Revision, Exams, and Return to NZ

Well, it's been a little while since updating the blog, but I'm afraid I have no apologies to offer. It has been rather busy time what with the visit back to the UK for the exams. I left NZ on the 5 April, having fallen 12 flights short of completing the Single Engine Phase. Nor was it a real surprise. Having lost 6 weeks at the beginning of the course with the Katana grounding, we never looked like getting properly back on track before coming home.

It was great to land at LHR after 7 months away. Luckily the jet lag didn't bite too hard at all, and the week off was spent catching up with all the people I hadn't seen for so long. Charlie was away on Adventurous Training with the RAF and returned just in time for us to join Tony at his grad party at Sandhurst. A great night was had by all, although the heads were a little sore the next day...

The two weeks following that were spent at Bristol Groundschool in Cheddar, doing the revision/brush up course for the first 8 ATPL exams. It was a very intensive 2 weeks, starting work at 9am and most days working until 10pm, with short times off for meal breaks. However, the course was very good and gave me confidence going into the exams the week after.

The exams were held at Shuttleworth College in Bedfordshire, and this tied in very nicely with Charlie's placement at Henlow, meaning that I got to live in the Mess once more. As for the exams, they all seemed to go fairly well, with the last one on the Thursday afternoon. We had an awesome weekend at Charlie's parents to celebrate their 25th Wedding Anniversary after the exam week.

Unfortunately, thoughts then had to turn to the return to NZ for the final 3.5 months stint. The time a home had flown by far too quickly and saying goodbye to everyone, particularly Charlie, was the hardest thing of all. Suffice to say there were a few leaky eyes.

We've now been back in NZ for a week. Flying is still going slowly, with the final 10 flights seemingly taking ages to push out before we can get onto the twin engine part of the course. On a brighter note, I received my exam results 2 days ago. Managed to get over 90% in all the exams, and a 97% average overall. Not to bad I suppose, better not slip up in the next lot of exams then to try and preserve the average....