Some photos from line training. About a third of the way through it.. massively study intensive and making a me hermit. Hope you enjoy, i'll be back to normal blogging and stories soon, but at the moment quite literally too busy.

Thanks for reading.

Line Flying

Start flying the line on Friday, with my first flight to Port Macquarie, which is on the mid north coast of NSW for those not from Australia. Is very exciting but also pretty scary at the same time. I don't ever remember being so nervous about flying a plane before. I guess its finally the real thing. You train and learn so much in the sim, that when it comes to crunch time, it seems foreign to actually get into a real plane.

I will be doing the majority of all my flying down in Melbourne, but the first two flights are based out of Sydney. It will also be the first time that i will fly in and out of Sydney International as pilot flying, and even from the right seat of a 19T aircraft! Pretty cool. It's definately a weird feeling to be achieving i guess what was my dream growing up, watching the planes arrive and depart, and now to actually be part of this and being part of the operating crew is something that i can't really put into words.

So the sims went without a hitch, actually, i lie. I had to repeat one item, which wasn't a fail, but the instructor basically said that he wanted to see it done better. SO, i repeated it, and did it better :) and then my final check was over, and i am being let loose on the line to finish my training. The company requires 100 hours with a training captain to get checked to line as a minimum, so lets hope i'm up to the challenge! Exciting times ahead, plus in the next 2 weeks i will be flying in and out of Melbourne Tullermarine, Sydney Kingsford-Smith, Canberra, and various smaller regional areas. I guess i have wanted to work flying on the east-coast of Australia out of these destinations since i started flying, so its so so so SO cool, that it's finally happening.

Hopefully bring you some pics and other news shortly. For now back to the FCOM and study, preparing my Jepp plates and making sure i know what im actually doing on Friday haha.

Cheers for reading.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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