Into year 2000!

The way us trainee pilots tend to be taught is start at the basics, the very very basics and then as the weeks progress move into areas which threaten to be 'modern'-  we have been through the 1950/60/70's etc technology (most of which we will never use but have to know). We have now started to study instruments and systems which we will be using day to day as modern day professional pilots, we have moved onto subjects like autopilot- there cannot be many industries were you learn about something which is going to partially take over your job- the autopilot does just that; in some regards- the autopilot is there to relieve pilot fatigue and inputs (officially)- not to replace the pilot- however the autopilot flies the aircraft much better than man will ever be able to, reacting at 1/50th of a second, were as it takes us slow minded pilots 1/5th of a second, hands down the A/P is better at flying, but is useless at making the correct decision, this is were the pilots come in. However more modern planes are now handing some control 'back' to the pilot and reducing automation to give pilots more flying, something which the industry apparently needs.

                                                 

PFD lesson, what we will be looking at day to day

737 sim session from Heathrow

           Gary working in the 'pub' at the end of the garden

My phone tells me its 22 day until school finals, the big ones, before the bigger ones! So as ever we are working hard, but I did find a couple of hours last weekend to sit in on a simulator session, it was excellent, I was given a 'brief' like I was sitting in a real flight deck and when the motion was turned on it all felt very real- quite how you get a deceleration feeling when landing without the simulator moving still beats me...! An excellent insight for things to come.

We have had many births at the house this week with 9 puppies being delivered from 2 springer   spaniels-  I feel they will become a nice work distraction in the coming weeks.

OAA on a clear calm evening

Next week looks fun, lots of lessons, CBT's and I am participating in the OAA open day talking to potential new students. 

Hope you had a good weekend.

PS- I must thank the guys on twitter who have found my blog and retweeted it- very kind of you to take an interest.