ATPL theoretical part completed

As we got into a great chaos due to the Islandic ash cloud over Europe, our exams results kind of got delayed and I've heard some exams had to be remarked.
We ended up having the results almost a week after that expected.
I passed all my 14 exams first time with an average of 92% and this puts an end to six month of theoretical course and revisions.

From now on, almost everything in the course is going to be practical.
I flew about 6 hours during my time in France and renewed my PPL for the second time in 4 years.

I'm flying to California in two days, I've got my FAA appointment on thursday and first flights in the States in about a week time.

Cobham's Falcon 20

Bournemouth is home of the largest fleet of Dassault Falcon 20 (old French business jet), which are mainly used for various types of military missions with the Air Force and the Royal Navy. As some of ex BCFT students are now flying for them, we got the chance to visit their facility and had a tour (on the ground) of their aircraft.

I thought it could be fairly interesting to share some of the pictures I took, as it is quite a rare aeroplane, particularly when equipped with the 4 pods like the one we went in.
The pods can be anything from laser devices, targets towed, etc ...
There aren't many civilian flying jobs where you get to fly as low as 100 ft in formation with RAF Hawks, Tornados, Harriers, ...

 

First 7 ATPL exams results

Two weeks since we were in Gatwick seating our first seven ATPL exams. It goes by fairly quick when we go through the same routine everyday, having already started the lectures for the second half of ATPL subjects.
However, when it comes to waiting for exams results, this is just way too slow.
At last, we got them today!

Anyway, I'm really happy with the results, I've got 90% average, passed all seven of them, and can now fully concentrate on the next 7 subjects.

I got 86% in Principles of Flight, 100% in Mass&Balance, 89% in Aircraft Performance, 96% in Operational Procedures, 94% in Flight Planning, 85% in Meteorology and 82% in Human Performance and Limitations (which happens to be the most borring subject ever and has very little to do with aviation).
Keep looking ahead as they say. I should be flying again from next week onwards, plenty of good images in the head right now !

Here are some pictures I took this morning at Bournemouth Airport:

And some pictures I took last year onboard a 737-800 across Europe.
(take-off from Bournemouth EGHH)

First 7 exams in Gatwick

Happy New Year everyone !
I didn't get a chance to say it before as this is my first post since last year, actually all this went really fast! I'm just back from Gatwick where I took my first seven ATPL exams.
It's really hard to say whether I did well, I just hope so but overall I think I passed them all. Lets hope, at least.
We started with Principles of Flight last tuesday, not an easy one since the questions asked are wider than what the book covers. It's a mix with commun sence, theoretical knowledge and what we learn during the lectures. The exam is only 1 hour long but time isn't an issue, at least not for that one. The afternoon we had Mass & Balance followed by Aircraft Performance. Mass & Balance is fairly straightforward. You learn the formula, and that's pretty much it. Performance requires a bit more thinking and some stuff looks rather similar to what we do in PoF.
Wenesday was probably the toughest day, starting with Operational Procedures which really is learning by heart loads of figures, such as how many megaphones must your aircraft have with such number of seats and such layout, it also covers LVPs (Low Visibily Procedures), CAT I/II/III A B and C landings, circling approaches minima, ETOPS Operations (Extended Range Twin-Engine Operational Performance Standards), and flight hazards. Our instructor (ex Boeing 757 captain) made it all very interesting, but when it comes to passing an exam, it looks huge to learn all this by heart.

The afternoon we had Flight Planning, and we basically spent three hours opening huge charts on our small desks, looking for waypoints, airfield and navigation facilities ...
Not that it was really tough but three hours was just enough and I finished like 1 minute before the end.

Meteorology on thursday and, finally, Human Performance & Limitations (HP&L) on friday. It definitely was a busy week! I took the pictures from my room's window in the hotel we stayed at. At least, I had the view.

End of lectures, mock exams week

I must say, that went fast, really fast!
We are done with the lectures for the seven first subjects. Tomorrow is the first day of the mock exams week, which aims at getting an idea of how well we'll perform on the real exam, and whether we should go to Gatwick for that particular exam. We still have two weeks holidays starting this friday, and hopefully we'll be fully ready in three weeks time to pass the CAA exams in London Gatwick.

The sun dared to show up for the very first time in a month last thursday. Almost as good on friday, I took my camera with me and went on to the apron just before the first lecture, and how surprised was I to catch this superb Falcon 20 from FRAviation on his take-off run poping out of the fog a few yards before passing the sun! Kind of magic really!

We also got a chance to fly the FNPT2 simulator used for MCC training, and see how tricky can ILS approaches be. It certainly helps keeping an eye on the final goal, which has a boosting effect in these tough days ..

Well, I think it's time to get back to studies, a fair amount of work has already been done, but we are not on holidays, yet.

Trip to the Air Traffic Control Tower

With the Progress Tests taking place this week, I haven't much time to update my blog.
We already had 3 mock exams last thursday, and I'm rather happy with my results. I got 75% in HP&L (Human Performance and Limitations, probably the most boring subject), 81% in PoF (Principles of Flight) and 95% in Performances. Still four to go, with Meteoroly and Ops being quite tough, I'm not gonna sleep much in the next few days.

Anyway, BCFT organised a trip to the control tower this morning, and although I don't really like getting up early on a sunday morning, I was quite excited about it. We had to walk from the Terminal building to the ATC through a very heavy pouring rain, arrived all wet and finally made it into the control tower.

We had a chat with the controlers, the "pilots' eyes". Usually we don't talk much about them but they really do an amazing job. It's great to see the other side of the radio equipment we talk through. They now have a touchscreen equipment that came with the lighting system, where they can easily select for example runway edge lights only. Runway 26 has been fitted with a CALVERT approach lighting system, it appears on the touchscreen map and in a click you can turn it on.

And what an awesome view despite the tower being quite short. A Monarch B757 took off just 200 yards away and we were sitting at one of the best places to watch those birds flying ...

We then went down to the approach room which was just beneath us.
They also have an impressive piece of equipment there.

They receive instant meteorological information, METARs and TAFs, they can display all the SID and STAR procedures for each runway, instant wind, max wind, average 10 minutes wind and all kinds of relevant stuff for controlers and pilots, along with of course several radar screens where you can follow the pattern of any aircraft over the UK.

First IFR backseat on the Be76

While the ATPL ground school gives us a growing amount of work, I somehow got the time to backseat on a 2 hour flight to Exeter last thursday.
What could be better after 3 hours of Principles of Flight and 3 hours of Meteorology ?

The trainee pilot was doing his very first flight on the plane after about 30 hours on the simulator, and I must say I was really impressed by his knowledge of the the aircraft, although he wasn't that quick on the checklists, which can be easily understood for such a complex plane.
It took us 30 minutes from engine start to clearance request at the holding point to allow for the checks and flight planning, but I reckon it gets better when you're used to it.

'Blackadder 07, holding short of runway 26, ready for departure', 'Blackadder 07, line-up 26, wind 030° at 4 knots, you're cleared for take-off'. (Blackadder is the callsign for the BCFT fleet).
Full throttle, and a second later an intense feeling of acceleration pushes you far into your seat with the nice sound of 360 hp roaring in the calm night. Such moments make you realise how much you love flying ...

Heading to the North-West and cleared to Flight Level 65 (6,500 ft), we could catch a glance at the beautiful Poole bay as we enjoyed a nice clear night. Quite mesmerising !


Still heading to the North-West, we eventually reached the bay between Wales and England with Cardiff in front of us and Bristol to the right. Time to turn left, as we were getting closer to Exeter we could distinguish a thin layout of low clouds building up as the night was becoming colder.
Holding pattern somewhere near EXT (Exeter airfield), I'm afraid I can't tell you much about that since I've never flown on IFR before and didn't have any charts with me, but it looked pretty tough ! 7 nm final for runway 08 at EXT, still doing a nice 140 kts ground speed, a few minutes later at about 200 ft AGL the instructor finally opened the blinds to allow the pilot to have a nice clear view of the approach lights and get that plane to the ground. Missed approach procedure just above the runway threshold, full throttle and that's when the instructor decided to put one engine on idle to simulate and engine failure.

After all sorts of events like those, we finally made our way back home at Bournemouth airport, ILS on runway 26 to finally make a very smooth landing ...

 

Meet & Greet and ATPL hard work

We had our Meet & Greet this tuesday with all the flight and ground instructors at the Bournemouth Flying Club.
Good opportunity to meet the other guys from the school, past students, and the people from the Flying Club.
As the local bar/pub is just next to the taxiway leading to runway 26, we could see from very close the various aircraft operating at Bournemouth airport, 737s, Beechcraft 76, Piper Seneca, Mystere 20, Falcon, ... and even smell the delicious kerosene odour. Awesome feeling, pilots know what I mean for sure!


The ATPL is going well so far, workload is gradually increasing but that's still manageable.
Anyway, I'm really enjoying it, learning new stuff about bigger aeroplanes is really exciting.
We seem to settle down at about 33 hours of lectures per week, and as I bought a car shared with two other people, we save about an hour every day as we used to take a bus and walk to go to BCFT centre.

I put some pictures from the Meet & Greet and the ATPL books ...
And that's only 5 out of 14 folders for each of the 14 subjects.

ATPL - Fundation week

It's high time to give some update since the training has now started up.
We've just finished the so-called Fundation Week which aims at learning the basic of maths, general navigation and meteorology in order to be fully prepared for the next big step : the first 7 subjects of the ATPL.

The ATPL ? What does it stand for?
Basically, the ATPL, Airline Transport Pilot Licence is what we need to become commercial pilots.
We usually call the theoretical knowledge classes 'ATPL' although we should talk about ATPL Ground School instead.
At the end of the training, we will be issued with a Frozen ATPL (fATPL) that will be unfrozen after a certain amount of flying (1500hrs) and flying turbine-powered aircraft, thus fATPL refers to the 14 ATPL Ground School exams passed + CPL + IRME + MCC and possibly a Type Rating.

I'm not quite sure yet but the first 7 subjects should be :

• Mass & Balance
• Performance
• Operational Procedures
• Flight Planning & Monitoring
• Principles of Flight
  
• Meteorology
• Human Performance & Limitations

The first week went fairly well, with a great opportunity to meet the other trainee pilots, instructors, have a better insight of what's waiting for us next, etc ...
BCFT have small but proper good facilities, and we can backseat on a sim (short for simulator) or an aircraft anytime after the lectures or at week-ends. Hence the pictures ...

I flew on the right hand seat of a FNPT II simulator that mirrors the Beechcraft Be76 used for IR flight training. The pilot had his IR test the following day and hopefully passed.
We did a Bournemouth-Cardiff flight on IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) with 150m visibily and 8/8 clouds - base at 400 ft.

Holding Pattern over Cardiff airfield, followed by a missed-approach procedure and a right engine failure right after. Landing just after sunset, we got the runway in sight when the GPWS indicated ... 50 ft !

Class 1 medical done, ready for the big start

Two weeks ago, I was on a small trip to London Gatwick airport to take my Class 1 medical examination by the British CAA. Actually, small is not that much appropriate, being on a bus for 9 hours in a day is pretty long, isn't it?
This CAA medical examination is mandatory for anyone wishing to become an airline pilot. It is known for being severe and quite tough, although the UK administration has a less strict reputation than this of France.
The whole trip was a complete nightmare thanks to the terrible british bus network, the first coach didn't even make it to its final destination and I ended up taking the London underground, missed my second bus and took ... a train.
I finally got my medical certificate, meaning I now have everything needed in order to start training.

I went back to the school last week with a future classmate, Arnaud from France, we had a tour of the simulators, aircraft and facilities. It all looks great and I can't wait to get started.


The school owns a range of planes from the aerobatic two seater Marchetti SF260 to the Cessna 172, PA28 Archer, complex single engine PA28 Arrow V (for the CPL), and three twin engine Beechcraft Be-76 Duchess (for the IR and ME). They also have two Be-76 simulator along with a simulator that mirrors a Cessna Citation Jet for the MCC (multi crew coordination) and the JOC (Jet Operation Course).