Musician to Airline Pilot: Welcome to New Zealand!

Well, it's difficult to believe but I am finally here and about to start the most significant part of all this - the flying!

We set off from Manchester on Wednesday April 26th and arrived at Auckland on the Friday around mid-day. The first leg was to Dubai on a 777 (all with Emirates) which was very comfortable and went by quite quickly. Throughout this flight and the ones that followed, the cabin crew were helpful and friendly and the food and drink plentiful and high quality. So if you are doing this route, I can recommend Emirates. The second leg was an A380 via Melbourne for a crew change and refuel. This was my first time on an A380 and it was very pleasant indeed. The cruise was amazingly quiet though the take-off and landing were quite noisy thanks to the sheer size of the machinery that operates the landing gear and the flaps, all of which was near where we were sitting.

Once we had arrived we were taken by minibus to our accommodation, most of the group in Knox Street in the heart of the city, and a few of us to Clearways nearer the airport.

The weekend was there to recover from jet-lag though I can't honestly say I experienced any until quite a few days later. I would say it takes around 5 days to get over fully.

Monday was straight back in to ground school to cover various formalities such as a tour of the facilities and new ID cards etc. Then lectures on NZ Air Law and 'Differences' which covers a few of the areas where EASA ATPL theory differs from the ICAO NZ stuff. This includes climatology and some of the names for things (eg. ARFOR = area forecast, something we don't really have in Europe in quite the same way). We have to sit exams and have passes in both these subjects before we are allowed to go solo which will be a few weeks hence.

What else is there to say about NZ life? It's well known for its beauty of course and we have already had a chance to see some of that with a trip to Waitomo over the weekend. What don't they tell you though? Well, there's quite a lot that is very expensive for a start. Internet and phones are not cheap and not fast. It's a captive market here so the companies fleece people for what they can unfortunately. Here at Clearways we have a 5GB limit per month which for those needing to Skype partners/family back home is not much. More can be purchased but it does stand out as being more expensive than the UK.

Commodities are generally similar in price with a few notable exceptions: cheaper items include meat, wine, take-away pizzas (!), fruit and veg that's in season, fuel; more expensive items include beer, bread, chicken, cheese etc. It all pretty much evens out though if you try to stick to a shopping list that looks exactly like one in the UK, you will end up spending more.

The last couple of days have seen tropical storms of pretty ferocious intent - my shoes are still drying out from 2 days ago! Other than that, it has been pleasantly sunny and quite warm most of the time. We are supposed to start our flying schedule from Wednesday onwards, provided the weather settles down a bit.

This is where CTC's Vertical Integrated approach really starts to show itself. Even though we are learning in aircraft of a similar nature to those used in a PPL, the whole operation is approached from a much more professional angle straight away. We will have to do weight and balance calculations, factored runway distances and employ all the different V speeds from day one which is beyond the scope of most VFR PPL operations. It does all sound a bit daunting at this stage but I'm assured by those further through the course than me that it will all fall into place. Next update should include some updates from the air!

Editing this is a bit of a nightmare on an iPad so here are a few random pictures from the trip: