I have been home for over a week now, enjoying my free time, which in my opinion was well earned.
The JAA exams finished on the 7th April and went (without jinxing it) as well as I could have hoped, bar a few horrible questions.
I get my results on Thursday (21st April) and am excited and nervous to hear the result of weeks and weeks of tedious study and effort.
I will update this on Thursday once I have my results, whether they be good or unexpectedly bad!
Good luck to all of AP321, I'm sure we've smashed it
Speak soon
Sam
Monday, 18 April 2011
Sunday, 3 April 2011
School Finals Done, JAA Exams Start Tomorrow....
I was unbelievably happy with my 93% average I achieved in School Final exams. Trying to maintain the same level of effort to revise for the CAA regulated exams, 'JAA exams', which commence tomorrow (4th April), required some serious motivation! My exams start with Theory of Flight and that is closely followed by the AGK (Aircraft General Knowledge) Systems exam, then the rest of my timetable is:
Tuesday - Instruments
Wednesday - Meteorology
Thursday - Human Performance
VFR Comms
IFR Comms
I have been using a certain well known resource (an online question bank called Bristol) to revise. However pleasant a way that sounds to revise, staring at the same screen for up to 12 hours each day for ten days, can get rather monotonous.
Anyway, bring it on this week, I think I am prepared as best as possible - at least I hope I am!
Sorry for not keeping your up to date recently but you will understand how busy I have been. However, after Thursday, I will have plenty of time to update you as I get two weeks off after my exams.
Roll on Thursday night!
Sam
Tuesday - Instruments
Wednesday - Meteorology
Thursday - Human Performance
VFR Comms
IFR Comms
I have been using a certain well known resource (an online question bank called Bristol) to revise. However pleasant a way that sounds to revise, staring at the same screen for up to 12 hours each day for ten days, can get rather monotonous.
Anyway, bring it on this week, I think I am prepared as best as possible - at least I hope I am!
Sorry for not keeping your up to date recently but you will understand how busy I have been. However, after Thursday, I will have plenty of time to update you as I get two weeks off after my exams.
Roll on Thursday night!
Sam
Monday, 14 March 2011
I am so unbelievably busy...
This weekend consisted of:
Friday night after school... 4 hours of work.
Saturday... awake at 8am, sat doing work with food at desk for the day until 9pm.
Sunday... went into school to study for a change of scenery, from the room that now feels like a cell with a bed and a desk full of books... I managed to work from 9 till 7:30pm pretty much non stop!
Saturday... awake at 8am, sat doing work with food at desk for the day until 9pm.
Sunday... went into school to study for a change of scenery, from the room that now feels like a cell with a bed and a desk full of books... I managed to work from 9 till 7:30pm pretty much non stop!
I feel physically and mentally drained, but all this work will hopefully pay off!
14 exams over the next couple of weeks... bring them on!
I have a well deserved fortnight off in April and I seriously can't wait to go home, relax and see everyone.
Sorry for not keeping everyone up to date fully!
Sam
Friday, 18 February 2011
First Week Back After Test Ones
Well there goes another week. The heavy workload has started coming at a ridiculous pace and is needing a lot more hours of notice at night.
We have started gas turbine engines, so the big commercial high by-pass engines, turboprop etc and also started looking at autoflight (autopilot, autoland, autothrottle et al). All very interesting stuff, however, a lot to learn whilst retaining the past knowledge from before our first tests.
I forgot to mention that a week or so ago I obtained the role of class representative and have been carrying out a register each day, checking for class mail at reception and basically being a spokesperson for the class of AP321 as a whole, which may I add, I love. Within the mail this week were Bucks New University student cards, which means DISCOUNT! ;D
I am helping out on the skills assessment area of the school tomorrow at the open day and once again helping out during the presentations. I always look forward to the open days as they're great fun to answer everyones' questions and really help provide a deeper knowledge and understanding for potential future attendees of OAA. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.
As for the above, it's been a fairly good week, the class were groggy to start on Monday after the week off however, thawed out a bit towards the middle of Tuesday!
Weekend plans:
Saturday: Open day then back home for ironing (yes, your eyes do not deceive you) and a night of Gas Turbines and Meteorology.
Sunday: Instruments, Human Performance and AC Electrics and an early night!!!
Speak soon
Sam
We have started gas turbine engines, so the big commercial high by-pass engines, turboprop etc and also started looking at autoflight (autopilot, autoland, autothrottle et al). All very interesting stuff, however, a lot to learn whilst retaining the past knowledge from before our first tests.
I forgot to mention that a week or so ago I obtained the role of class representative and have been carrying out a register each day, checking for class mail at reception and basically being a spokesperson for the class of AP321 as a whole, which may I add, I love. Within the mail this week were Bucks New University student cards, which means DISCOUNT! ;D
I am helping out on the skills assessment area of the school tomorrow at the open day and once again helping out during the presentations. I always look forward to the open days as they're great fun to answer everyones' questions and really help provide a deeper knowledge and understanding for potential future attendees of OAA. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.
As for the above, it's been a fairly good week, the class were groggy to start on Monday after the week off however, thawed out a bit towards the middle of Tuesday!
Weekend plans:
Saturday: Open day then back home for ironing (yes, your eyes do not deceive you) and a night of Gas Turbines and Meteorology.
Sunday: Instruments, Human Performance and AC Electrics and an early night!!!
Speak soon
Sam
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Apologies
Good morning readers,
I would like to apologise for the drought of blogging that has taken place over the last three weeks or so. This however, can be justified by the sheer workload and preparation for test 1s.
Regarding test 1s, I achieved a 75% average which I am rather happy with as it was nowhere near the worst grade in the class and also allows me to make a target of 90% average for School Finals. School Finals are again OAA regulated exams and will be taking place at the end of March, they will cover a much larger range of topics, infact the whole of the stage one syllabus and will be approximately 10 days before the biggies, the JAR exams (Civil Aviation Authority regulated exams).
We will now be given access to the Oxford question bank called Oxcel. This is an online site for Oxford students, post test 1s full of JAR style questions, so we can do question after question all day everyday if we wanted, but I think that would lead to insanity, so I probably won't go for such an intense approach. This is already helping as I know where I fell down on my test 1 exams, so I have been looking over these areas on Oxcel and cementing answers I was unsure of into my head and learning the theory behind these answers as I go.
It was a great relief to have the first exams done and all passed. All of the course members came round to our house the night of results, for Dominos pizza (27 pizzas!!) and the celebrations continued until late.
We have been lucky this week and have been given a week out of ground school after test 1s, which no other course gets. This is because our group started early in December and the intakes are usually towards the end of each month, so we needed to be staggered, it's been fantastic! It has allowed me to catch up on my sleep, catch up on my work and also given me a chance to go up to Carlisle to visit my girlfriend this weekend. This being said, I cannot wait to get stuck in again and just tick off each day, the closer and closer the 321 get to Arizona the better.
Now I haven't got exams until the end of March, I will update this more often!
Hope you're all well and by all means post comments underneath here, I'll return them as soon as I can
Speak soon
Sam
I would like to apologise for the drought of blogging that has taken place over the last three weeks or so. This however, can be justified by the sheer workload and preparation for test 1s.
Regarding test 1s, I achieved a 75% average which I am rather happy with as it was nowhere near the worst grade in the class and also allows me to make a target of 90% average for School Finals. School Finals are again OAA regulated exams and will be taking place at the end of March, they will cover a much larger range of topics, infact the whole of the stage one syllabus and will be approximately 10 days before the biggies, the JAR exams (Civil Aviation Authority regulated exams).
We will now be given access to the Oxford question bank called Oxcel. This is an online site for Oxford students, post test 1s full of JAR style questions, so we can do question after question all day everyday if we wanted, but I think that would lead to insanity, so I probably won't go for such an intense approach. This is already helping as I know where I fell down on my test 1 exams, so I have been looking over these areas on Oxcel and cementing answers I was unsure of into my head and learning the theory behind these answers as I go.
It was a great relief to have the first exams done and all passed. All of the course members came round to our house the night of results, for Dominos pizza (27 pizzas!!) and the celebrations continued until late.
We have been lucky this week and have been given a week out of ground school after test 1s, which no other course gets. This is because our group started early in December and the intakes are usually towards the end of each month, so we needed to be staggered, it's been fantastic! It has allowed me to catch up on my sleep, catch up on my work and also given me a chance to go up to Carlisle to visit my girlfriend this weekend. This being said, I cannot wait to get stuck in again and just tick off each day, the closer and closer the 321 get to Arizona the better.
Now I haven't got exams until the end of March, I will update this more often!
Hope you're all well and by all means post comments underneath here, I'll return them as soon as I can
Speak soon
Sam
Friday, 14 January 2011
Three Weeks to Test 1s
So this time in three weeks, I will have my first exam results. Scary really seeing as it feels as though we have only been at OAA for a matter of minutes. I guess it indicates the speed at which learning is expected and I cannot tell you how much work there is after each day to go home and really gather a true understanding of everything. Whether it be how a component works, why it may be there, what if it fails, how is it powered... the syllabus volume within the timeframe we have is extremely intense. However, I am starting to fall in love with the content and being knowledgable on topics I have always wanted to be disgustingly knowledgable about.
Well last night was AP321's official welcome from OAA which coincided with the monthly happy hour (loads of free beer, wine and food) which was fantastic. Both groundschool and advanced flight training stage courses were invited and it gave us all a chance to ask questions and network with these 'further down the line' courses, seeking advice and highlights we should be aware of. Groundschool apparently isn't anyone's favourite, whereas flying for three hours a day and spending the rest round a pool in Arizona heat is up there.. I really can't see why...
Well we had our fair share of freebies and being intelligent and charming pilots that we all are becoming, we were able to re stock the fridge with beverages courtesy of OAA.
I was also able to have an informative and lengthy conversation with Anthony Petteford, who is the Managing Director of this fine establishment that I attend, about graduation and job vacancies that are forecasted for spring 2012 aswell as the updating of OAA's fleet. He is a very friendly, approachable and down to Earth guy, despite his authority and credibility, which somewhat surprised me. He assured me that if I don't get multiple job offers, he would be curious as to why, which sounds hopeful! It's a very, very promising time for aviation and a certain British Airways are on the hunt for new recruits in the years 2011 and 2012, work hard, play hard and fly hard and I could be landed with my dream airline coming out of training. But let's not run before we can walk eh? It's only little over a year before I will be training on those monsters of the sky though, so I've got to keep the lookout for trends of recruitment across all the major and notorious airlines who favour low houred pilots.
Tomorrow is OAA's first open day of the year and muggins here has been landed with a position in the presentations with the aforementioned MD and assigned to a classroom for Q&As from aspiring candidates for entry to OAA. Which, I really am looking forward to, as I was in exactly their position last year and know how jealous I was of the guys I spoke to who were in the school, so I can't wait to give advice, opinions and hopefully in some way motivate the visitors whether they be young or older people to go for it as it is certainly the best decision I have ever made. However, ask my parents that same question with regards to finance... ;)
Lots of work to do over the weekend to keep me busy and out of trouble, I will update the blog in relation to how the open day went and what's ahead next week.
I seem to be chatty, you can certainly tell it's Friday.
Sam
Well last night was AP321's official welcome from OAA which coincided with the monthly happy hour (loads of free beer, wine and food) which was fantastic. Both groundschool and advanced flight training stage courses were invited and it gave us all a chance to ask questions and network with these 'further down the line' courses, seeking advice and highlights we should be aware of. Groundschool apparently isn't anyone's favourite, whereas flying for three hours a day and spending the rest round a pool in Arizona heat is up there.. I really can't see why...
Well we had our fair share of freebies and being intelligent and charming pilots that we all are becoming, we were able to re stock the fridge with beverages courtesy of OAA.
I was also able to have an informative and lengthy conversation with Anthony Petteford, who is the Managing Director of this fine establishment that I attend, about graduation and job vacancies that are forecasted for spring 2012 aswell as the updating of OAA's fleet. He is a very friendly, approachable and down to Earth guy, despite his authority and credibility, which somewhat surprised me. He assured me that if I don't get multiple job offers, he would be curious as to why, which sounds hopeful! It's a very, very promising time for aviation and a certain British Airways are on the hunt for new recruits in the years 2011 and 2012, work hard, play hard and fly hard and I could be landed with my dream airline coming out of training. But let's not run before we can walk eh? It's only little over a year before I will be training on those monsters of the sky though, so I've got to keep the lookout for trends of recruitment across all the major and notorious airlines who favour low houred pilots.
Tomorrow is OAA's first open day of the year and muggins here has been landed with a position in the presentations with the aforementioned MD and assigned to a classroom for Q&As from aspiring candidates for entry to OAA. Which, I really am looking forward to, as I was in exactly their position last year and know how jealous I was of the guys I spoke to who were in the school, so I can't wait to give advice, opinions and hopefully in some way motivate the visitors whether they be young or older people to go for it as it is certainly the best decision I have ever made. However, ask my parents that same question with regards to finance... ;)
Lots of work to do over the weekend to keep me busy and out of trouble, I will update the blog in relation to how the open day went and what's ahead next week.
I seem to be chatty, you can certainly tell it's Friday.
Sam
Books, check, Stationery, check, energy supplements, check.
Sunday, 9 January 2011
Happy New Year
Well we have been back at GS for a week now and its good to get back into it! Everyone came back in good spirits and it was great to see everyone again. We had four days of lessons as Monday was obviously a bank holiday.
The week absolutely flew past and it was Friday once again, in The Black Horse with all the course having a few well deserved beverages.
A pretty unremarkable week, however, having looked at next week's timetable with triple Theory of Flight on both Thursday and Friday, I think I will need to stock up on Red Bull as there may be times during any three of the lessons my eyes will feel increasingly heavy.
Sam
Happy Birthday Jun (Mr AP321)
The week absolutely flew past and it was Friday once again, in The Black Horse with all the course having a few well deserved beverages.
A pretty unremarkable week, however, having looked at next week's timetable with triple Theory of Flight on both Thursday and Friday, I think I will need to stock up on Red Bull as there may be times during any three of the lessons my eyes will feel increasingly heavy.
Sam
Happy Birthday Jun (Mr AP321)
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