Week 5: The Weather

My "favourite" place

Week 5 has drawn to a conclusion, and cp112 are now a chunk of their way through Meteorology, the study of the weather. Met is a fairly important subject for pilots to have a thorough knowledge of, as it tends to have the most significant bearing on day-to-day operations, and therefore questions around the topic are often scenario based to help give some context to the information being learnt. The key areas are:-

• The Atmosphere- including altimetry which is a life saving area
• Wind- horizontal movement of air in the atmosphere and further effects
• Thermodynamics- the relationship between temperature and the atmosphere
• Clouds/Fog- whether the sheep are in the sky or on the ground
• Precipitation- rain, snow, hail
• Air Masses- ties in all the previous knowledge into a 3D concept
• Climatology- worldwide differences, seasons
• Flight Hazards- icing, poor vis, thunderstorms (things that might end a flight early)
• Met Info- information to prevent the above! 

As a subject, the majority of pilots I have spoken to have found Met interesting as it is a practical subject which is easily applied on a daily basis. Unfortunately, it is rather vast and therefore the challenge once the material is understood is to keep it from escaping. For some students reading over the topics continuously works, and for others the answer is practice exam questions as the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) have a knack for asking questions in the most difficult to decipher manner. For one element I decided to get a wall map and cover it in arrows and key words so hopefully I retain all the necessary knowledge, especially when it comes to global climatology!

The timing for Met is also brilliant, as Britain this evening is to be pummeled by a large storm created by a deep depression in the North Atlantic. Unfortunately I failed to grab last nights synoptic chart, but below is the situation forecast for midnight tonight, the 27th October. Put simply, the black lines which join points of equal pressure are very close together, and in the same way that close contour lines on a map signify steep slopes, the closeness indicates strong winds.

Separately from my studies, CTC's newest course cp113 had APD1 on Friday. APD means Airline preparation day, and throughout the course CTC use these days to help train cadets for the non-technical skills required to successfully pilot an aircraft. Arguably a monkey could be taught to fly (as I have proven), but to be a good airline pilot requires sounds communication, confident decision making, strong situational awareness as well as a flexible approach to tasks. There is some amount of role play but also group discussion to help the learning progress, and as the course progresses the content of the APD changes to maintain relevant. However, cp113's arrival signals the end of cp112 being CTC's babies, and in only three weeks our instruction for module 1 will be over and the exams will be rapidly approaching! 

Enjoy the storm!