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.