The Start of The Aviation Dream: June 2016

The advanced phase of simulator training consisted more of the same in the intermediate phase but refining the techniques and putting in more complex failures combined with flying short routes like between Leeds and Glasgow. In this short space of time we were given a situation like another bomb on board or smoke to deal with and for those 2 situations you basically need to land ASAP! There isn't much time to really brief a normal approach so you just brief the essentials and get the thing on the ground. Other failures included starting engines using different techniques because the apu was inop or the starter was faulty or even if you are doing a hot start there is a technique used. The advanced phase was also consolidation of the things we had learnt in intermediate phase like flying with single engine and then unusual attitude recoveries preparing us for our licence skills test.

I found the advanced phase the most challenging of all of the training which wasn't helped by a few 0615 starts in the simulator meaning I needed to be out of bed by 4am! I think I ended up having 5 or 6 early's by the time I finished advanced phase.

Before we knew it, our licence skills test was upon us! There were only 10 details before the big test. The licence skills test for the Qatar MPL is carried out by a training captain from Qatar so has no relation to CTC at all. We turned up for the big day not knowing what to expect and had been revising all possible scenarios he could chuck at us. He made us feel at ease a little during the briefing by discussing the main things we will be doing during the flight. I was up first with my sim partner monitoring what I was doing and doing the radio calls. The pressure of knowing it was a test got to me a bit and I thought that throughout my flight, I hadn't done particularly well. I can't even remember what my failure was now as there was so much going on. I had to put that half of the test behind me and do the best job I could do as pilot monitoring for my sim partners turn to fly. I certainly did a better job at monitoring than I did flying. I felt me and my partner worked well together. 5 hours later we had finished our test and shut down the plane. Thankfully we were put out of our misery as soon as we got out of our seats and congratulated us on our flight.

Our debrief went well, he was very pleased with how our flight went and the main pointers he had for us were basically things that Qatar actually do instead of what we had been taught. This is because there is a slight disconnect between CTC and Qatar, new information is slow to reach CTC so we are left learning old procedures. However, saying that, there is a new training manager at CTC who came from Qatar earlier this year and he is now updating all the procedures to fall inline with current Qatar procedures which will be good for future people coming through.

On my way home I had organised a test drive in a few new Range Rovers to treat myself and get a feel of what I'd like to get in Qatar. The test drive didn't make my decision any easier because they were both really nice vehicles! Other things that happened over the last few weeks were that the flying Scotsman (steam train for those who don't know) came through town so I, along with thousands of other people stood in the rain to get a glimpse at it going past. Another big event that happened in Southampton was watching the worlds largest cruise ship (Harmony Of The Seas) leave on it's maiden voyage. The ship is huge! I went to Portsmouth with my parents for a couple days to see all the ships

So that's it for me at CTC, I will be helping out at a couple shows for CTC but other than that, my next blog post will be after I have moved to Qatar on 14th August. Between now and then I will be busy trying to sort all the paperwork, vaccinations, medical renewals, deciding what I would like to take with me and of course catching up with family and friends before the big day.