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........ 

Nearly in the air…

This week, I will hopefully have my first flight in Bournemouth as I only have one more simulator flight left. Since my last update, I have had 4 more sims and have also done a Limited Panel Exam.

In the sim on CTC's apron

The first 2 sims were the last couple of LOFT flights. The first one was from Heathrow to Birmingham, but I ended up diverting to East Midlands Airport; After losing one of my engines in the cruise I then lost both alternators during a go-around in Birmingham (due to weather below minima), which left me with about 30 minutes of electricity from the main battery. Unfortunately this ran out before I landed, but luckily I had the runway in sight so I was able to continue visually to land. The second flight was from Oxford to Manchester but again resulted in a divert to East Midlands as I had to shut down an engine because of low oil pressure.

Lined up at Bournemouth (RWY26)

The last 2 sims this week have been IR prep. In these we have flown routes which are possible for the actual IR Skills Test – Alderney and Exeter. These 2 haven’t been too bad, so hopefully the rest of the routes which are possible will be good too.

As part of our training, we also have to do a Limited Panel Exam which we do in a Duchess aircraft simulator. This test allows us to only use a select few instruments and our ability to read and fly from them. The actually principle is relatively easy, but flying an aircraft which you have never flown before and which is quite sensitive, certainly makes for a fun 20 minutes of testing.

Ground checks

On Wednesday, I should be scheduled for my last IRT preparation flight before I then go into the actual aircraft, it has been way too long…….

A Busy Week

It's fair to say I have been a lot busier in the last week than the previous. I’ve been in for 6 out of the past 7 days for 2 mass briefs and 4 simulator events. The good news though is that we still had time to enjoy the south coast sunshine!!!

After completing the final UK Orientation flight on Monday, Tuesday was the day that 3 of us had our introduction to Autopilot flight. This was by far one of the easiest flights I’ve had since starting CTC. With only hands on flying for the initial departure and last stage of landing, it demonstrated all the different functions that our system has to offer and how useful the autopilot can be for reducing workload.

The last 2 flights that I had this week were the first half of the 4 LOFT sorties. The LOFT sorties are where we act as though we are flying a single-pilot commercial flight from A to B; All planning, routes and decisions are down to us and we have all the equipment in the aircraft available to us – GPS, Autopilot, MFD (Multi-Function Display with moving map), etc. Another component to these flights is to see how we deal and cope with emergencies and poor weather leading to diverts. So far I’ve only had to deal with an engine failure during a go-around, but from other cadet's experiences I think there is going to be quite a lot to deal with in the final 2 of these flights.

Loft Flight Planning - Departure from Heathrow for Birmingham

Even though we've been busy working hard, we have still managed to find a bit of time to relax - this week a few of us had a round of golf and a beach BBQ. Hopefully we will be busy again this week, although the Instrument Rating skills test is approaching fast, only 12 more flights for me......

A Restful Week......

It has been a slow one this week with only 1 flight completed. The flight was another UK Orientation flight which means I still have another one of these to go, followed by an autopilot flight before the LOFT flights begin (which I'll talk about more when I've started them). It now means that with just 5 weeks remaining in Bournemouth, I have 17 flights, a limited panel exam and a Radio Telephony exam to do.

As I have had quite a bit of free time this week, there has been a couple of trips down to the Bournemouth seafront, some light reading, a round of golf and have just got back from seeing the Red Arrows drop by at Bournemouth airport as they have come south for the Isle of Wight festival.

Reading in the garden

Down at Bournemouth seafront

Red Arrows Departing Bournemouth

Red Arrows Arriving Back At Bournemouth

Arriving Back At Bournemouth (2)

Hopefully I'll have a few more flights this week to tell you about in my next post. Until then.....

Bournemouth

Sorry for my absence of blogging since returning from New Zealand; our course was fortunate enough to get an extra week of before beginning in Bournemouth so I am writing this as we come to the end of our first week here.

After moving into our accommodation last Sunday, we had a 2-day induction at the training centre looking at the differences between NZ and the UK, and the different procedures that we have to carry out for the remainder of our training. The days were very long but lunch at the nearby flying club cafe certainly made up for it.

After completing this induction, I had my first 2 simulator flights on Wednesday and Thursday. These are known as UK Orientation flights where we recapped on what we did in New Zealand with the introduction of UK differences. There are 3 simulators in Bournemouth, 2 of which are the same as those in New Zealand and the other is slightly different but I have yet to go in it.

Next week I hope to have a few more sims, I have 2 more of the UK Orientation flights and then we move onto the next stage. I hope you enjoyed the video I posted below – if you haven’t watched it yet just click the link.

Back to the UK

Hi all, I'm pleased to say that CP106 arrived back in the UK on Friday after nearly 38 hours of travelling.

Here is the video I have made, summarising just some of the highlights from the 8 months training & living in NZ:

http://youtu.be/aDoUQT0jIaM

New Zealand.............almost finished

This week has been fairly relaxed for me with just a couple of rounds of golf and a couple of nights out; however it has been quite busy for my CP and am pleased to say that after todays result from Christian, all 7 of CP106 have passed their CPL skills test!!!!!!!!!!

CP106 (L-R) - Christian, Tom, Ben, Florence, Sean, Me, Jonny

So, you would think after getting our CPL and completing all our flights in New Zealand there wouldn't be anymore to do - how wrong. Today we had our 'sign-outs' where we get a meeting with our team leader to check all the paperwork, and most importantly our logbooks, to make sure they are all correct and match CTC's records. This was all fine and completed today, however after this we were supposed to have an interview with one of the chief instructors. We were dissapointed though, as after waiting around for 3 hours or so, we were told that the interviews wouldn't be happening until Wednesday afternoon. So the quest for getting signed-out and be free to leave New Zealand continues.

That's it for the blog this week (short but sweet) and for New Zealand. My flight back to the UK is on Thursday afternoon with an arrival at Heathrow for Friday lunchtime. I'll probably update next when I'm down in Bournemouth for the next stage of training in a couple of weeks time. There should also be a video posted here in the next week of our time in NZ.

Hei konā

CPL Skills Test !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After last weeks flyaway, there was only one more thing to do in New Zealand - my Commercial Pilot Licence Skills Test. I'm extremely pleased to say that yesterday (Saturday afternoon) I took and passed this test and have gained my first pilot licence and can now freely go flying !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The test comprises of:

• Navigation leg
• Diversion
• Basic Instrument Flying (in case you inadvertently go into cloud or lost visibility)
• Recovering from unusual attitudes
• Position fixing
• Steep Turns
• Stalling
• Emergencies
• Asymmetrics (1 engine 'failed')
• Circuits

After having 3 mocks during the week, I felt quite confident for Saturday; however when I saw my name on the schedule for Saturday, there was a bit of a shock and realisation that all of the last 7-8 months of training was going to be tested in a 2 hour flight the next day.

After arriving at the training centre quite early, I had a short brief with the examiner before being given a navigation leg to plan, along with his weight for the mass & balance calculations as well as all the performance calculations (such as take-off and landing distances). After all this planning and a couple of hours wait, it was finally my turn. The weather deteriorated throughout the day and with only a couple of hundred feet clearance from cloud, I had to not only aviate, navigate and communicate, but also had to think about the possibility of ending the flight due to the weather preventing me from continuing. I was however quite lucky as the cloud stayed where it was, and I was able to get to my original destination and diversion point, before going over the western coast for general handling where the cloud was higher and more broken. Once the general handling and air work was done, I came back to Hamilton for 4 circuits and then that was it, the test complete.

It was great that I only had to wait a couple of minutes after getting back to get my result - PASS. It feels great that I have earned the privilege of being able to now go flying with passengers (and earn some money from it too!!!!). 

But that is now it for flying in New Zealand. I have no more flights to do, so the next time will be in Bournemouth after we leave NZ on the 15th May. I have no idea what I will be doing over the next week and a half other than catching up on a bit of sleep.

Flyaway

Sorry for the late blog this week, but what a week it has been. After already completing 3 flights last week, I thought I would be having a fairly relaxed weekend, however 6 of us were lucky enough to be offered the chance of a flyaway. For the flyaway, we were based in Napier for 2 nights, and 2 groups of 3 were given one plane and one instructor each. We then got to fly pretty much anywhere we wanted to practise instrument flying.

The reason we were asked for the flyaway is that there is a shortage of examiners over the next couple of weeks, so a few of us have to be ready for the CPL skills test earlier than expected, and a flyaway is a good way of building up our hours. I have to say, and I'm sure everyone would agree, that this 3 day flyaway was the best 3 days of New Zealand. We were flying/backseating from morning till night, and managed to fly to the tip of the North Island all the way down to Christchurch on the South Island. 

Our 3 Days Of Flying

Ben, Florence & Me. The ZK-CTM team with our brilliant instructor Tash.

Friday
A 6 o'clock start greeted us on Friday and the weather was not being very helpful. With frantic planning and fog settling in Hamilton it didn't look like it was going to be a very good start to the 3 days. However, we managed to get out of Hamilton and Florence flew us up to Auckland Airport where we did the LOC/DME approach (a very similar approach to the ILS). We unfortunately didn't get to see any airliners on the approach but we got a great view of the airport. From Auckland, Florence then took us all the way up to Whangarei, an uncontrolled airport located in a harbour with a relatively short runway - quite scary when you don't see much runway left on take-off. We then filled up the plane, Florence & Ben jumped out to do some planning and then I flew from Whangarei to Kaitaia, did a couple of approaches and then went back to Whangarei to pick Ben & Florence up. It was a good flight overall and I got to practise a few stall recoveries on the way which are always fun !!!! From Whangarei, Ben then took control and we went down to Tauranga via Auckland. This time the weather was better over the city and we got some great views of the airport and the main city area. We then flew at night from Tauranga to Napier (where we stayed for the night), via Gisborne with Florence at the controls.

Hamilton's morning cloud

Auckland from above

Overflying Auckland International

Whangarei Airport

Saturday

Saturday was by far the best day for me. Due to the distance from Hamilton, you are normally only able to reach the South Island on flyaways - and that's exactly what we did. After another early start for us, Florence took command from Napier to Wellington Airport via Palmerston North. Wellington was a great approach, and the wind was quite calm - quite unusual for 'windy Wellington'. From Wellington I took control and flew down to Christchurch and across to Hokitika over the mountain ranges. The trip down to Christcurch was very slow due to a strong headwind and because of this we had to be delayed for our approach into Christchurch and I got to eventually land behind an Emirates 777. After the approach from Christchurch we got to circle 1000ft above the city so got to see some great sights. We then flew over the mountain ranges at 11000ft (with not much talking due to the lack of oxygen) before a rapid descent into Hokitika. Florence then flew us from Hokitika to Nelson for a night approach and then Ben flew from Nelson to Wellington before returning back to Napier for the night.

Wellington Approach

Over the sea to Christchurch

Christchurch Airport

Christchurch - Hokitika (Courtesy of Jonny Beech)

Evening Sunset

Nelson At Night

Sunday

Due to the amount of flying on Friday and Saturday, we were able to have a bit of a lie in on Sunday, had breakfast out, then had our first flight which was at 12. Today we had a mixture of short and long flights so that we all met our target hours. Ben started the day off from Napier to New Plymouth via Whanganui, then I flew from New Plymouth into Taupo before Florence took us back home to Hamilton to end the flyaway.

New Plymouth

Mt. Taranaki - Enroute to New Plymouth

So that's it for the IFR training in New Zealand. All I have left now is 3 CPL Profiles and then the actual CPL skills test. The weather is looking to be ok for the next few days so hopefully all will go to plan; my first profile got cancelled today due to heavy rain showers and lightning in the vicinity.

p.s. I plan on setting up a YouTube account shortly to put all my videos on.

The End Of New Zealand Simulators

This week has been quite slow for CP106, only 2 flights for me. With a sick instructor, low pressure weather systems and the Easter bank holidays, there have not been many chances to get much done.

The first flight was my final New Zealand simulator flight. This flight recapped on what we’ve learnt over the last couple of weeks in the simulator, and also introduces en-route navigation and workload management for the Twinstar. The route was from Hamilton to Auckland and back, which seemed fairly straightforward when I planned for it the night before with a 20-25kts wind at 7000ft; however it was elected that I should use the actual weather conditions on the day which were 65-70kts wind – it’s fair to say that it definitely increased my workload!!!

The second flight was back in the actual Twinstar (DA42) where I practised DME Arcs and approaches. It seemed such a long time since I was last flying the DA42, but it felt much more easier to control than the simulator and it was a great feeling to be back in actual cloud (not that I was able to look outside and see - the IFR hood was on)

Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, the weather has been deteriorating this week. The 25°C blue sky days seem to have disappeared, and we are now having very cloudy and wet days – not ideal now that we have finished in the simulator. Thunder and lightning has become more common as well, so there have been many flight cancellations.

The view every morning this week

Some big news this week is that we have been informed on when to expect our CPL Skills Tests. The majority of the course should have them on the week commencing 5^th May, with a few expected to have it the week before – only 8 days away!!!!!!! We really need the weather to improve especially for the CPL profiles and tests as these are conducted in Visual Flight Rules where the weather needs to be good.

The one good thing with all this wet weather, is that the golf courses are no longer brown with grass reappearing. With the time off this week, I have managed to play a couple of rounds, and had my best ever round on Wednesday – gross 81 for those of you who play.

Evening sunset - the best time of the day for cloud

That’s it for this week – I've got a bit of CPL reading to do today, in between stuffing myself on chocolate. Hopefully I'll have some flying pictures to show next week. 

Happy Easter

A Few More Sims....

After 3 simulator sessions this week, I now only have 1 more simulator flight for the remainder of New Zealand. Hopefully this last one will be in the next couple of days, and then I have 7 more instrument flights and 3 CPL profiles before the actual Commercial Pilot's Licence Skills Test.

This week in the simulator recapped on NDB (Non-Directional Beacon) approaches which I first flew last week, looked at engine failures during instrument flight (as well as flying approaches with 1 engine) and DME Arcs.


A Simple Introduction To DME Arcs
DME (Distance Measuring Equipment) Arcs are designed to save time and fuel. Previously, when we have flown VOR and NDB approaches, we fly overhead the airfield and follow the teardrop pattern (as shown in Red below) to intercept the Inbound Track (blue) to land.

The DME arc allows us to rather than fly all the way overhead the airport to then complete the teardrop, we can just follow a line of constant distance (the green line) around the airport until it takes us into the final inbound track. You should be able to see that it is quite a shorter arrival.

---------------------------------------------------------

Today, we also had an exam on multi-engine aircraft so that when we get our CPL we can have a multi-engine licence added to it - I'm pleased to report we all passed!!! Aside from flying this week, not much else has happened. We had the Royal visit yesterday to Hamilton, but they were only here for an hour or so before they went to the nearby town of Cambridge. It did mean though that we had a couple of NZ Military 757s arriving and departing in Hamilton.

The Royals arriving overhead our accommodation

That's it for this week, hopefully I'll be back in the skies before the next post...

Back In The Sim

This week has been a pretty slow one having only managed to have 2 flights in the simulator. At the moment, the course ahead of us are taking priority due to them currently undertaking the CPL profile/mocks and actual CPL skills test. The idea is though that after they complete these within the next week or two, we should then be able to press ahead and complete the remaining New Zealand flights.

Morning Sun

This weeks flights introduced me to NDB holds and approaches, as well as ILS approaches. NDB holds and approaches are very similar to those conducted with a VOR, however the ground-based navigational aid is less reliable and accurate. We are also affected by 'dip' where, when we turn, the instruments in the aircraft dip downwards into the turn giving false indications which we have to compensate for. All-in-all though, a relatively straightforward lesson.

Twinstar Glass Cockpit

The other lesson, which I had today, was ILS approaches. These are the approaches carried out by the majority of airliners, and give more information (vertical plane, lateral plane and distance) and we basically just follow the indications that the instruments are telling us. It was a lot simpler than I was expecting and I can't wait to do it for real, as the nearest airport to have one in NZ is Auckland International. The only problem there is the commercial traffic; we therefore have to have a much faster than normal approach speed - just so we don't have to slow down an A380 or B737 !!!!

That is it for this week, not much else has been done. I was on standby a few times this week incase instructors came available due to the weather, however 2 out of the 3 days I ended up with no flights. Its still around 25C here (nice enough for autumnal golf), but rain has been forecast for the next week and fog has become a common problem for morning flights.

*Navigational Aids (VOR = VHF Omni-Directional Range) || (NDB = Non Directional Beacon) || (ILS = Instrument Landing System)

Asymmetrics & Solo Night Flying

This week, I've had all 3 of my asymmetric lessons in the DA42 Twinstar. These lessons are all focused on engine failures, and how to control and recover from them. The first 2 lessons I left Hamilton's airspace and we simulated a number of engine shutdowns on one engine, then I had to respond by controlling the aircraft. The main control that is used is the rudder, which is controlled by your feet. Even though this sounds simple, and in principle it is, due to the large amount of asymmetrical forces produced by the engines, which you are trying to counteract with your feet, your legs can become very painful and tired - especially after an hour or two of doing this (its about 150lbs of force in one leg you are pressing against) !!!!

We did get to shutdown an engine once

The third lesson was all in the Hamilton circuit. In each circuit we simulated an 'engine failure after take-off' (EFATO), going through all the necessary checks/drills then completing a circuit to land. After dealing with the EFATO and getting the correct speed, the rest of the circuit is relatively similar to the normal one. The main difference/consideration is that we cannot put flap down until we are absolutely sure that we are going to be able to make a safe stable approach. The reason for this is as soon as we put flap down, the performance of the aircraft decreases due to the extra drag, which means we are unable to get a positive rate of climb and we are therefore committed to land.

My Final DA20 Aircraft ZK-CSA

Anyway, enough of the technical flying. Tonight I finally had the chance to have my 1 hour solo night flight. After a 0.3 hour instructor check flight, I was cleared to go up in the Hamilton circuits in my DA20, where I managed to fit in 8 circuits. Luckily, I was the only aircraft in the circuit and there was only a couple of aircraft doing IFR approaches into the runway. It was quite a sad end to the night though, as this flight marked my last DA20 flight and my last solo-flight :(


I did try and take a few pictures, but most of them aren't very clear so here are a couple of the better ones....

Hamilton City

Lined Up 18L

I have no flights scheduled tomorrow (Sunday) but I hope to be in the simulator getting a few more flights done this week.

CTC Fleet Hat-trick

I've been lucky enough to fly all 3 of CTC's aircraft this week. I have had my first 2 Twinstar flights, my last Cessna 172 IFR flight and my first of three night flights in the DA20. I'll start off with the twinstar - a powerful, energetic but somehow controllable bit of machine. My first flight focused on the general handling aspects of flying - steep turns, stalling, climbing, descending and cruising. The second flight, which I had today, was circuits. With a slow cruise speed of 120kts, the circuits certainly go a lot quicker than I'm used to and due to that, you don't really have any time to relax - before you know it your on finals with profile, centreline and speed to be very aware of. The next 3 flights are asymmetrics where we imagine one engine has failed and been shut down. You would think that having 2 engines is a good thing if an engine fails, however it is very difficult to control and fly.

Interestingly, the statistics for surviving in a single-engine aircraft after the engine has failed is 70-80%. In a twin-engined aicraft, if you lose one of the engines, you have 70-80% of not coming out of it alive !!!

My First Twinstar

On Tuesday, I had my last Cessna flight down to New Plymouth. Being able to climb to 8000ft enabled us to cloud surf on our way there and back, and made it feel like real instrument flying. Hopefully I will be able to go even further afield when it comes to IFR routes in the twinstar, especially when I have a 35kt higher cruising speed compared to the C172.

Cessna 172 - CTC's old livery/logo

On Friday night I also managed to get my first night flight done. It seemed very strange going back into the DA20 (Katana), which was kind of expected after not flying it for nearly 3 months. I have to admit I do miss flying it, sporty and fun are the words that come to mind. 

Night flying was even cooler than I was expecting. With the towns, cities and runways looking impressive from just 2500ft, I can't imagine what it will be like in an airliner at over 15 times that height. I hope that I will have my 2 remaining night flights, 1 of which is an hour solo in the circuit, in the next few days.

DA20 Night Flying - again in CTC's old livery

Tomorrow we are in nice and early for a morning of groundschool, and then I have my third Twinstar flight in the afternoon. Its also a Happy Anniversary for CP106, as a year yesterday we started at CTC. Its crazy how quick the last 12 months have gone.