Week 59: Full motion, upset, and a careers day.

As part of the upset recovery training I had two flights with full motion this week, the first in the Boeing 737-800 (the type used by Ryanair) and the second in the Airbus A320 which I am more used to. During the first we went through the upset recovery elements, then had a look at single engine flight and how the workload quickly ramps up for the pilot flying. This led us nicely onto an instrument approach at Edinburgh, where Matt had the chance to perform his first landing with the motion on. It was a fairly firm touchdown but at least he touched down! On my attempt, even though the touchdown was smooth, this was following a long 'float' down the runway, where I only touched down with about half the runway remaining. To say I was getting uncomfortable as the red lights of the runway end approached would be an understatement, and stopping with about 100m to spare wasn't the best!

Things for all three of us improved in the Airbus, and following more upset in both Normal and Alternate law, we had the chance to perform an instrument approach to Gatwick. Whatever I did, or however much luck was involved both my landing's were really smooth, so i'm a bit happier as I hadn't had much practice actually landing and it felt good to 'grease' it on. I'm putting both down to beginners luck, but we won't know until the motion goes back on in January.

The only other news was CTC Aviation's open day at Nursling which myself and my housemates volunteered our Saturday for. The most exciting and notable part of the day was the attendance of the Virgin Atlantic pilot management team, who were publicising the recent opening of the Future Flyers programme. Unfortunately the weather yesterday was awful, and the subsequent traffic on the motorways caused about a third of guests to be delayed or unable to attend. On the upside this meant there were periods where the sims were empty, so I got to have a few plays in more challenging conditions. This included a bit of fun in Geneva, where an instrument rating instructor from Bournemouth and I had a race to see who could fly the quickest circuit in the Airbus.....which i'm proud to say I won with a time just over 4 minutes! 

This afternoon i'm flying with a new instructor, and we're also looking at single engine flight and procedures in the A320. As much as we'd had a go in the 737, we were simply shutting the engine down and concentrating on the manual control, whereas now we'll learn and practice the procedures we will use as working pilots. Enjoy the week.