is supposed to have had 8 kittens recently but have yet to be seen as they are apparently hiding in the bushes.

The rest of this week has been occupied by golf. I have played nearly every day this week and has been much needed to pass the time in the afternoons. Below is a couple of shots from Lochiel Golf Club which we played today and is located very close to Clearways and the airport; nearly all the time we have aircraft flying above us making their final approach to land. I would like to say that I'm improving at golf after all the practise we are getting, however after the last 2 days I can't.

The Approach To The 4th Green

The 7th - Par 3

So apart from golfing, watching grass and cats outside my window, I can't really tell you anymore. I was hoping for a few flights this week but hopefully next week will bring some. I should be coming around to a lot of solos. Out of the next 20 flights, 12 are solos practising everything we have done so far (stalling, turning, circuits, forced landings and general handing) as well as navigation, which I have yet to do.

Sorry for another 'boring' post, but hopefully I'll have more to tell in a weeks time.

Fixed On The Ground This Week

Since the Whakatane flyaway last week, I have not had a single flight. I think this is due to us as a course being ahead of schedule, and my primary instructor being off this week. We were speaking to another course the other day and they had no flights for 2 weeks after their flyaway...hopefully this won't happen to me.

The bigger news this week is that I have moved accommodation. We were expecting to move to Clearways next weekend but we received an email yesterday saying that we needed to have moved by the end of this weekend. Clearways is the purpose-built CTC accommodation located next to the airport. There are over 100 cadets here between 5 blocks, with another under construction. Each block has 2 wings with 20-30 rooms and then there is a central common room, kitchen and laundry. 

I am in a brand new room from an extension that has just been completed on block 2. I am in a shared room where 2 cadets share a kitchenette and bathroom. At the moment I'm on my own, but my room-mate should be in next week as they are one of my CP106 coursemates who are in the UK.

My shared kitchenette

My new bedroom

My room currently looks over a very large brown patch which has just been planted with grass seeds. At the rate grass grows over here in NZ, I'm sure it won't be long until I've got a green lawn to look at. Unfortuneatly thats it for this week. Most of the time was filled watching movies, playing golf, packing and then unpacking - not blogworthy. 

I've just checked my schedule for tomorrow which says I'm not flying, and monday is my rostered day-off so it looks like there will be more days of not flying and being quite bored.

Whakatane Flyaway and First Solo!!!

Sorry for being a couple of days late with this weeks blog, but I've been away this weekend to do my first solo. This week started off with just a couple of lessons focused on stalling and how to recognise and recover from them, which meant that my next lesson would be circuits. On Wednesday we were told we would be going away for the weekend to a small airport called Whakatance (oddly pronounced f**katane) which is uncontrolled, so there is no air traffic control. Everyone here just reports their intentions and positions for other traffic to know. The airspace around this place is very quiet and means that it is a lot less busier than Hamilton.

There were 9 cadets (6 from our course) and 4 instructors at Whakatane. 3 cadets flew there with the 3 planes that we had over the weekend and the rest of us went in a minibus which was a lot slower than flying. When we got there around 9 o'clock Friday morning, we immediately started flying and I have my first circuits lesson. Circuits are basically rectangular patterns flown at an airport. After taking-off you climb ahead, turn onto the crosswind leg, then the downwind leg, then onto the base leg and then onto finals before you land. After you land, you apply full power again, take-off and then repeat it all again.

Standard circuit pattern

On Friday night we went out to a local Indian which was very tasty and great fun. A few had a couple of drinks but bed was called for quite early as we had a 06:30 wake up call for breakfast. On Saturday I had my next two circuits lessons and after this I had my solo-check. This meant I had to go up with a "B-Cat" instructor who is allowed to authorise first solos after a competency check-flight. Fortunately, everyone passed their check and I was allowed to go on my first solo (1 circuit) late Saturday afternoon. It was a great feeling being able to go solo again, as I've already done 6 hours solo back in the UK, and everything went to plan with the landing being the best of the day for me.

The odd little airport Air NZ operate a couple of flights out of

Between the flights which were often a few hours, we spent most of the time outside watching everyone else, listening out on the radio, and most of us got a bit sunburnt. Well I say a bit...... lets just say on Sunday I had about 5 layers of suncream on as well as my coat and a hat even with the burning sun. On Saturday night we intended to go out for another meal, but the local town turned out to be a ghost-town with just one place open for food so a stomach-filling Dominos it was. Interesting pizzas are very cheap out here, a large pizza here at 'Pizza Hut' costs just £2.50

Sunday was another early start and at 8 o'clock in the morning I had my second solo-flight which was 1.2 hours worth of circuits. The aerodrome was extremely quiet and there was just two of us flying around. I then had a long wait for the rest of the day, until around 4 in the afternoon when I had my last flight of the weekend which was circuits-variants, practising landings with no flaps and with a failed engine. I had an hours worth of dual-instruction for this, then I had just over another hour on my own - there was a couple of bumpy landing.

Early Morning Checks

Luckily, as I was the last one flying on Sunday, I got to have a seat in one of the aircraft when we returned back to our Hamilton base. It was a very quick mode of transport; it took us around 1/2 hour, while everyone in the minibus took over 2 1/4 hours to get back. I was hoping for lots of pictures but due to haze we couldn't see anything.

It was a brilliant weekend, with lots of fun and now with over 16 hours worth of flying already, I can't wait to get into the circuits back at the very busy Hamilton Airport and do some more solos. For now, I bid you farewell for another week but check the photos page because I've added plenty of pics from the weekend.

3 More Flights...

This week I started off being rather busy having a further 3 flights: 'Climbing & Descending', 'Medium Turns' and 'Climbing & Descending 2. It added just over 3 more hours to my flight log, and it means I've only got a couple or more lessons (both about stalling), before being released into the reputably busy Hamilton circuits.

"Climbing & Descending" focused around entering and exiting a climb or descent, and the speeds and attitudes required to maintain them. The 'Medium Turns' lesson looked at how to enter, maintain and exit a 30 degree turn, of which we use for most turns in flight. 'Climbing & Descending 2', which we did over where they filmed The Hobbit (lots of bright-green rolling hills), centred on setting up for the final descent when we arrive at an airport from circuit height (typically 1200') down to the runway.

The daily flights were short lived as the weather took hold, and over the last few days we've experienced rather stormy weathe,r meaning nearly all flights today and yesterday were cancelled. Today there were crosswinds of 35kts (our maximum is around 10-15kts depending on experience).

As we all had Friday off, our course went into Hamilton on Thursday night and spent a lot of time (of what we can remember) in 'Bar 101', a place where I'm sure every CTC student has visited during their time here in Hamilton. We have also purchased cars this week, after we had to hand back our hire cars provided by CTC for the first 3 weeks. The car I jointly bought was this beauty:

Our trusty Honda CR-V

Hopefully the weather will improve quickly so we can get some more flights flown. Sunday (tomorrow) is looking brighter, but after that the pouring rain seems to be back. I'm not scheduled for a flight tomorrow, so golf is on the cards. Talking of scheduling, we get the next days schedule through at around 4:30PM, with the final copy at around 8:30PM and it has lots of coloured boxes with names in. Lets just hope I'll have more flights to report on next week, maybe I will have even done a circuit or two...

First flight !!!!!!

Last weekend was finished by revising for my air law exam on Monday. I am pleased to say that I passed it with a 94% score. After Monday, we had two more days of groundschool focusing on our first flight such as the mass & balance form and the performance forms to make sure that we can safely complete the flight. We also had to sit through a few safety briefings such as when on the apron and in the air around Hamilton. 

The last stage of groundschool was our first 2 mass briefs: 'effects of controls' and 'straight & level flight'. These involve the whole course/cp learning about another stage of flying so that when we are in the air, we can try and use these skills in the air. It was a good feeling on wednesday as we have finally finished groundschool - we were now free to fly!!!

DA20s & C172s parked up

Thursday was the first day of flying for CP106, but unfortunately it was my Rostered Day Off (RDO) so while I didn't go flying, some of my other coursemates did. Instead I just lazed around most of the day until around 4:30 in the afternoon when the next days roster is released. Luckily I was down as flying at 16:15 on the Friday for my first flight. I reported quite early on Friday and it enabled me to read through my notes and complete my M&B and Performance forms, as well as printing the local weather. The flight came around very quickly and just after 4, we were pushing the aircraft back and took off from runway 25 (the grass runway). Hamilton has 4 runways - 2 paved and 2 grass. We departed to the west and then just got to have a feel of the aircraft and put the aircraft in many different attitude to see the effects of the controls. The weather was not that great so visibility wasn' the best, but it was still great fun to be back in the air after nearly a year and half. 

Just as I was writing this post, I have just been called to bring a lesson forward a few hours, as I have another flight today. Hopefully I will have many more flights over the next week and I will report how they went this time next week. Cya

1 Week Done....

With jetlag still around, it has been a very tiring and eventful week. After arriving on Saturday sleep was required for the rest of the weekend and the Monday we had off. Over the last week as well as working we have began to explore Hamilton; we have visited 'The Base' (our local shopping mall), some of our local shops, our training centre, and more importantly the golf course for the CP106 NZ Championships.

We had 4 days in the training centre this week, we have already done a differences exam which highlights the differences between the UK and NZ syllabus and on Monday its our Air Law exam. The Air Law was a 300-odd slide PowerPoint crammed into 2 days so there was a lot to take in. Luckily we have a free hot drinks machine at the centre, which has been visited a lot of times this week to help keep us awake. After we have done the air law exam, we are in on Tuesday and Wednesday for some more introductions and then we are free and ready to fly.

Outside of NZ groundschool, 3 of us have already started the NZ golf competition and I'm pleased to say that I won the first round. Winning was however short-lived as I came second in our re-visit to Lochiel Golf Course, but the next round is proabably going to be tomorrow, so lets hope I can take the lead again. It is really good out here, we have access to 2 courses for our 8 months stay out here for just $200NZD (about £110), and they are both near the airport so you just get all the cadets flying overhead all the time.

Anyway, I will report next week with the result of the Air Law exam and may even be able to tell you about my first flight.

Oh, my internet is still not working in my room so I will try and get some pictures up as soon as.

New Zealand!!!

So, after a 27 hour flight and about half a dozen plane meals, CP106 has arrived in Hamilton, New Zealand. We arrived here around 13:00 on saturday (2am UK time) and have moved into the Knox St. apartments. There are 7 off our course at Knox, 2 on the bottom floor and 5 on the top. We have already been told to expect a move to Clearways (the other main accommodation) within the next month or so, as CTC are getting rid of Knox St. and they have built another block at Clearways.

The flight itself didn't go as slow as I was expecting it too, there was a ton of movies and a lot of my time was spent sleeping and looking at the cameras on the A380 giving you an outside view of the aircraft.

While we were en-route at Melbourne airport, we received the emails about our module 2 results, and I am pleased to say that I have passed all my 14 ATPL examinations with an average of 97%. 

I will keep blogging as the week goes on by. Sorry for no photos, but I can't get any internet in my room at the moment.

Jack