Finished CBT

The PW150A of the Q400. Much bigger and looks better with 6 blades. The prop diameter is actually the same (well very similar) to the 200/300. Just 2000 extra horse power!

The flightdeck of the Q400. Nice LCD screens, less clutter and much nicer layout over all.

CBT and the Q400

Well, what can i say. It's a much better plane, that's better where it wants to be, and simplified where it needs to be. Much bigger donks, FADEC, glass cockpit, more seats, more features. More fun perhaps?

Well, it's going well, half way through the ground school and work has already put in my roster some jumpseat rides to get familiar with the aircraft.

But, back to the computer based training. Roughly 1000 slides past, and another 1000 to go....

Last flight in the 200/300

Yup, it's finally here! I will be moving to the new Q400 as of Monday. I will be flying what is described as a small big plane, rather than a big small plane. I have enjoyed all the people i worked with on the 'sustaining' fleet as its called at work, but i'm looking forward to a new plane with "jet like speeds!"

The training is 2 weeks of CBT, a day of performance, emergency procedures and i think about 4 sim's both fixed base and full motion, before i do 20 sectors of line flying. At least i think it's 20.

Photos and more to come shortly.

Tomorrow will be the last flight, for the Armidale overnight. 

Mount Hotham

Finally, i went to Mount Hotham! It was the final destination of our route network that i had not been to. So now when i start training on the Q400 in 2 weeks, i can tick the box.. 

Mount Hotham is 260nm south of Sydney. In relative terms, it is the same distance as Melbourne to Launceston. It is the highest elevation airport in Australia, at 4260ft. It's not particularly high comparatively to the rest of the world, or even Armidale, which is pretty much a daily event for me when i fly, at 3556ft.  

So i don't know what else to say except it was fun, close to the mountains and windy. Better yet, here are some photos!

The load sheet for the flight. It was done in a dash 8-200 series. Someone asked me to take a photo of it on a previous comment. The flight plan we used is below for the flight.

Snow!

Mountains approaching Hotham.

Backtracking runway 11.

Skipper hard at work as always when i'm around.

The airport itself.

I think they were planning on sending jets in here once upon a time, but as far as i know it never happened.