As much as I thought the core phase ended in New Zealand, easyJet's requirement for multi-engine instrument flight in UK airspace meant we had a few more weeks before heading back to Nursling. However, following a relatively good run of weather I completed my final flight on Friday, and now have the rest of the week to relax before heading down to Southampton to commence the Airbus phase.
As well as the upset recovery training, easyJet wanted us to fly in the UK where the radio procedures are seen by some as a lot more complex. I personally don't agree with this as the instructions we receive from air traffic control are the same, but given the UK's more congested airspace, frequency changes happen often, and with a lot more traffic there is a real need to get things right first time. As good as the MPL programme is for developing well-drilled multi-crew pilots, it's failing is that spending 6 months in a simulator will make the trainee inevitably quite rusty when talking to air traffic. The instructor will be making calls and the trainee will answer accordingly, but nothing can mimic the fast-paced, accent mixed environment that is London Control. 
For the TwinStar flights we flew using terrestrial navaids instead of just the GPS system we had been using in New Zealand. To ensure we were confident in their use my instructor Russ planned our flight so that we didn't go far, and therefore had a greater opportunity to practice holding and approaches, rather than just flying for an extended period with the wings level. These flights were quite enjoyable, but the best flight by far was my final TwinStar one on Friday when I took the opportunity to fly south to one of the Channel Islands, Alderney. We went into cloud at about 700ft above Bournemouth, and the first time I saw the earth again (in this case the sea) was at about 3 miles from touchdown, so I had to be disciplined in both my flying and workload management. To keep things interesting Russ failed an engine during the go-around, and engine failure which I had to take back to the hold then onward for another approach. Put simply in a light twin when one engine fails the aircraft is out of balance and wants to steer towards the dead engine. The only way to counter this is with positive control of the rudder, but after 10 minutes with one leg locked out, your muscles are screaming at you to stop upsetting them! Thankfully after the second approach I was given the engine back, and we shot off back to Bournemouth.
Making good time back to Bournemouth I was able to perform two approaches, the first with the autopilot flying us all the way down to decision altitude. It was interesting to watch the aircraft flying itself down the approach in a monitoring role, knowing that I would quickly have to transition from autoflight to manual control. This will feature highly for the rest of my career when visibility is so bad that the automatics are vital for a safe operation, so to see the equipment working was quite cool. On the second approach I hand flew the aircraft under radar advised headings from air traffic, and managed to fluke one of my best landings ever in a light aircraft, which ill never fly again. Typical!
With the rest of the week ill hopefully get some notes to start looking through ahead of starting next Monday, as I have no reservations that once we start time is going to fly by and I need to be sure i've shoe-horned all the knowledge into my head!
No comments:
Post a Comment