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....
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Saturday, November 04, 2006
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...
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...
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