Underway, overworked...

Cadet Uniform items

On Friday, I passed the four week point of my course, which sees CP112 halfway through the instructional element of module 1. In four weeks we have covered:-

• Aircraft general knowledge- Airframe, Hydraulics, Landing gear, Pneumatics, Electrics, Piston engines, Turbines, and logic systems.
• Principles of flight- the theory of flight examining Flying controls, Forces in flight, Stalling, Stability, High speed flight, Operational limits and Propellers
• Instruments- thus far we have covered half of this but have managed Gyroscopes, Magnetism, Sensors and Pressure Instruments

For those of you shy of hard work, this is not the course for you! Unfortunately, given the pace of the course there is no opportunity to rest on your laurels at the end of a days lectures. The only sure way of passing is to immediately consolidate the new information, whilst revisiting previous topics so that they remain fresh. An average day during ground school is:-

• 0900              Lectures
• 1200              Lunch
• 1300              More lectures
• 1600- 1700   Home
• Evening       Grab something to eat and strap yourself in for some study! Personally i'm                            heading to bed somewhere between 10 and 11pm, but that is down to the                            individual. 

CP110 (July Starters) have just done their first set of exams, and CP111 have just done their mocks for Module one, so it won't be long until the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) send an invigilator to oversee the first 7 of ours!

Being at Nursling is also something of a mixed bag. It's great to be on the course and underway, but months of solid ground-school ahead will take it's toll. However, given there are three full motion simulators on the walk from the car park to the classroom, inspiration arrives first thing every morning! I am also in the fortunate position that even though I only get 6 months in New Zealand, as of September next year ill be spending the best part of 6 months in the Airbus A320 simulator due to the specific learning objectives of my MPL course. 

That'll do for this week, and hopefully from now I will be in a position to make a post a week. So look out on Sunday, and ill attempt to find a different topic to let you in on.

Fly safe