Type rating groundschool and intermediate phase

Almost exactly a year ago we all agreed that the ATPL groundschool was hideous and that we all hoped we would never have to go through it again. One year on there we were cramming away, spending our evenings with our heads buried in the four thousand page Flight Crew Operating Manual (FCOM). Fortunately this period of study only lasted three weeks and, although a chore, was quite interesting. Having spent the last couple of months in the A320 simulator it was nice to finally get some technical knowledge behind the buttons we were pushing to get the Airbus to do its wizardry. It is a remarkable aeroplane that's capability is incredible considering it was designed and built in the 1980's. Anyway, back to the groundschool. The course took us through all of the major systems and many of the minor ones giving us a very comprehensive overview of the aircraft. In this short space of time it is very difficult to learn everything there is to know about the Airbus and to consider how many of the systems interlink and talk to each other. After all, the airbus is essentially one hugely expensive collection of computers.

The intermediate phase consists of 13 lessons including one competency check. The idea of this phase is to introduce us to management of the automatics and an introduction to various failures before starting our type rating in January. So far we have looked at hydraulic failures, engine failures and flight management computer failures. The basis to all of this has been ECAM (Electronic Centralised Aircraft Monitoring) handling. The ECAM comprises of two screens in the centre of the flight deck that provide information on all of the major systems and help the pilots to monitor status of the aircraft. It also has the benefit of telling what has gone wrong and how to deal with it in the event of a failure. I feel that this intermediate phase really puts us at an advantage for the type rating as we are already quite comfortable with the aircraft, freeing up capacity for us to tackle any abnormalities that the instuctors want to challenge us with. Plus it gives us a chance to build on our newly founded technical knowledge and see some of the practicalities of the various systems we learned about three weeks ago.

Upper and Lower ECAM screens with the engines shut down and the doors page on the lower screen

With just under a week now until Christmas all that is left is for me to wish you all a Happy Christmas. I hope you enjoy the festive period.

LOFT and a trip to easyJet HQ

I realise that it has been a while since I last wrote about the training, but in all honesty there hasn't been a vast amount to say. So here is what has happened in the last 6 weeks;

LOFT (Line Orientated Flight Training)

LOFT was a really good chance for us to use the simulator to fly some actual routes and carry out a flight in real time from A to B. The experience was invaluable as we got to put all of the SOP's into practice and get a feel for where and when things happen during a standard flight. These simulator sessions also meant that the instructors had to think up some abnormal/emergency scenarios for us to deal with. However, the Airbus as automated as it is, normally knows what's wrong and how to deal with it, so it makes our life as pilots a little bit more simple.

Following the conclusion of the LOFT there was another UPART sim session followed by a competency check flight. Having been judged to be competent it was time to enjoy three weeks holiday and a chance to catch up with family and friends and enjoy some much needed rest and relaxation.

Visit to easyJet HQ at Luton

As part of the MPL course it was decided that the cadets should get to visit the airline and get the opportunity to learn about how the company runs itself. So last week we all went to Luton for a two day commercial awareness visit. Fortunately there was an A319 that happened to be free to look around, with customary flight deck and engine photos (we all looked like kids in a candy store.) Also on day one we got to see the operation control centre, the nerve centre of easyJet which was a lot smaller than I was expecting, and the crew room. It was really good to get a better feel for what day to day life at the airline is like.

easyJet dominating the apron at Luton

Stand 9 from the flight deck

The new EFB (electronic flight bag)

G-EZDB

Day two was much more focused on the financial and planning aspects of the organisation. This was fascinating and gave us wider picture of all the things easyJet do to make money and compete in such a demanding industry. As there is also an MPL course training at CAE Oxford, they also were at Luton. Talking to them about the differences between the two courses was interesting and provided an opportunity to get to know some of the other people that will be joining easyJet in the coming months.


Now the holiday is over I will have to get back into the studying spirit. It should be OK as the Luton trip put the end into perspective and our sights. The next phase of training consists of type rating ground school, which should appeal to my geeky engineering interests, and the start of flying with the automatic bells and whistles of the Airbus.

How to fly an Airbus upside down

We havn't specifically been taught to do this, but the last few sessions have been about Upset Recovery. This is all based around recovering the aircraft from undesirable attitudes and states if you happen to find yourself in one. As a bit of fun in a very "don't-try-this-at-home" moment our instructor gave us a go a trying to roll the airbus upside down.

Flying the Airbus upside down

The three UPART (Upset and Recovery Training) sessions were carried out in both Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 simulators. They also gave us our first experience of full motion. The motion is great as it does just enough to give the feel of an actual airplane. It is by no means perfect, but it is rather good. The UPART training however was great fun, consisting of lots of unusual attitudes to recover from and really just an excuse to throw the aircraft about the sky.

Boeing 737-800W cockpit

Now as I have experience both Boeing and Airbus I feel slightly more qualified to compare the two. The 737 is a nice aircraft to fly. It handles well and is quite nice and smooth on the controls. It flies just like any other airplane, just has all the qualities of a jet (to be expected). However, having been treated to the Airbus and it's fancy wizardry, it is hard to want to fly anything else. It feels more ergonomic, spacious and the auto-trim in normal simply makes us lazy. A few of us have come to the conclusion that the Boeing is a nice aircraft, but as an office and a place of work the Airbus is superior. Sorry Boeing fans!

Since then we have starting the non-normal and emergency procedures training. This has involved engine failures, Rejected take-offs (RTO's) and simple ECAM (electronic centralised aircraft management) drills.Unsurprisingly the airbus makes it quite straightforward to deal with emergencies as the ECAM tells you what to do half the time. Plus when the engine fails, there isn't huge amount flight control correction you need to make. The passengers, at least, wouldn't know the difference in the cabin.

That's it for the time being, I'm going to enjoy my week off!

The Airbus

I apologise for the lack of updates in the last month. Scheduling is more like at an airline now with simulator sessions at any hour of the day, any day of the week. We are now about half way through what is called the "Basic Phase" consisting of twenty nine simulator sessions including some Upset Prevention and Recovery Training (UPART), some "conventional jet handling" in the Boeing 737 simulator and a lot of time in the Airbus A320 simulator.

One of easyJet's A320 family

The Airbus is a strange but loveable creature. Once you get used to the different way of flying (managing) this aircraft it's soon easy to fall in love with it. At first it all seems very complicated. The fly-by-wire system means that you don't control the flying surfaces but in fact control one of seven computers that interprets your input and translates that to an action applied to the control surfaces of the aircraft. Being a heavier and faster aircraft than we are used to, it takes some practice getting used to the massive amount of inertia that is now present. A certain amount of anticipation is required when doing anything with the airbus as it takes that much longer to do it. For example it takes about eight seconds to deliver full power once the thrust levers have been moved all of the way forward. However, once used to all of these differences, flying the Airbus becomes a delight and, in the words of our instructors, "makes you look like a flying god!"

The Airbus flight deck

As, on this MPL course, we do not do the traditional Instrument Rating (IR), we get to do the majority of our instrument training in the Airbus simulator. Consequently this means that we get a lot more time and hands on flying in the Airbus. Hopefully as with the intention of the MPL we will be completely used to the A320 and feel so much more prepared for life on line at easyJet. Five months cannot come soon enough so we can fly this sixty ton flying machine for real.

To the Channel Islands for Breakfast

The Twinstar (Diamond DA42) is possibly the nicest aircraft I have flown. It handles beautifully and is great to throw around the sky to have some fun in. It is also significantly quicker than the Cessna we were flying in New Zealand which means we can get a bit further afield in our lessons. For example yesterday in my last flight, I went down to Alderney for an RNAV (GPS) approach before flying back to Bournemouth. This two hour jaunt to this small Channel Island was all done in time for me to get back home for breakfast. It was stunning though flying through and between the clouds over the English Channel in the peaceful early morning air.

I also had a chance to back seat a course mates flight to Guernsey the other day. Back-seating is a really good opportunity to learn from the other person's lesson and pick up some tips that your instructor may not have mentioned, as well as a chance to take loads of photos. Here are a selection;

Leaving UK airspace and heading to Guernsey

The English Channel

Alderney

The view of Guernsey through the propeller blades

Busy at Guernsey Airport

The return leg over the Channel

This last month of training has been great fun. It has been a chance for us MPL cadets to learn something new and get some valuable experience of the UK, multi-engine flying and Upset Recovery in a no pressure environment. The emphasis of this phase really was experience and fun. The next phase should also be fun, but hard work. The waiting Airbus A320 simulators are certainly an exciting thought to all of us and we cannot wait to get a go in them. Unfortunately it does mean that until February we wont be doing anymore real flying, and the scariest thought is that the next time we take to the skies will be at the controls of the Airbus.

A very significant change in weather

The last time I was in the UK, it was cold and miserable. A fairly standard and predictable English winter you might say. New Zealand when we left was also rather damp and windy for the most part. Now I am back in the UK it is remarkably hot and sunny meaning cold beverages at the beach with my fellow course mates.

The journey home from New Zealand was hideously long and surprisingly refreshing. The flight with Emirates from Auckland to Dubai goes via Melbourne, and for the thirteen and a half hour leg from Melbourne to Dubai I had the three seats by the window to myself. For the first time ever I was able to sleep on an airplane which helped the flight go that much quicker. This was hindered however by a nine and a half hour layover in Dubai, but there we go.

Emirates Boeing 777 ready to take me home

Cumulonimbus cloud somewhere over Turkey

As good as the time in NZ was, it was great to get back home. I never really missed being away, but there are some things about the UK that make it unique. The pubs for one! It's also nice to have some sort of normality back. Life on the other side of the world felt strangely detached from reality, in our little bubble of clearways (CTC accommodation) and the training centre.

Now we have spent two weeks at CTC's training centre in Bournemouth and have completed the Upset Recovery training (UPART) section of the course. UPART consists of two flights in a DA40 and one flight in an aerobatic aircraft called a Bulldog. The idea is to do some advanced handling training and unusual attitude recovery training, so that if we find ourselves in a position we dont want to be in, we have a good chance of dealing with it safely. The bulldog flight also gave us a chance to something a little more fun, such as doing some inverted flying.

Now that UPART is over the next thing to do is multi-engine flying. Here in Bournemouth we will do 5 hours in the DA42. easyJet have said they want us to have some multi-engine general handling experience before starting in the A320 simulator, so that's what we are going to do. This is a really exciting stage of training as now we are all moving onto something completely new that none of us have experience of before, and there is mention of a trip to the Channel Islands which could be fun.

We now only have two weeks left in Bournemouth before we go back to Nursling for the 150 hours of Airbus training. But for now, it's sunny again so I'm going to go back to the beach.

First (and second) IFR flight

I would love to be able to show you some photos of my first IFR flight. Something along the lines of clear blue skies above, surfing a layer of white fluffy cloud below. Unfortunately I can't do that. My first IFR flight was mostly spent at six thousand feet in the cloud and rain of New Zealand's winter.

We had eight simulator sessions over the last two weeks. This helped us to avoid the wind and the rain that has plagued most other courses of late. These were a good chance for us to get to grips with the much more involved and procedural techniques of flying under IFR.

It's a strange sense of relief emerging from cloud with the runway straight ahead of you, on descent profile with the ground visible for the first time in two hours. The aircraft we are learning to fly in have some very sophisticated pieces of equipment to aid with navigation during flight and following it's direction by use of the instruments is quite a challenge, especially when you now have no visual reference to fly on. It is quite easy to become disorientated and it happens surprisingly fast. So that said you imagine the sense of satisfaction I also felt when presented with Hamilton's wet runway ahead of me.

In complete contrast, my second IFR flight was full of fantastic views and a very bizarre moment of seeing snow in July. As we (EZMP02) are now quite pushed for time in which to compete our lessons before we go home next week, we are doing multiple flights a day. This means that two cadets and an instructor take an aircraft for the day and get as many lessons done as possible. For the most part of today the sky was clear and smooth. However the trip back from Napier had us flying through and above cloud, awarding us some spectacular shots of an altitude where the temperature was -7 degrees C. It was pretty cold to say the least. Here are a selection of photos from today's jaunt about New Zealand.

Departing Napier

Climbing above the mountains between Napier and Taupo

Snow capped mountains of the North Island

The view flying through cloud

Breaking through the top of the cloud

A sunny afternoon after all

Lake Taupo

Afternoon sun between cloud layers

I can no longer see where I'm going

It has been a busy week here in New Zealand. I have had six events in as many days, passing my first professional flight test, completing the first three IFR simulator sessions and fulfilling the night flying requirements of the MPL course.

At the end of our VFR flying training we have something called a Competency Assurance (CA). This is effectively a flight test equivalent to the first progress test that the guys and girls on the wings course have. The CA encompasses most of what we have been taught to date, including navigation, circuits and emergency procedures. It also means that the next time I get a chance to fly solo will be when I get round to taking it up as a hobby again at some point in the future.

At first night flying felt quite uncomfortable. Not being able to see any definition in the ground and being unable to see any of the mountains that surround Hamilton make it quite nerve racking. Once I got over that initial unease the rest of the night flying I have done has been great. During the first flight the instructor took us off for a bit of navigation towards Auckland to give us a feel for navigation in the dark, with just the urban lights of towns and cities that look exactly the same. This also included a trip to the Sky Tower in Auckland for a couple of orbits around the Southern Hemisphere's tallest building, before transiting Auckland's controlled airspace between a landing 737 and a 777 on approach, it's very bright landing light making it look as if it was bearing down on us.

Sky Tower and Auckland City by night (thanks Dean for the photo)

It's very exciting to move onto the next bit of the training and to start learning something new. As enjoyable as the nav flights were, there were a lot of them and most of us were very much looking forward to moving on. One of the best things about this next phase is that we are now not so restrained by NZ's wintery weather.

In the first three sim sessions we have been looking at flying holding patterns using radio navigation aids. All of this has been done in IMC (Instrument Meteorological Conditions) so I have no visual reference to fly to and have to spend the entire time looking at the instruments. It's suprisingly disorientating flying with no visual cues as the human body is very easily tricked into thinking that it is in a different position to the one it really is. This makes flying in cloud very difficult and dangerous. The flying itself is surprisingly straight forward in IFR, but there is just so much more to consider and so much more mental arithmetic that makes it all the more challenging. I like a challenge so roll on the IFR flights we have coming up before we go home.

North Island from the air

The end of the VFR (visual flight rules) training is drawing to a close and hopefully by the end of the week we will all have completed, and passed, our first flight test. Yesterday was my last solo flight here at CTC and was given the aircraft for the day. This afforded me the time and resource to take an adventure to Napier and Gisborne with one of the other cadets on his qualifying cross country flight.

The last two weeks have been very busy cramming two flights and four hours of flying into each day, most days. It has been very tiring, challenging and very rewarding not just in terms of progress but some of the views and sights I have been able to see. I have been able to see the majority of the North Island from the air, and land at most of the major airports too. I have flown over and between active volcanoes, islands, vineyards, mountains, water, searched for wild donkeys, seen the sunset from the air, flown over and around cloud and enjoyed every minute of it.

As with the last post, I won't bore you telling you what I've done, so here is a selection of photos from my adventures around New Zealand's North Island.

Hauraki Gulf near Auckland

Auckland from the air

Hamilton City

Coromandel Peninsula as the sun starts to set

Taking off from Rotorua

Rotorua town and lake

Raglan it's harbour

Cloud spewing from the volcanoes

Nt Ngaruahoe (Mt Doom) poking out from the cloud

Afternoon sun over Waikato

Looking across to the Coromandel Peninsula

Waiheke Island in the Hauraki Gulf

Waiheke Harbour

The only island in NZ to have wild donkeys

Departing Whangarei

Whangarei Bay

The east coast of Northland

Waiheke, on the way back from Whangarei

Lake Ohakuri

Taupo and it's lake

Approaching Napier

Sharing the apron with Air New Zealand

Dan and I waiting for the Dash 8 to vacate the runway

Departing Napier

Flying along the east coast to Gisborne

A blanket of cloud covering most of my route home (so I went around and above it)

About to land at Hamilton