Light at the end of the tunnel...

Seems to be becoming a bit of a common refrain for me, but it's been a busy couple of weeks...

Test Ones are over! Even though the tests themselves are purely for our own benefit as a progress check, pre-exam nerves made a fair old appearance. In the end though, the tests went well and now we're back in to teaching mode again. The other aspect to this is that Monday coming is the start of teaching week 7 of 12, so we've broken the back of the phase 1 teaching as well. Some subjects it seems like we've still got three quarters of the book to do but the instructors know their stuff and from what the other students tell us, it'll all be covered before we know it...

This evening we're going for a whole course pub trip to celebrate the passing of the first hurdle and then tomorrow I'm off to Heathrow for the Flyer Show/Professional Flight Training Exhibition. For anyone who's interested in coming into this profession the exhibition is a must see as it's a chance to talk to the airlines, the pilots, the schools and the students. If you're interested in going, the link for the website is http://exhibitions.flyer.co.uk/

How time flies...

It's been a busy couple of weeks. Work continues apace and now the prospect of test ones looms large ahead of us. It's great to see how much of the course content is now under our belt and how the various concepts are starting to tie together, especially in met. It does also mean that even though these are purely internal tests, pre-exam nerves are starting to make an appearance in the class...

That said, it's not been entirely serious since last I posted. Last Thursday the school put on Happy Hour from half four until half five, apparently a monthly tradition to mark the day before the new course starts. Being our first happy hour we (almost inevitably and in accordance with our instructors' quasi-orders) crammed in as many beers as we could drink in an hour. Not feeling that we'd done the occasion justice we then scrubbed work for the evening, had dinner (and more beer) in the pub and then wandered back up the hill to our accommodation where we watched Top Gun. No cliches about students/pilots here at all then...

The final point for this evening then I suppose is that the aforementioned new course has now started, so we're no longer the babies of the school. Just hammers home how far along we now are...

Learning from experience...

Experience is a wonderful thing. Unfortunately we don't have any, so we have to learn from the experiences of others.

By far the most commonly mentioned example for us to learn from is the tragic fate of Air France flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean with the loss of all aboard. This is used as an example in most of our lectures as aspects of meteorology, aerodynamics, instrumentation, systems, human factors and crew resource management all factored into the eventual outcome. Further information and the final crash report can be found at the links below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AF_447
http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flight.af.447/rapport.final.en.php

In a more subject specific example of learning from others' experiences, stories from flying training were used in the recent Principles of Flight lectures on ground effect. This is where the wing becomes more 'efficient' once close to the ground, leading in broad terms to greater lift generation and less drag. Our lecturer's first anecdote was from his days as an E-3D AWACS pilot for the RAF; while being taught how to land his instructor left the power on as he flared (lifted the nose) for landing and the aircraft, instead of losing speed and sinking as might be expected, maintained height and speed and happily flew along the runway about 10ft up until a go around was initiated.

The second anecdote was about the issues associated with ground effect when taking off. A friend of his in basic flying training was going solo in a Jet Provost trainer that was heavier than usual, using a shorter runway than usual. When he saw that he wasn't going to take off successfully he rotated early in the hope of clawing his way into the air. The aircraft lifted in the ground effect at a speed well below the climb speed; the result was that when it left ground effect the drag increased and the lift reduced, so the aircraft slowed, stalled and crashed back into the ground. Just before impact the pilot ejected and had the story ended there, we might all just have taken it as an example of what can happen. The instructor's next words, however, really brought home the fact that flying, while much safer statistically than for example driving, is unforgiving of even relatively minor mistakes. The end result of the incident was "As he descended under his parachute he went through a wall and was stabbed to death as his knees went through his chest."

Stunned silence descended on the classroom. We've all had emphasised to us the Swiss cheese safety model, where holes in layers are blocked by other layers unless all the holes line up and an accident occurs, but for me certainly this really rammed home the first rule of aviation safety: check, check and then check again that everything is in order because if you don't, at some point you'll pay for it.

The end of week two...

...or more correctly, the beginning of week three.

With two full weeks done, whatever easing in we experienced is certainly over. The workload now is, we're informed, as hefty as it will ever get during ground school and we're all aware that we're almost half way to our Test Ones, the first real progress tests of the course.

Most of us took the opportunity to do a lot of work in the couple of days prior to the weekend and thereby give ourselves a bit of down time to relax at the weekend, but the timetable for this weekend is looking intense so relaxation time in the next few days will be at a premium. There is also a bout of 'fresher's flu' going around the class as well, not that we have the time to be ill; as we must by law attend 750 of our 751 scheduled hours of lessons there is no opportunity to lose a day to the sniffles.

That said, don't let me make you think that I'm not enjoying the experience. Now that the groundwork has been laid in all the subjects we're getting to the more detailed, more useful information that will be relevant when we're doing the job in the real world so hard as it may be becoming, it's all worth it.

Meeting the Neighbours...

This evening I went for a walk with my flat mate; having reached the middles of chapters in our lectures today there weren't as many questions to do as there have been of late, so we decided to explore the local area. Our destination was the village of Steeple Aston, the location of both a very nice, very reasonably priced pub and the nearest Sunday-service public transport.

The walk down through the village of Upper Heyford was accomplished in short order, then we left the previously beaten path and shortly encountered some locals in the form of cows! Giving them as wide a berth as we could we carried on until the railway, then turned back in order to avoid passing through the cow field in the dark. Even the five minutes between crossing and recrossing the canal made a huge difference, in two ways. Firstly, waist deep mist sprung up all across the valley. Secondly, the cows repositioned to just the other side of the bridge, cutting us off from Upper Heyford and leading to an odd standoff between us, who wanted to get back to the accommodation (via the pub, of course) and them, who seemed inordinately interested in licking us...

After a tense ten minutes - and the somewhat huffy rejection by one of the cows of the amorous advances of the bull - they got bored of trying to lick us and wandered away. We gave them a few minutes to get away and then beat a hasty retreat in the other direction, stopping for a quick pint at the local before beating it back up to the accommodation. It's definitely a lovely weekend walk but perhaps not really feasible as a means of getting to and from the bus, being at least an hour each way when not lumbered with flight bags and/or shopping.

 

My flatmate (right), some locals and our bovine captors

The settling mist

More mist

One down, twenty-five to go...

As the title says, one week down and twenty-five to go. Or at least, the teaching element is over for this week; there is still the personal reinforcement/revision to do over this evening and the weekend.

This week has been brilliant. Set aside the massive feel good factor of the fact that I'm on the road to my dream and this week has still been brilliant. Being not long out of uni I'm more au fait with classroom based learning than some on my course, but we've all been helping each other. Individual study in the evening usually turns into tea/coffee (and occasionally beer) and biscuits powered group study where we give it large bouncing questions off one another and having a good old laugh.

On the subject of laughs, lectures continue apace and with no sign of a let up in the number of anecdotes, wisecracks and jokes. Having sat through countless dry hours of death by powerpoint (not lovin' it) I cannot describe how much more conducive this environment is to rapid learning of a lot of material - this also applies to the previously mentioned group sessions in the evenings.

For those thinking of treading this path, or who are just interested, the subjects covered are:

Phase 1
Airframes and Structures
Electronics
Powerplant
Instrumentation
Human Performance and Limitation
Meteorology
Principles of Flight

Phase 2
Flight Performance
Flight Planning and Monitoring
General Navigation
Radio Navigation
Operational Procedures
Communications
Air Law (Air Bore, as it's known)

Phase one covers the period from the start of the course through progress test 1 (in week six) and on to school finals in December and JAA/EASA ATPL exams in the new year. Phase two starts after two weeks of post exam leave and goes through progress test 2 after four weeks and on to school finals and JAA/EASA ATPL exams at the beginning of April (right over my 22nd birthday..!). Then a short spot of leave and on to America for basic flying training. The phase one modules are generally the groundwork theory that will allow us to take apart any system on the aeroplane, fix it and then fix any passengers broken in the process (HP&L). Phase two is the practical side of things (except air bore, kept there so we don't get too ahead of ourselves) and readies us for the practical training in America, of which more as time goes on. You may also have noticed that phase two is rather shorter than phase one; there's just as much to learn, they just reckon you're fully spooled up into learning mode by then. (Sorry, had to get in an aircraft based play on words somewhere...)

And on that note, it's time to sign off for this update. I'll try to update about once a week, probably at the end of the week at about this time. Lovin' it!

p.s. If you're interested in the experience at other flying schools, may I recommend the blog of a friend of mine who started at CTC about three weeks before I started at Oxford: Chris Burrows CTC Wings Blog
p.p.s. For those who aren't fully conversant with the wonderful world of acronyms...

ATPL - Air Transport Pilot's License
EASA - European Aviation Safety Agency
JAA - Joint Aviation Authorities

Day 1!

So after all these months of anticipation and the form filling of Friday, today we had our first real taste of what the next few months will be like. After introductory sessions with the head of ground training and our course mentor we knuckled down to it...

Not really.

The first lessons, this being an ab initio course, are simply covering the basics to ensure that we're all singing from the same hymn sheet; it also gives people who have been out of classroom based education for a while the chance dust off the rust patches. The instructors so far have been a right laugh - no boring droning lessons for us it seems, more an endless stream of anecdotes and irreverent humour with some information thrown in on the side.

So there we go, just a quick update on the progression of things after day 1.

Accomodation. Otherwise known as the living part of living the dream...

If I said to you to imagine an airline pilot's home, what would you come up with? A positively palatial building perhaps with bedrooms galore and every possible amenity? A nice country cottage in the Cotswolds? Or perhaps a modern flat in the centre of the city?

Quite probably all appropriate, but for those of us who are still on our way the lodgings are rather less grandiose. As mentioned, I'm now living in the OAA halls at Upper Heyford, about 11 miles from the airport and quite simply in the middle of nowhere. Military buffs among you may have twigged the name already and you'd be right; Upper Heyford is of course the long decommissioned RAF Upper Heyford, used by the United States for nuclear bombers during the Cold War but largely abandoned since it was closed in 1994. On site are the OAA halls, some light industry and a village that's popped up in some of the old quarters; other than that most buildings are boarded up with the result that when driving up from the main gate last night in the pouring rain one of the others commented that we'd better "get into our rooms quickly before the green-glowing zombies appear!"

The halls themselves are in the drably named Building 41, an ex transit block that now houses approximately 60 students in two bedroom flats. The flats are rather basic but they come with an adequate kitchen (although without a freezer), two decently sized and equipped bedrooms and a newly refurbished bathroom  (I believe the plan is that after next being vacated each flat will be similarly refurbished before any more students move in). On the subject of the bedroom we've all currently got a single bed, a desk, a chair or two and a built in wardrobe. We've also been assured that over the next six weeks we'll find upon returning at the end of the day that the furniture fairies have visited and have gifted us with a bed side table, a chest of drawers and a book case.

We've also been informed that the internet will imminently be upgraded with a cable the size of an oil pipe; possibly an exaggeration but certainly needed. The current wifi arrangement is taxed but the computer based training which makes up a significant proportion of the training; Skype apparently will do it in entirely so we were warned off using it by more experienced students on our first day here. The wifi routers are also interestingly located due to the fact that the wall sockets are up by the ceiling, so the routers tend to hang somewhat precariously on their cables...

 
That said, don't let any of this phase you. The flats are perfectly fine for living in and anyway, from what we hear we won't have time after the first weekend to notice the little foibles. Our splendid isolation also has an advantage; there are very few distractions. It also means that everyone talks to everyone else and indeed the more 'senior' students have gone out of their way to brief us on what we've let ourselves in for and to offer us help and advice for when we need it.

So there we go, the low down on the accommodation at Upper Heyford. I should also point out that a car, while useful, isn't essential for living here. There is a free shuttle bus service that runs to the school and back every hour and Sainsburys will deliver for a couple of quid; both it and Tesco can be found about 5 miles away in Bicester.

I shall now sign off as, like three of the other five on the course, I'm heading off home and will return on Sunday evening. Ciao!

Day 0, D-Day, the day it all begins...!

So, today I started at the CAE Oxford Aviation Academy on the British Airways Future Pilot Programme. This is the start of a dream which has developed over the course of many a year to the point where I'm now able to make it a reality...

Rewind almost 11 months to the start of November 2012. This is where the programme really began when the 'Apply Now' link on the FPP website appeared after weeks of daily checking, opening the door to the long process which would hopefully lead to a seat at the pointy end of an Airbus. There followed essay questions, computer based aptitude tests, interviews, group tasks and much more besides, first at one's flying school (to use the parlance, Flight Training Organisation or FTO, of which BA uses three) and then at BA's somewhat imposing recruitment centre at Waterside, near Heathrow.

Having received the good news I then embarked on the second phase of preparation; that of organising finance, medicals and insurance. Predictably the numbers are eye-watering but therein lies the advantage of the BA scheme; you have to stump up the money for the training but they'll pay you it back afterwards. The first requirement was a Class 1 medical courtesy of the CAA at Gatwick - the medical allowed me to get the insurance that allowed me to finalise the loan that's now allowing me to do the course...

Fast forward to Wednesday September 11th 2013. So that our families and supporters would find out first hand what we're going to be doing over the next weeks, months and years (and indeed what we've already done) BA invited us to an FPP Families Day at the Flight Training Centre at Cranebank. There were the six of us starting at Oxford Aviation this month and six more who start next month at CTC in Southampton. The hours flew by (sorry, had to get that pun in somewhere) as the families got a go on the 747-400 sim and we all got a taste of evacuation training, including a couple of goes down the slides. Throughout the day there were, of course, many opportunities to ask questions and almost every conceivable member of staff was there to answer them, including almost an hour of access to the head of flight operations. To make sure the day ended on the highest possible note we got goody bags containing, among other things, many a free pen...

And so we come back to the start of this post. Day zero, Friday the 13th of September 2013, the day where we got our uniforms and filled in forms and got our books and had it hammered into us that we have a fair old job of work to do from Day 1 on Monday. So on that note, I'll end this very long post by saying that this is likely the longest post I'll ever write; from what we've been hearing from more advanced students time to breather soon becomes a luxury, let alone time to write a blog...!