EMPLOYED!

Hello all!

So since my last blog post, I have been to interview workshops at OAA and had an assessment at Ryanair.

I applied to Ryanair directly through OAA as they are now owned by CAE, who deal with all of Ryanair's applications. I received an email exactly a week later, informing me that I had a date for assessment down at Stansted, which was set as12th September. This allowed me to prepare for the assessment over three weeks and using skills and techniques which I acquired at a 'careers day' that OAA offer to their integrated students, I feel I had prepared to the point of almost having a melt-down.

The careers day is a post graduate facility, which an integrated student at OAA can attend and have someone who is in the airline, either as a pilot or recruiter, who has been through the system with a few airlines, guide you on what the airlines are looking for in a cadet applicant. I found the presentation, all the booklets/handouts and group exercises given to us were spot on. Everything given to me on that day, I felt was of great benefit to guide my preparation for my Ryanair interview and it certainly helped me with my practice HR questions, some of which, I would never have even thought they would ask me.

I arrived at my assessment at Stansted at 9am and was first in the sim with another applicant. I flew first which involved flying a SID, basic handling, emergencies, procedural NDB, go around at MDA, engine failure on the go around into a circuit to land off a visual approach with both engines functional, all of which I felt went quite well. It was my turn then to be the pilot monitoring (PM) whereby I called my flight partners deviations, whether it be on altitude, speed, heading or configuration. Again, it was challenging, however it was everything that I had already done in the MCC/JOC phase on an earlier type (the B737-400 as opposed to the 737-800) and just flew how I had been taught previously!

I was then next into the interview which was extremely pleasant and light hearted, but involved serious HR questions and some tech questions on the 737 systems and engines. We shook hands, I thanked my assessor for his time and headed back up to Preston on the train, recalling and analysing my efforts from the day all the way home.

It has been an agonising wait over the past two weeks, but I am happy to say I got the call from Ryanair on Tuesday (25th September), informing me I had been successful on the assessment! I am due to start my type rating at East Midlands Training on the 19th November (day after my mum's Birthday and day after I passed my driving test in 2008 - just so you know) and then look to start flying passengers early in 2013!

The adventure and dream continues.....

Oxford Aviation Complete: Bring on the Airlines!

So my time at Oxford is now done, with everything signed off, licence in hand and an interview at an airline lined up already.

I'd just like to thank all the people I met along the way through the course, whether it be staff at Oxford, all of the students from various courses, flight partners (Dutchies and Finchy), the instructors and most importantly my family. I really couldn't have done it without all their support along the way both motivationally and financially and I hope to start repaying them in the not too distant future!

Thank you to everyone who has followed my blog from start to finish, everyone who has sent me questions enquiring about certain aspects I highlighted and the people who have recognised me at open days and mentioned the blog and how it's helped them with many questions they had involving getting onto the flight training route and how it's helped them make an educated choice.

I've had almost 10,000 hits over the last 18 months, which shows how popular the topic of flight training and in particular, how popular OAA is as an FTO. I've had hits in Japan, China, South America, Canada, USA, Afghanistan, Bahrain, most countries in Europe, Russia and loads of other weird and wonderful places in the world.

I will continue the blog over the next few months/years with updates of, what I can hopefully call, a successful aviation career.

Thanks for reading,

Sam

IR and 170A PASSED FIRST TIME!

Before you can sit and fly your Instrument Rating flight, you need to have already gained your Radio Telephony license and pass a mock exam named 170A (don't ask me why it's called this as I have no clue). I did the above, luckily both first time of asking which was a great relief! My 170A route was Oxford to Bristol Filton and back, which wasn't my greatest flight but I passed it nonetheless and took the examiner's advice on areas to patch up before my IR which was a great help.

On 13th June 2012, I had my Instrument Rating Test (IRT) which was Oxford - Cardiff (EGFF) - Oxford, a big flight and apparently the hardest test I will probably do in my whole career (so they say anyway)! I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous beforehand, however, I knew I was ready to take it as the training I received at Oxford was fantastic throughout the whole IR phase.

My route was a weird one, as nobody that I know of, had been to Cardiff on their IRT before, so there was no one to consult on handy hints or tips for the route. The flight to Cardiff was absolutely fine, the route down was nice and smooth and the controllers at the airport were fantastic and a great help. My call sign for the day was 'EXAM18' so in the control tower, they knew I was on my IRT, so knew to give me plenty of attention. My ILS procedure was the best I have ever done as was my engine failure after take off drill. Once you go around at the destination (EGFF) you then request a procedural IFR diversion back to Oxford (or wherever your diversion is, can often be Gloucester on Oxford routes). This was where my flight got a bit tricky. Cardiff handed me over to Filton radar as I was going to have to enter their airspace for my diversion. They then made me fly over their NDB (OF), circle and depart to the NW, which I found weird. I didn't have the frequency for the NDB on my planned route, so had to scramble and find it on my VFR chart. Once this was completed and I was on my way out to the NW Filton told me that they had lost their radar, so to 'free call' Brize Norton. This 'free call' is a call whereby you have to include all your details (callsign, type of aircraft, route, diversion, altitude, position, QNH etc...) which is a pain but it's all part of the job. I was identified by Brize Norton and received a traffic service (they can provide me with information about traffic in my vicinity over the radio). Route, ILS, general handling and everything up to now had been going great... then Brize informed me that they had had a major power failure, so free call Oxford. This really wasn't helping me out, but again all part of the job. I free called Oxford and got told there was a 20 minute delay, so orbit out to the NW of the field, just south of Morton on the Marsh. Finally, I was able to make my way into Oxford to enter the hold and shoot the NDB procedure (on one engine), do an asymmetric (one engined) go around, into the visual circuit and then land and give a big sigh of relief. Like most of the flight, this all went really well and once we had touched down, the examiner took control and told me that I had passed. I have never felt so much pressure and stress lift off me at any one moment as much as I did then, the best feeling in the world!

The IR was definitely a difficult phase and needed lots of study, extra practice in the elite sims at night and dedication. However, when you get the A5 sheet of paper with PASS in every section, all that seems like nothing and so, so worth it.

For anyone in the IR phase reading this, just stick at it each night as the rewards are tremendous.

Next stop for me and my flight partner Ash, is the MCC/JOC phase, more three letter abbreviations to explain (Multi Crew Co-operation and Jet Orientation Courses). These are not exams and tests thank goodness, but a certification to say you can safely and efficiently work as a team on the flight deck of an airliner, something the airlines themselves regard very highly. This means the work is nowhere near over yet at OAA, as this phase is just as important as the last. The report from the MCC/JOC phase outlining how you work in a multi crew environment is just as important as, it is this environment that hopefully I will be working in for the rest of my life and the airlines want their new recruits to be able to work with safety and efficiency in mind as it is these aspects that greatly affect the company's success.

I will update the blog once I have started on the 737 sims and keep you up to date with how things are progressing!

Sam

Hour Burning with Sari

Today we went on a flight up North with Sari's remaining hours that he had left over after passing his IR. We set off up inbetween Birmingham and East Midlands controlled airspace and arrived at Stafford. After a little bit of navigation we saw Sari's house and gave his family a few low passes in different configurations and at different speeds, which was a great deal of fun! You can see (excuse the shaky video) that they had made a huge banner which was sprawled out over the lawn, providing a message to us in the sky, which was a really nice touch.

Picture taken from my back garden in Banks, Southport.

Sari, very kindly, allowed me to head up North over Liverpool and up towards Southport, so I could go and wave the wings at my parents, who were in the back garden on lookout after I'd given them an ETA! We passed over my house and I could see them waving and jumping around as they saw us fly over and like at Sari's we were able to do a few laps before departing to the South, to begin our 180 mile leg back to Oxford.




I'd like to thank Sari for allowing me some of his flying time to spend going to make my parents very happy to see their son fly over our house. It was a fantastic day out and a great experience flying the Seneca without IFR screens for a change!

All in all, a pretty active and exciting Saturday afternoon...

Start of IR

So I am back in Oxford for the next stage of training which is called the 'Instrument Rating' phase. Since my last post (which was a while back!) we were awarded our gold bars and wings which was an amazing feeling and was worth all the hours of hard work to receive them.

I have since done 3 sorties in the sim and have completed two VFR and partial IFR familiarisation flights and the pace is starting to pick up with work load and complexity of the flying, however, it's all still loads of fun and it feels so much more real as we fly through the clouds on a really poor weather day and you're greeted with fantastic sunshine and a carpet of white clouds with the likes of BA, American, United, Delta, Emirates etc over the radios.
Certainly up there with the big boys, but they all started out somewhere too!


Congratulations to all my friends who have recently passed their IR exam and enjoy the 737!

Sam

I PASSED MY CPL!!

I know this is a slightly late write up, however I have been so busy it's unreal!

Well, I passed what I was out in Arizona to do, the first time of asking, which was to gain my commercial pilot's licence! So as you can imagine, I was absolutely over the moon about that. However, there hasn't been much time to celebrate as I arrived back on the Friday night and was in Oxford on the Sunday.

This week, my course have been on a First Officer Fundamentals (FOF) course, which includes modules on crew resource management, air accidents and how working as a team in a professional manner may have eliminated mistakes which led to certain accidents. This was all interesting, however the jet lag certainly hit halfway through this week! We have work for Bucks University to do tomorrow and then on Monday it's the England IR flying stage brief, which will cover every applicable change to how we will be flying and how the whole system works back here in the not so sunny UK (I'm certainly a weather snob now)!

Monday will also see the presentation of our gold epaulettes and wings pin, which to someone who has dreamed of this since they were very small like myself, will be one of the best days of my life so far.

Pictures will follow!

Speak soon

Sam

Flying the Seneca

So I have moved onto the Seneca and there is such a massive difference between it and the Warrior, except for the obvious...

It has so much power. It climbs, cruises and descends at a much higher speed and the rate at which you have to do everything is doubled, which can be stressful. I have had two flights in the aircraft and two flights in the simulator.

Here is a short video of my first takeoff and landing in a Seneca. I over boosted on the take off and didn't land on the centre line but it wasn't a bad first attempt...

Sam

PT4 and Seneca

PT4 is finally done and passed with a grade 3, which is a massive weight off my shoulders and I have done all the hours required on the fantastic PA28 Warrior. It will be missed, however I get to move onto the Seneca now, which has 200bhp on each wing and is turbocharged, so not a bad change at all!

The only problem is my instructor has been off ill unfortunately and so I am behind on my flights, so much so that I won't be going home with the rest of the course, which is disappointing, however, I'm out here to pass my CPL first time and as long as I do that, I don't care when I go home. I hope you get better soon Matt!

I will let you know how my first flights go on the new aircraft and will upload a few pictures once I eventually get to fly the thing!

Sam

P.S. I would also like to wish my Grampa a happy 80th Birthday and I can't wait to come over to Ballymena to see you both as soon as I can! If it wasn't for your influence when I was young I certainly wouldn't be in such an amazing position and training for such a fantastic career.

The pace is picking up! 100 Flight Hours Logged...

As the title of this post suggested, the flying is really at full throttle at the minute and it is extremely tiring. The holds seem to be going reasonably well, which is good seeing as I have my PT4 on Wednesday. I'm pretty nervous for this next PT as it is a big one and there is so much to do and think about, it would be very easy to make mistakes... but that isn't going to happen!

I officially logged my 100th flying hour today during my 2 hour invoice flight, which is a milestone entry into the logbook!

The rest of my week is as follows:

• Tuesday- 0700 Seneca Brief, 0730 AP76 for 2:00, 1100 PT paperwork, 1230 Invoice flight and 1515 PT4 Brief
• Wednesday - PT4
• Thursday - CPL Cross Country Qualifier (5 hour navigation flight with 2 land-aways)
• Friday- AP81 in the morning then Seneca flying in the afternoon

I will be flying on Saturday too, however the schedule hasn't been released yet. I am hoping to have my CPL either a week on Friday or Saturday after only 7 or 8 days flying the Seneca.

It really is amazing how fast the time has gone out here and each successful flight is one step closer to home!

Sam

PT3- Busy Busy Busy

Today I passed my PT3, with a grade 2.

Seeing as it is graded officially from 1-6 (1 being perfect and 6 being a re-take), I was very very pleased!
It didn't look good when my upper winds were forecasted as 25kt and the winds were gusting 20 when I was landing but there isn't time to delay my flights so I went for it.

It was a really good flight and the only thing that prevented me from getting a 1 is that, on one of my practiced engine failures, I was too high on final on the dirt strip I chose to make a forced landing on.

I have four flights flights over the next two days (26th & 27th Jan) which will then leave me with only 2 lessons before PT4 and then my CPL Cross Country Qualifier (a 5 hour flight with two land-aways) and then any invoice time (when lessons get cut short, the time gets banked and this banked time is known as invoice flights).

I aim to have my first flight on the Seneca next Wednesday (1st February) and cannot wait! First I have to focus on the holding procedures and PT4....


Sam

PT3, New Instructor and Holding Patterns

Good morning/afternoon/evening everybody!

I thought I would just give you a quick update on what has been going on over the past week or two.
Well I passed my PT2 with a score of 3, could have done better but, onwards and upwards and won't make the same mistakes again!
I have also said goodbye to Martha, my instructor, who has picked up some new students, who I am sure she will mould into fine young pilots very quickly indeed! She's taught me a lot and I am only thankful for everything she has done. My new instructor is awesome though, he's called Matt, drives an awesome looking Ford Mustang and has christened me 'TP'!

"You're Kettle right? From now on you'll be known as Teapot, is that ok TP?"
"I guess it's not the worst thing I have ever been called"

 I can tell I have been very lucky with the instructors I have been given as they both have excellent records with students in the past, so it's nice to know I, or at least my parents, are getting their monies worth. I'll have Matt now until the end of my Goodyear phase, which is proposed to finish in approximately 24 days and what a 24 days that is going to be! He will be taking me through the hold procedures, which I have already started and also through the twin engine phase of flying all the way up to me leaving here.

A hold procedure looks like this:

Needs Rotating 90 Degrees Clockwise to be Read From Top to Bottom

Here's my schedule for the remainder of my time out here:

I have 3 dual flights scheduled then PT3 on Saturday 21st January. I have already done 4 post PT3 flights, leaving only 7 duals to complete before my PT4. I also have to factor in my cross country qualifier which is 5 hours of navigation flying to Ryan and Chandler fields as well as any invoice time that I may have missed out on throughout the course of my single engine training. Once that is complete I will then move on to Seneca, the twin engine aircraft (as seen in the picture below). After 10 flights and 2 sim rides in it, it's CPL skills test time. Upon successful completion of the CPL skills test, I will be a professional pilot, get to fly back home and be awarded the two gold bar epaulettes and the all important wings. There is a lot to do in such a short space of time, but I prefer to be busy, as opposed to sitting around waiting to fly, watching awful American TV!

Take care and I'll speak soon

Sam

Happy New Year!

Hello all,

Well here goes, what I hope to be an even more successful year than the years passed. I had an amazing 2011 and 2012 is possibly one of the biggest years of my life, considering what I have proposed within it.
I have my Commercial Pilot Licence test in the next month or so, then I will have my Instrument Rating (IR) to finish off my training at Oxford, then it's interviews and hopefully a job offer at least before 2013, but let's not run before we can walk.

I hope you all had an amazing NYE, I certainly did, spending it with new friends who I have got to know really well out here in Goodyear. Had an absolutely awesome party on the campus which was a great success and was a fantastic way to see in the new year.

I also had an incredible time in Las Vegas over Christmas with my parents. I really cannot thank them enough for coming out here and making Christmas just unbelievably great, it certainly made a change from the normal Christmas back home, that's for sure!

I have been really, really busy flying and have flown 14 hours in the last 5 flying days, which has really taken it out of me. However, I have pretty much caught up with the guys who are furthest ahead with regards to lessons completed out here now which is motivating as every time I fly, not only is it amazing, but it's also a step closer to the twin engine (Seneca) aircraft lessons for my CPL, but also a step closer to going home. Don't get me wrong, Goodyear and my time out here has been the best time of my life so far, but I'm missing so many home comforts now, it's starting to get a little frustrating that I can't have them!

Anyway, I have 4 hours of flying to do tomorrow and I am up in 7.5 hours, so best get some sleep.

I hope the frequent followers continue to read and stay interested in where I am up to this year and I continue to invite people for feedback or questions regarding the course, no matter who you are or where you are, as there are too many questions to ask that are impossible to find on the internet. Many people message me from all around the world with questions and I enjoy helping them out!

Take care,

Sam