First Solo and Beyond...

My 1st ever solo happened some 9 years ago, when I did my Gliding Scholarship with 625 Volunteer Gliding Squadron at Hullavington, nr Chippenham, which for those who don't know is halfway between London and the land of Scrumpy. Back then it was an amazing experience, but also a little scary.

Last week, I did another first solo - this time in a powered aircraft. My primary instructor is still relatively new, and is not allowed to send first solos just yet, so I was programmed in to fly with the Deputy Chief Instructor out here in NZ. We went off to the east of Hamilton to practice some stall recoveries first, as I was out of currency for them. After having completed these exercises, we diverted to a small grass airfield called Matamata, where I demonstrated various circuits including one simulating flap failure, and one with power off.

We landed off of the third circuit and the checking instructor informed me that he would be jumping out and sending me off on my own to fly a single circuit to land, pick him up, and then head back to Hamilton. The lifting off the runway with just myself on board was certainly a good moment, made even more special in some ways that it was being done from a small grass strip airfield in the middle of nowhere. Very Kiwi...

The days after this were spent doing a couple more dual-solo flights. Basically, you do the first half of the flight with an instructor, they then jump out and you do the other half solo. These were also a lot of fun, bashing out circuit after circuit at Hamilton, trying to make them all as accurate as possible.

Then on Sunday came my first solo without any check before. The hour spent in the aircraft that day was about as much fun as I can ever remember having in the sky. Particularly as there were two of my course mates solo in the circuit at the same time. By next week, hopefully I should be cleared solo out of the circuit, meaning I'll be allowed to go out into the training area by myself. Should be good fun, can't wait....

Airborne again...

Some of you will have noticed that the supply of wit (or at least half of it) coming from the other side of the world had dried up over the last month and a bit. It's not that I've been ignoring anyone, or indeed that I've been too busy to write. In fact the opposite has been quite true.

Unfortunately the DA20 Katana aircraft that I'm training on had a problem with its fuel system, and the management of CTC NZ took the only decision available to them, which was to ground the fleet whilst the problem was investigated. This gave all of us training on the aircraft a period of time with just the PPL Exams to do. So as you can guess it's been a little quiet.

However, the fuel system problem has now been completely fixed and both the CTC Staff and Trainees are working hard and making back the lost time - last week was a fairly busy time for me...

Firstly, now we've finished the PPL Exams, it's time to move onto the main event as far as studying goes - the ATPL Exams. ATPL stands for Airline Transport Pilots Licence and it's the bit of paper one needs to get the seat with the best view in an airliner. The exams cover 14 different subject relating to aviation, and as you would expect go into considerably more depth than the PPL exams - I'll be taking the first set of 7 exams when I come back to the UK in April next year. The study is done through Bristol Groundschool distance learning. Most of it is done using Computer Based Training, with the subjects automatically split up into weekly bitesized chunks, making it easier to learn. This week we made a start with Gen Nav and Human Factors - might not mean much to most people, but say 'Gen Nav' to airline pilots and I suspect the conversation would end at that point...



Secondly, I've been back in the air and doing my best to make up for lost time - got 4 flights done this week. My instructor decided that because of my previous flying, we could skip some of the lessons, and so I'm now on circuits. Hoping that by the middle of next week I'll be doing my first powered solo. Enjoying doing the glide circuits as well, it's almost like I've done them before...

Groundschool-tastic!

Now this may sound a little bit strange to non-flying types, but learning how to fly doesn't just involve learning how to fly. The fun bits in the air, with sky under the bum, come at a price. This price is known as groundschool, and involves spending hours in the classroom learning about theory.

Which is what we've been up to this past week - Groundschool preparation for the 6 PPL Exams that we're taking over our first 6 weeks down here in Hamilton. Last week was the Radio Telephony multi-guess exam for which I got 96%. Luckily, my time in the RAF has prepared me for this 'academia' and it hasn't been as much of a culture shock for me as it has for some of my colleagues with little or no flying experience. This week just past was the meteorology week, and we sat the exam this morning.

Now luckily having done a degree in Geography, with some modules in Climatology/Meteorology, as well as previous flying, it has been more of a revision for me than a 'learn from scratch' job. Which meant that the 1hr10min exam this morning was completed in 15 minutes. Not sure if it'll be 100% but hopefully somewhere in the 90s.

Next week is Air Law, this one might be a little trickier, due to some differences between the UK and New Zealand. Better hit those books...

First Lesson

One week after starting at the Crew Training Centre in Hamilton, today was the big day. I would finally get the chance to get my hands on the Diamond DA-20 Katana that is to become my new office over the next 7 months. The first week had consisted of a number of groundschool lectures and general familiarisation with the Hamilton Airport and CTC operating procedures. The weather wasn't very kind either causing a number of flights to be cancelled. It's strange coming from a place where you would go flying in pretty poor weather a lot of the time to one where you need at least 16kms visibility. But this is a VFR (Visual Flight Rules) course at the moment, so it kind of makes sense to be able to see where you're going....

So, at 0914 NZST on the 19th September 2006, the flying training began with Katana SFB lauching into the skies for the first lesson in the syllabus - Effects of Controls. The weather was pretty reasonable with just a few showers dotted around and good visibility, perfect weather for learning the foundation skills essential to accurate powered flying. Learning to taxi was initially pretty amusing, trying to get used to the differential braking system used for steering. By the end of the lesson though, my instructor was grimacing less than at the start, so there must have been some sort of improvement in the driving...

Luckily much of the airborne lesson is similar to the instructing I've been doing at Kenley in gliders, and this gave the opportunity to relax a bit more and just enjoy being in the air again after what has been a bit of a break. If the weather holds out, tomorrow is lesson 2; Straight and Level 1. Oh, and more taxiing practice....

Arrival Down Under!

No matter which way you look at it, 24 hours is a long time to be continuously travelling. Singapore Flight 321 left London Heathrow at 22:15 on Wednesday 6th September and arrived in Auckland at 10:30, 2 days later. Obviously, 11 hours of that time is taken up by the time difference. Notwithstanding that fact it is still a long time to be sitting on your elbows, on an aircraft.

Luckily, Singapore Airlines is one of the best in the world, so the journey was actually pretty comfortable. Good food, good movies, and the first time that I've ever slept continously for 7 hrs on a flight. The LHR to SIN sector took 12.30 hrs and the onward flight 3hrs later bound for AKL took a further 9.

We arrived to a crisp Spring morning at Auckland, and after having our bags X-Rayed on the way out of the airport for contraband biological items, we were in the minibus for the 100km journey south to Hamilton. Apparently you're not even allowed to bring bottled water into New Zealand. Seems a bit strange to me, as I could have drunk that water on the plane containing whatever bugs it did, and then a few hours later sent it down the 'dunnie' into New Zealand's sewer system to wreak havoc on some poor unsuspecting Kiwi fruit, or whatever....

We arrived in Hamilton to a bit of a surprise, the brand spanking new accommodation for us near the airport was not quite ready yet and we would have to spend a week in some student accommodation in Hamilton town itself. A bed was a bed after the journey time, and the weekend was spent getting over the jetlag.... Or at least starting to. Waking up at 4am without an alarm clock is a somewhat bemusing experience...

So why did I do it?

What would make someone want to jump out the back of the Hawk, having done 120 hrs buzzing round the countryside at 450mph 250ft above the ground, and train to be an airline pilot?

For some reading this diary, this will be the first you have known about it, and I'm sure that it will be a bit of a surprise. It has certainly been the reaction of most people I've told; so I thought maybe I should explain myself.

A career as an Airline Pilot was something I wanted to do from the age of about 12. Being in the Air Cadets gave me the flying bug, and I knew from then on that a career in aviation was for me, albeit I wasn't sure whether the military or civilian route was the best for me. Being on the Gliding Squadron, and having a taster for the RAF way of life was enough to convince me that I wanted to join and fly. I always knew that I could do military flying first and still have a second career in the airlines when I left the forces.

Having been not eligible to be selected as a pilot because of my eyesight, I accepted the offer to train as a Navigator. 3 years of training passed and I was approaching the end of the Hawk course after which I was due to go to the Tornado GR4 OCU at Lossiemouth. The airline pilot bug had never gone away though, and the desire to make the career change earlier than originally planned got stronger and stronger.


Eventually, I decided to make the jump and leave the RAF to embark on training to be an airline pilot. I applied to CTC Aviation's Wings Cadet Program, which offers very good prospects of a job at the end. The selection process was very rigourous, taking place over 4 stages, testing aptitude, maths, teamworking, motivation; the list goes on... Fortunately I was lucky enough to be in the 2-4% of applicants to get selected for the scheme.

The training takes place in New Zealand and Bournemouth, over 18 months. I leave for New Zealand in a week and a half. This blog is my story...