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.