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Friday 12 June 2015

My career begins...



The last few weeks have been extremely busy and exciting for me - I have now had my first passenger flights! But more on that later... first, base training.

Back on the 19th May two of my friends from CTC and I were given an A321 to play with for the day. We left from Manchester Airport with a Training Captain and a Senior First Officer and headed down to Chateauroux Airport for our circuits. Base training is the first time a pilot flies the aircraft type, so as you can imagine we were all extremely excited (and nervous!). We need to fly a minimum of six safe, on target landings in order to tick the box leading to us being licensed on the A320 family. The flying was all done manually, with only auto thrust being used. We were hoping to get a manual thrust circuit in, although due to the weather not being that great it was decided that it wasn't appropriate to do so. Of my six landings, three were full flap landings, three were flap 3 and then the final one was also without any ILS guidance/PAPI lights. It was an incredible day which we will never forget and we are lucky the three of us were rostered to do it together.

G-TCDW





Just a bit bigger than a DA42!
Once base training was complete I moved up to Newcastle in preparation for starting work. I have been able to do some jumpseating going to places such as Lanzarote and Corfu; these have been fantastic as it is great to pick up all of the knowledge from the pilots on the line, as well as see everything I have been training for in action. The aircraft based up in Newcastle are brand new; they are the sharklet models with built in electronic flight bags (EFBs) and upgraded computer systems. This upgraded system is slightly different to the one I had been using in training, so getting to grips with it without the pressure of flying at the same time was definitely a bonus.

On the turnaround in Lanzarote
Tuesday was the day I have been waiting for as long as I can remember - I had my first ever passenger flights!
G-TCDZ, the aircraft used on my first line training flight
Line training began and I flew TCX2192/3 between Manchester and Kefalonia. It was crazy sitting in the right hand seat, seeing all of the passengers board through the jetbridge - a feeling of real accomplishment and pride! Rotating off of 05L at Manchester, I think I had the biggest grin on my face that the world has ever seen (and was still chuckling to myself about making the "Cabin crew prepare for departure" PA, which felt odd!). This was the first time I have ever had a full flight in the Airbus, as we don't actually practice "line flying" as such in the simulator; both the Training Captain and Senior First Officer were great for helping me along and giving me a nudge in the right direction when it was needed, and they definitely helped put me at ease for the day in such a new environment. Once we landed in Kefalonia it was time to pick up a new set of passengers, then rocket back to Manchester and do it all again; due to the quiet airspace I was lucky enough to get to fly the entire departure manually, which was simply incredible! We landed back on 05R just under four hours later and taxied back to the stand we had departed from. All in all a day so amazing I cannot really put it into words. I just cannot believe this is actually my job! I want to say thank you to everybody who helped me get to where I am today, as I am a very lucky guy to be saying I am living my dream.

This is sort of the end now, which is a great shame. I have really enjoyed sharing my journey with everyone and I sincerely hope you have enjoyed coming along with me. There have been ups, downs, side to sides and this blog has in many ways helped me get through it all. The past few years have been an absolute blast and I am so excited by what the future has in store. Keep your eyes peeled - there may be a few updates every now and again!

Thanks so much again,

Georgie.

Arrived in Kefalonia!





A friend coincidentally arrived on the island that morning and was kind enough to get these photos of our approach 






4 comments:

  1. Massive congratulations, been following your journey on here for some time and it's fantastic to see the progress you have made!

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  2. Brilliant post! Looks like a very rewarding job!

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  3. Hiya Georgie, great to read your blog. I was wondering if you still check this as I have a few questions to ask you about the assessment day!

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