Upset Recovery Training

Wow! What an eventful past week or so! From losing 4,000ft in a couple of minutes to taking some of the family into the air for the first time it's been a period I'll most likely never forget!

Since the last update where I had been frustrated with weather conditions it was confirmed under the agreement with our sponsor airline that we would take part in the Upset Recovery Training outlined by a company called The Airplane Company based in Sanford, Florida.

The flight training group operate a number of different type of aircraft but the one that we would be most interested in (and be spending five hours in!) was the Extra 300 as mentioned in the previous post.

The course was to be conducted over three days consisting of three hours of ground school on Wednesday last week followed by a flight in the afternoon. The following two days consisted of two flights each.

I wouldn't like to comment on the performance of the Extra as we weren't briefed with such numbers nor do I have time to trawl the internet to find such figures! However, I will say this; it was far more powerful than what we have been used to!

The ability for the aircraft to get airbourne within only a few hundred feet was quite impressive as we rocketed up to 1,000ft before the end of the runway.

During the ground school introduction it was made clear that the main purpose of the whole three days was not to familiarise ourselves with the everyday flying of the aircraft but to understand more the principles of how certain situations in the air occur and how we deal with them.

"So wait a minute; we're going to be allowed to go up in these planes and you'll take care of everything? We just get to play with the yoke and throttle of a quarter of a million dollar piece of kit?"

"Pretty much."

"Well that suits me perfectly!"

The ground school consisted of briefings of each of our flights followed by case studies of situations where the actions taken by the pilots (based on poor knowledge and/or understanding of the basic principles of how an aircraft remains controllable) ended in significant fatalities.

In the afternoon the four of us headed to the airport to take part in our first lesson. This was mainly an introductory lesson where we got a feel of the aircraft, did some steep turns followed by a couple of barrel roles and one loop for good measure. Pulling significantly higher G's than normal (I reached over the three days +5.8 and -1 while a colleague nearly reached 7) made for a rather uncomfortable hour or so after landing. I'm not one for travel sickness but this was something else.

The next day we again headed to the airport for two more lessons. These started to look more at recovering from situations which could be experienced in commercial aircraft (as opposed to those built specifically for this type of operation). This was mainly focused around stalls and effective ways of recovering from them using the control surfaces we have available to us as pilots. In this case, the majority of authority is placed on the rudder, a control surface on the tail plane of the aircraft.

This led to two types of spins. Those where the nose was pointing down and those where the aircraft was completely flat on it's stomach heading towards the ground at an alarming rate.

Both were fantastic to do and again made for an uncomfortable hour on the ground post flight - not as bad as day one though!

On the third and final day we brought together everything we had gone through. Unusual attitudes, steep turns and stalls - all those scenarios that could be found in a commercial operation, although unlikely, could still be found. We also managed to fit in a few corkscrews and loops for good measure - it would be rude not to!

The experience was amazing. Being able to take the controls of such a fantastic piece of engineering was awe-inspiring at some points such as being half way through a loop approaching zero speed staring overhead directly towards the ground. Fantastic.

The highlight for me was definitely the following.

On Thursday afternoon we started our taxi to the active runway here in Melbourne. We were given 9L which is adjacent to 9R, the longest runway here in KMLB. As we taxied towards the threshold similarly the Delta Airlines 757 heading to Atlanta completed it's own taxi to the threshold of the runway, in it's case 9R.

"Delta 2213, cleared for take-off 9R."

"Extra, cleared for take-off 9L." This was a race...

The flight instructor opened the throttles on the Extra and as predicted we hurtled down the runway lifting the wheels off of the ground within seconds. This was ours. The plane was kept in ground effect (a few metres above the runway) for some time until the 757 began it's rotation. The instructor then conducted what he called a 'rocket departure' soaring into the air at a ridiculous speed. The Boeing had nothing on us. Or so we thought! As we left 800ft behind us the jet, now well into it's departure hurtled past us towards the heavens only a hundreds of metres away.

We certainly had the edge during the early stages but when that plane got warmed it we had nothing to come back with. Truly brilliant two minutes of fun!

At the same time as flying these flights over the three days we also got to see something that doesn't offer make an appearance in sunny Melbourne too often. A Russian cargo aircraft arrived to pick up two helicopters to take to Nevada for logging. Amazing machine to see and left quite a bit of smog over it's departure path as it left the runway!

On the day of commencing the Upset Recovery Training family members from the UK had arrived for a week. The weather had been unfortunately bad (to go flying) for the majority of their trip but finally, the day they were to depart back to Europe we got up in the air for just under an hour. Great weather made the flight very enjoyable!

Having had a good time with the upset training it was back into the classroom on Monday morning to begin the CPL ground school. 

The Commercial Pilot's Course (CPL) is the next license we will be completing and to keep things simple it will be done in the twin-engined Piper Seminole. This is a similar aircraft to those that we have been flying now with a couple of major difference, the most obvious being lack of engine in front of the cabin and the addition of two on the wings! I'll be sure to explain more about the aircraft in the coming couple of weeks.

This course is designed to last around a month and will see the conclusion of our training here in the United States. 

The plan at the moment is to return to Europe at the beginning of April after completing around twenty five hours in the plane.

First however, I have another seven flights to complete in the single-engine Warrior. Having flown this morning and two nights ago to West Palm international I am slowly working through. Hopefully they'll all be done within a weeks time!

Had a great week and hopefully those coming will be as enjoyable. The end of our training in Melbourne is finally coming in to view...

Life...

A surreal weekend - one I'm going to find hard to describe; certainly the most difficult post to date and most likely the most difficult for some time...

Since the last update six more days have passed and I'm guessing it's getting a bit boring me repeating the usual "it's going so fast" comment but it really is! We finished ground school last Thursday and headed out for a meal on Thursday night to celebrate the birthdays of two on my course - benefit being two cakes!

I was in fact hoping to fly early on Friday morning but having checked the internal scheduling system on Thursday evening nothing was showing hence I stole a few extra winks the following morning. Waking around 9.30am I found a few messages both in my email inbox and on Facebook. Quickly reading through the information in front of me it was clear that all students at Pilot Training College (PTC) had been grounded by Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) Aviation until further notice. So whether I was to fly that morning or not - we shall never know!

With hundreds of students out here now not able to continue the training in the way that they would have liked to, the rumours in turn obviously began both on line and off. A statement was quickly issued to ourselves via PTC's internal portal and we were told it would be resolved as soon as possible. Come early evening another statement was made that we would indeed be able to return to the skies first thing on Sunday morning. I don't think it is my place or indeed necessary to go into the details that we have been told concerning the grounding other than that it was a disagreement between the two respective companies which was quickly resolved. I am aware that a joint press release will be issued by the companies in the coming hours - something I will hopefully be able to attach a link to.

Friday was therefore spent revising and trying to avoid the rumour mill as much as possible.

Saturday was again a day of revision interrupted by FIT's Aviation Day. I didn't in fact attend although arrived as the proceedings were coming to a close to conduct ground instruction with my flight instructor. Along with ATPLs and flying I'm still (slowly!) working towards the American FAA PPL which I'm hoping to attain in the coming weeks. This involves covering quite a bit of theory material with my instructor for the oral part of the check ride before the flight. A couple of hours later it was back home to the books.

The same evening over twenty new students arrived from both Kazakhstan and Europe to start their training here in Florida over the next ten to twelve months.

After an 'eventful' Friday and indeed Saturday; Sunday was certainly the worst day since we have been here in America.

The day again was full of revision (I hope you don't get bored of me saying this over the next four months as it continues!) and then I had a cross country flight planned in the evening. Come 3pm I set off for the Flightline. The weather wasn't looking promising and I was almost certain the flight would be cancelled. As expected, the weather was not playing the way it had been over the past couple of weeks and it was time for more ground school with my instructor.

With regards to what happened later that evening back at Southgate I do not want to go into any detail whatsoever yet as it would be very unfair of me to say anything. However what I will say; what did happen certainly puts life into perspective.

I would also like to point out, as stressed in the replies to emails I received, this blog is very much the experiences that I personally am experiencing during my training. I try not to make political points and focus mainly on what the course of instruction is like here at PTC Florida and in the future Ireland. What has happened over the past few days is for those who use forums to discuss, squabble and argue over. I want this to be a place for those wanting to know about what life is like for a 20-year-old training to be a pilot with PTC here in the US.

Yesterday class was cancelled this morning due to the previous evening and started promptly again at 1.15pm in the afternoon.

Today two of the final weekly tests were complete in AGK and Performance followed by the other two tomorrow. Today was also the last Performance lesson ever (I hope!)

Yesterday evening we received two emails detailing both the consolidation exam timetable and the real IAA exam timetable for three weeks time.

Soon they'll be here - just one more hurdle in each subject to reach them...

They arrive...

It's Thursday evening and another week is nearly complete. This week again has involved JAA (European) Ground School over four days, concluding tomorrow.  As mentioned before, the Ground School consists of a number of classroom lessons lead by Ground Instructors who run through everything that we could possibly need to know. This week we have covered Communication, Operational Procedures, Human Performance and Limitations, General Flying Safety and today/tomorrow we're studying the dreaded Air Law.

The week has actually gone by extremely quickly. On Monday we took our first of two JAA internal Ground School exams. The pass rate is set at 75% (also the pass rate for both the FAA PPL and ATPL exams - more later). The test consisted of fifty multiple choice questions covering everything we had learnt the previous week. What has been great is the atmosphere amongst the group and discussions were held quite regularly which significantly helped the learning process. I got a pass rate of 80%. To me the mark was not the important thing, it was now knowing how the questions are to be presented and how to actually answer them. After receiving my paper back it was obvious where I had not read some of the questions correctly and by just taking that little bit of extra time and thought the mark could have been much higher.

Tuesday through to tomorrow sees the final phase of our JAA Ground School culminating in the second test being taken at the same time on this coming Monday.

Having first arrived in America (a place I have once visited before but only when much younger), it was all very surreal and taking everything in all at once was impossible. It was simply about going with the flow. Now that I've been here almost three weeks (a friend of mine only emailed me yesterday to remind me of that fact!) my surroundings are starting to become more of a reality. I suppose Florida is not the worst place in the world to spend the last months of my teenage years. The facilities and activities that are available to us all are fantastic. There are sports facilities in abundance, a sandy beach only ten minutes down the road by taxi, dozens of places to eat and drink and temperatures surpassing the 30 degrees mark everyday. For example - who can say their revision breaks are taken in the pool?! However this afternoon brought a blow that really brings me back down to earth with a bang - the 'ATPLs.'

The 'ATPLs' or Air Transport Pilot License exams to be exact are considered to be the most challenging exams of any commercial aviators career. The 14 tests consist of a number of subjects going into extreme detail regarding the entire world that is the air transport industry. It can cover anything from the nuts and bolts in a pressure valve to the navigation of a commercial airliner. Over the past few weeks I've spoken to a significant number of students already here training who are at various stages along their respective courses. Every one that I have spoken to has said that they are "a pain in the arse." [the extremely clean version!]

Today we received all of our folders and relevant paperwork with regards to these exams which will take six months to complete, divided into three modules. As far as I am aware these will begin in August/September. Having had a short look through one of the sealed packs the work seems extremely detailed and time consuming. I must say these for me will certainly be the hardest part of the course. The pass rate for these is again, similar to the internal exams, 75%. However due to the Flybe scheme I currently fall under an average pass mark of 90% or above (over the 14 exams) is only acceptable. Added pressure for sure.

This weekend will again involve a lot of time in the books to again try to attain a pass mark in this coming internal exam. I'm sure there will also be time for the beach and a bit of downtime in there also...

Following successful completion of the JAA Ground School brings one week (or evenings) of FAA Ground School study. More on this next week.

It all starts tomorrow

Since Thursday it's been a very good three days.

Friday was the day of the US FAA medicals. Upon taking my JAA (European medical) in March, it was a very stringent a thorough process testing and measuring many different parts of the body and mind. Compare that to what we experienced on Friday and it's very quick to see how much more in depth we Europeans take everything. Having spoken to a couple of people already into their respective courses, they also duplicate the theory that actually we in Europe are extremely strict in all things aviation which from a reputation point of view is great.

The actual test didn't really involve anything major. It covered urine sample, blood pressure, weight and height and short time with the doctor. Just a special thanks to the lads who had been in before hand who thought it would be amusing to add that there would also be a prostate examination. Very funny...Anyway a short while later we received our medical cards/certificates and it was off to the Flightline to have them copied and have a short tour around the place we would be spending a considerable amount of time in the next ten months.

Friday evening involved TGI Fridays and the cinema (or 'movies' as Americans like to call it). We went to see 'Hangover 2' which I must say was a pretty big disappointment.

Anyway, onto Saturday and after the first lie-in in a while a number of us headed to the beach for a couple of hours before retiring to the down town Melbourne Irish bar to watch the big game. Manchester United being taught a footballing lesson by arguably the greatest club side to walk the earth. Afterwards we returned to the halls before going out into Melbourne during the evening.

Today, after a short walk to the local Walmart we had a BBQ by the pool this afternoon which was very nice. On our heads be it tomorrow morning if anyone wakes up with food poisoning... This was followed by a game of outdoor basketball. It's amazing how much of a tan you can accumulate at sunset!

The evening is now here and it's time to get into the PPL (Private Pilot License) books for the coming 2-3 weeks of ground school. This involves learning many different areas for basic flying ranging from how the engine works to the weather. I'm sure I'll do a full in depth piece on the PPL in the near future. That all starts bright and early tomorrow morning at 8.30am.

To the books I depart...

Facing the pressures...

Not much to report this week other than a very interesting article I saw on the BBC site this week.

I've spent many an hour investigating, researching and learning about the role of a commercial airline pilot. Everything from planes they fly on to the hours they work. However when looking at the latter it seems the glossy magazines and 'reports' cast a shadow on the real story.

45% of people who replied to the survey said they were seriously fatigued.


To me as a passenger that sounds quite scary. I know how my reactions and performance in any working environment are affected with the lack of only a few hours sleep but for 45% of pilots to be seriously fatigued is nerve racking to say the least.

What I find worse is the proposal for a European wide scheme. I am all for a flat scheme around the continent but must be held to the highest of standards. The UK has some of the most rigorous rules and regulations in the world and for the country to have to sacrifice any of those, in my opinion, is wrong. Especially seeing the article statistics.

I cannot speak as a pilot, as I am not lucky enough to be in that position yet but as a passenger - that report is a hard read.

And for someone who plans to be a pilot in the near future - it's a very hard read.