Twinstar backseating and an open day

Yesterday a friend of mine was kind enough to let me backseat his second ever DA42 flight, which involved circuits under VFR conditions. We were in ZK-CTH, which is the first Twinstar to have received the new CTC livery. He practised both normal and flapless circuits, with a go around thrown in for good measure! Some non-standard right hand circuits were also practised, as was a rejected takeoff. During the stop and go, the instructor asked for short a field landing and take off which really gave a sense of the power the aircraft has. I just cannot wait to get to fly one myself!

Can you spot Clearways?

Today was also the CTC Hamilon training centre's open day, meaning about 150 people visited the airport to have tours of the building as well as listen to a talk from both CTC and the guest airline, who today was Jetstar. Hopefully a useful day to all the guests! 

Oh and me being me, of course I snapped some photos in the hangar as I passed through it. 

New colours on a Cessna

Exams: take 2

Well the mocks are over. I am now on study leave for my module 2 exams, which I take in a few weeks time. This time around I will be doing:

• General Navigation
• Radio Navigation
• Mass and Balance
• Human Performance and Limitations
• Performance
• Operations
• Flight Planning

These subjects are a lot more "hands on" and "piloty" than those in module 1 as they are a lot more practical. 

GNav is one of the subjects I have found the hardest in this module, I think mainly due to the formulas (I am not a lover of maths...). However it is very practical and includes charts as well as working out various times and dates in different time zones etc just by using coordinates.

RNav is mainly to do with radio aids and equipment such as radar and GPS. There are a few formulas you need to know, but apart from that it is just a case of learning all of the necessary information. 

Mass and Balance can be particularly tricky, as there are very few questions in the exam and each one can be worth a fair few marks, meaning there is very, very little room for error. 

HPL is one of my favourite subjects in this module, as I find it highly interesting (and we watched plenty of case study videos!). Learning about how our senses work, our minds and just exactly how flying is going to be affecting our bodies. 

Performance, 'lovingly' known as "POF 2" is actually not as bad as POF for me. I consider it as POF with fewer numbers. There are graphs to read lots of the answers off of and there are a lot more wordy questions.

Operations is another of my favourites. It is a bit like Air Law in module 1, although more orientated around airline work.

Flight Planning is a bit like GNav in the sense that there are some questions which can take a fair while to get an answer. There is a lot of chart work, SIDS and STARS (departure/arrival procedures at various airports) as well as fuel, time and distance calculations. 

All in all I am in a strange way looking forward to taking these exams, as I know that New Zealand is just on the other side of them. 

The CRP5 flight computer has been a key piece of equipment in module 2

An example of one of the flight planning tables we need to use

A bit more flight planning! 

Module 2 - so far!

Well I'm a few weeks into module 2 now where I am studying for the next seven exams. So far, we have completed Performance and Mass & Balance and are almost done with GNav, leaving RNav, Human Performance, Operations and Flight Planning. These subjects are a lot more practical than those we did in the first module and there are a lot more 'pilot-y' things to do. GNav is a massive subject and each question takes a fair amount of time to work out. Mass & Balance questions can also be quite lengthy, although it is only a small subject which lasted for two days. I'm looking forward to RNav, as we have been told there is a good chance we spend the afternoons in the simulators in pairs and also Flight Planning, as again, it is a very practical and useful subject.

I received my Mod 1 results on Tuesday and overall am very happy with them! Unfortunately I failed POF with 70%, so will retake that in July, just before I do my Mod 2 exams. With just several more weeks to go of ground school, the time really is flying by very fast!

Some familiar sights from GNav

A day in the life of a CTC cadet pilot

Well, my Module 1 mock exams are over and I now have just under two weeks until the real things, so this will be my last post for a few weeks. I realised earlier in the week that I hadn't yet actually made an entry on what I get up to here at CTC's ground school; so basically, here it is:

A day in the life of... me.

The Nursling Crew Training Centre

I live in Ashurst in the New Forest, maybe a mile or two down the road from Lyndhurst, one of the main areas in the New Forest. We are about 7 or 8 miles from the Crew Training Centre in Nursling, meaning we don't have to leave until around 8.30am.

Usually we start work at 9am, where we will be in the classrooms or, if very lucky the simulators; normally we have short breaks for a drink and a quick chat throughout the day, as otherwise you find that you're struggling to concentrate and getting a bit fidgety. There are several ground school instructors who are pilots, engineers, or military - they all teach more than one subject, so we meet them a few times throughout this phase of training. Most of us take in a laptop or an iPad so that we have question bank (a major tool along with CBT on our course) for when we have a spare five minutes. At first I found myself writing pages and pages of notes in class, although I realised a few weeks in that creating a supersize novel of all things aviation wasn't really going to help me - we are given handouts for our folders which are much more helpful and detailed and are fantastic for when you need to brush up on a certain topic or subject.

For lunch we either take our own or can purchase the CTC green tokens which entitles you to the canteen lunches. These are really handy, as it means I haven't got to get up really early to make a packed lunch, as well as carry it around the building all day! When we have finished eating, we head back up to a classroom where we either do a bit of work or relax a bit before work continues!

The earliest we have finished so far is 3.30pm, although that was due to us finishing a topic earlier and expected; normally we finish around 4, but the latest I have left so far is 7pm (although that was due to a sim session).

When we are back home, there really is very little time to spare as we try to use every last minute for work. As I have mentioned, at home we have the CBT, question bank and try to find various books and websites to explore and try to get as much knowledge in our brains as we can - the difficult part is trying to put something in without something else going out!

I really cannot think of anything else to add, so I'm going to leave it there and get back to revising!

Nearly there

My desk! All this paperwork makes it feel like a real flight deck...

Well, with Meteorology finished I have just started Air Law. This is a subject where it is just a case of learning everything, even though the syllabus is constantly changing. I am going to be doing this topic for the rest of this week before moving onto Communications next week... and then it is the mocks (yes, already!). Although a very scary thought I think that they will be good to give me a rough idea of just where I am and where my strengths/weaknesses are, so I can scratch up on certain subjects before the actual exams in the beginning of May.

CP104 started their Mod 1 exams today and it is very scary to think that we are the next to spend a week slaving over "A, B, C and D". After the mocks what happens is we have between 1 1/2 to 2 weeks to revise like crazy to make sure we are totally ready for whatever the CAA throw at us. During this time the instructors are fantastic, in that should we need any extra help on something, they are more than willing to give us the support we need to get the best pass possible.

Some of the best tools of the trade

I had hoped by now to have been to Bournemouth on a CBT day in order to shadow a cadet doing their IR (instrument rating), although I'm pretty sure I'll wait now until the Mod 1 exams are over and go towards the beginning of Mod 2, when I won't feel as guilty about going! It was mentioned by Nic (one of the ground school instructors) that it is possible to backseat in the full motion sims in the evenings whilst some cadets are doing their AQC (Airline Qualification Course), so I might try to do this at some point in the next couple of weeks. Expect more updates soon!

The motivation. 

Halfway through Module 1

Well here I am, three subjects down, four to go in my first set of exams. The workload is still mad and I am amazed at how much I have learnt in the past month and a bit (and also how much you learn from playing too much FSX and watching far too many episodes of Air Crash Investigation). So far I have done Aircraft General Knowledge, Principles of Flight, Instruments and am a few days into Meteorology. My life revolves around question bank and reading - feels like I have had to do it forever!

See... the middle of nowhere (aka 'home')

We are no longer the newest CP - CP106 began their training last Monday and we are struggling to believe just how long ago it was that we actually started. There is a great atmosphere here in Ashurst (or as some have lovingly named it, 'Harry Potter's Forest', seeing as we live in the middle of nowhere), and we are still having fun. I am still struggling to make the whole experience feel real, although I am sure it will settle in the week of our mock exams! We are hopefully in for another sim ride soon, so there'll possibly be another update in the next few weeks with lots more pictures of us playing the oversized video game. Until next time!

Day 2 of ground school

The sim hall, with the full motion B737 800 sim in action

Having finished my second day of ground school, I thought it might be good to do a quick post about the work so far. The quantity of it is very high and we are expected to continue working when we are back home in order to keep up with the course. So far we have been doing Aircraft General Knowledge (AGK), which is one of the larger topics; airframes, fatigue, hydraulics, landing gear, and braking are just some of the things we have covered so far. We have another day of AGK this week, with Thursday being a CBT (Classroom Based Training) day at home before we move on to Principles of Flight on Friday.

We found out today that there have been sim sessions booked for us in a couple of weeks for 'learning' (playing!), which is fantastic motivation and a great reminder as to why we are here.

Although the workload is quite high, I think I am managing okay so far and am really surprised at how much I have learnt about aircraft in just a matter of days;  I'm extremely excited to see just how much I will know in a few month's time!