Nearly there...

Module 1 is drawing to a close with our last few classes in the coming days. Then it's into the mock exams over the end of next week and the beginning of the week after. Normally people would go more or less straight into the actual exams but as ours fall the other side of Christmas we have an extra two weeks to prepare for the real thing. This could be a good thing in many ways, depending on how the mocks go, though we are told by the staff that the group that has exams after Christmas always does the worst! I expect that is just a shock-tactic to discourage sitting around eating turkey and watching Dave for two weeks. 

So with just Mass & Balance to go on Monday and Tuesday, we will have covered eight subjects in seven and a bit weeks. Absolutely amazing when you look at the material involved really. 

This is the sum total of my paperwork (not including the 10,117 questions I have done online [NB - done, not necessarily got right!]):

(More than I got in three years at University.)

To break up all this hard work we have been treated to another session in the static 737 simulator which is always fun. It was around the time we were doing communication so we got to explore the radio systems for communication and navigation in a little more detail.

The New Forest continues to delight as well in between work sessions. Here was the scenery on an afternoon stroll the other day:

and some roadside onlookers on our way to CTC one morning:

That's about all for now but I expect the next post will be just after the real exams in January!

Still ploughing along

Not a huge amount to describe since the last post. We have now finished Principles of Flight or PoF (if you google PoF you get something rather different) which is, for me, the most challenging topic we've done. Lots and lots of variables and a great many things that are easily confused. The basics of how an aeroplane stays in the sky and what kinds of drag are present etc are not too tricky. The difficulty comes with things like stability and the seemingly endless number of things that can be varied with a propeller. So often, your instinct is completely the opposite of the actual answer. 

Anyway, from that nightmare, we entered the world of meteorology, which for me has been the most interesting so far. It's great to see how it all works and for once it isn't actually too tricky. It's fairly logical and there aren't too many annoying facts to learn. My favourite bit has been clouds - have always liked them. Not sure why. Here's a selection of the 'best':

that should say Castellanus (i.e. like castle ramparts)

Cirrus

Mammatus (guess what that comes from)

Nacreous

Noctilucent

So that's clouds. Plenty of other stuff too but those have been the most striking. This week we look at instruments which covers not only the basic flight instruments (altimeter, airspeed indicator etc.) but also how to use some of the more complex systems that are employed in jet aircraft. Should be fun!

AGK is done, now POF

So begins week 3. We have now finished AGK (Aircraft General Knowledge). What an apt title as it encompasses pretty much every system you could imagine within a large jet transport while also covering many of the 'basics' of a variety of propellor-driven piston-engined aircraft. It is a vast topic and while none of it is horrendously difficult, the sheer quantity of it and the irritatingly obscure way in which the CAA/EASA word their questions makes the subject matter seem rather elusive. 

Here's an example:

The database (of over thousand questions on this particular subject, taken from previous genuine exams) will have a number of questions worded very much like this but changing words like 'divergent' and swapping 'static' pressure for 'dynamic' pressure etc. It's very easy to miss a small change like that and get the question wrong.

The official line is, learn all the material and you can then use the question database as a 'tool'. What they are emphatic about is not to use the database to just memorise all the questions. As the questions are often updated (and often as minimally as I describe above) it's a technique likely to spell disaster. As with anything, a combination approach is best. Personally, I study the material, do some questions, get most of them wrong then go back to the material to work out why. If that doesn't work, there are instructors and course-mates to help get to the bottom of what was wrong. At the end of that process it's a question of just memorising everything. 

We now won't see this subject again until the mocks in mid-December and the exam in early January. Official pass-rate is 75% but most airlines look for first-time passes with an overall 85% average across all 14 exams. Seems pretty unlikely the way things are but just have to keep working away.

That's a lot of boring words so on a lighter note here is an example of a question with a moderately amusing answer (option A presumably the one Mr T would go for):

and here's a nice picture of a plane to finish with:

End of an era...

...beginning of a new one.

My former life is now well and truly concluded and I am completely immersed in the new. Uniforms were all waiting for us on the first day with our flight bags. Here is mine:

Bus driver or security guard?

(The room is a little tidier than that now. A little.)

When they tell you how much work you have to do, they're not kidding. Crucially it's about consolidating the day's material and preparing the stuff for the day after.

So far a typical day is:

8.20 leave for CTC Nursling
8.45 arrive and have a quick coffee
9.00 Groundschool session (lecture/class depending on how you like to look at it)
10.00 Break
10.15 Second session
11.30 Time to consolidate morning information and get ready for the afternoon using CBT
12.30 Lunch
13.30 Back in for afternoon sessions along the same format as the morning

We finish around 16.30 and then head back home. So far I've been having a quick rest and then getting on with looking over everything we've done during the day to make sure it's all understood (it usually isn't) and then working to fix any problems. This can be through a bit of internet research, chats with housemates, using the CBT or working through the question bank on the given topic. ATPL question bank is a massive resource of questions on everything, all posed in the same manner as the CAA questions that will form the final exams. I'm sure this format will be different for each subject, depending on material and the instructor but it gives a basic idea.

This week's topic is Aircraft General Knowledge - most of this is based on the airframe and the systems that make up a large jet transport. We are moving on to Pressurisation and Fuel systems tomorrow, having covered Hydraulics etc. so far.

It's a lot to take in but it's well delivered, well supported and manageable if you put in the hours.

Here's a few pics to clarify things:

I enjoyed the description of this as a 'simplified' layout. Sure it will be one day.

Here is an example of the question bank

So that's all for now really. The next 5 months are all about this (though there are 13.5 more subjects still to cover!) and then it will be all the pretty pictures flying around NZ.

Getting closer

This week has had a few milestones in it. There have been two exciting things. The first was finding out about the accommodation - this is in a rented cottage on the edge of the New Forest.

The other exciting thing was access to all of the ATPL course material that we will be using on the iPad. It's about 5GB and took a few hours to download. Here is a selection of screenshots:

Showing 9 of the 18 'books' downloaded

Equation type stuff - lots of this

And exciting looking pictures

Next significant step is to move there finally in around two weeks, after which I think the posts will be a little more interesting.

The build-up

With just over one month to go, I thought it was time to start this blog so anyone who is interested can track my progress in changing my office from this:

to this:

My introductory day is Thursday October 18th at CTC's Nursling facility near Southampton and then the course starts for real on Monday 22nd. Before that there is a whopping great pile of bills to pay and insurance etc to sort out. However, the next few weeks consist mostly of condensing the last 31 years of accumulating enough stuff to fill a 3 bedroom house into one car load that will fit into a small student bedsit. 

No doubt I'll post many more interesting things here in the coming months once the real work begins but for now, back to the packing.