Thursday, June 30, 2011

apologies

Sorry for the lack of posts of recent. Its been pretty insane finishing up the endo. If all goes well i will be dash-8 endorsed tomorrow afternoon. I will be finished with all sims including the cyclic program by Monday and start line training mid next week!

Will keep you all updated soon!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

A lot of my sims were cancelled this week. It's hard to keep reading the same text over and over, and it feels as though im skimming over it at the moment in the vain hope that i 'know' it. I guess it is at the point where i just need to keep going in the sim to get it all done. We had 3 out of 6 cancelled this week, mainly due to a sick instructor. So thanking him for not spreading it around! Last thing i want right now is to be sick and have to call in sick during training.

Im on that very weird line of not working enough, and enjoying the time off a little too much, and i should be head in the books again. But i have 2 sims the next 2 days so it should put it all back into perspective. We did circuits the other day, and it was a good experience not only going through all the drills as pilot monitoring but also actually hand flying the thing in the circuit, doing stable approaches and normal landings. I think thats the extent of normal procedures i will encounter! and as of tomorrow everything and anything abnormal starts to happen, with roll/pitch control jams, to engine failures at V1 into IMC and then conducting the instrument approach around for a landing. FUN....

Anyway, good times ahead, hopefully start line traing in the not too distant future once the endorsement phase is done.

Thursday, June 9, 2011



I'm having trouble being able to post comments on my blog or on anyone elses, so im sorry if it seems i'm not replying, or commenting - i'm not able too!! If anyone has any clues as to why this is, i would like to know!

The photo above is a photo of the PW123E engine. Awesome right? I prefer looking back at these, and they sound way cooler in Disc, than any piston! Actually, Titans do sound super cool, but nothing beats a turbine!

Hope you like it as much as i do!

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

First sim session

Was awesome! Was a great experience, and possibly the best feeling going to a sim centre to learn to fly an 'airliner' or box kite - whichever you deem more appropriate.

I wont say too much! But it was one of the best experiences of my life, and 3.7 hours went so so quick!

Keep you all up to date soon.

Friday, June 3, 2011


Fits in the awesome category! Final approach 16R Sydney.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

waiting and waiting

My friend in V Australia recently referred to the plane i fly as a "box-kite." I thought that was pretty funny, so i will probably start saying box-kite more regularly. I guess to his 300T takeoff weight, a 19T box-kite must appear tiny, especially on the ground!

Anyway, on to the training side of things, i can't really argue at all. I have had 2 weeks off basically to study for my sims, and 'try' be as prepared as i can for them. The hardest part is learning recalls, and how to action them. Recalls are essentially the phase 1's of a failure, or fault with the plane, which are commited to memory for immediate actioning, before the checklist is pulled out and used. An example is the depressurisation.  The recall is, Oxygen - on, mic switch - mask, passenger signs - on, power levers - flight idle, condition levers - max, and airspeed - Vmo. Now its good and ready to have that memorised, but actually doing it in a 2 crew situation and the exact ways to action it, makes it slightly more involved.

For example, in a depressurisation, and the plane is in Autoflight, then both pilots would don the oxygen at the same time and set up the mic switches. The Pilot flying would then disengage the autopilot and bank the plane 30 degrees left or right and pitch down to 20 degrees until Vmo is established, and maintain that speed till at least 14000ft. He would also say during this time have said "emergency descent recalls." The pilot monitoring would then have actioned the recall, confirming each one. The oxygen and mic switches are obvious checks as well as the passenger signs, and naturally the pilot flying would have already retarded the power levers as the emergency descent would be commenced. After saying and confirming those, he would get to the condition levers and say "condition levers max." The pilot flying would confirm this, and the pilot monitoring moves the condition levers to max. The airspeed should be at Vmo, and the pilot monitoring would say "recalls complete, reference next."

At this point he would also be saying to ATC that they are conducting an emergency descent and declare a pan pan or mayday. Set the transponder to 7700 for emergency and if time permitted advice the passengers and cabin crew what was happening. I believe cabin crew are trained to recognise a depressurisation and what their actions should be.

There are a lot of these recalls, and i guess the secret is going through them precisely and accurately in a timely manner, without rushing anything or missing anything. Although, they represent emergency situations and not normal flight conditions, they should be completed calmly and in the proper two crew coordination.

Im looking foward to the sims! I should be Box-Kite endorsed by the end of the month!