The blog post iv been wanting to write!

During training there are a few milestones we have to achieve,

Bye books!

1. Passing ground school with over 85% average in EASA ATPL
2. Passing Commercial Pilots License
3. Passing Instrument rating
4. and getting a job with an airline.

I am very happy to say I have passed all my EASA Airline Transport Pilot Exams with a 92% average. All my post to this point have been leading up to this to say- I have passed my EASA's!

So what is next, a whole fresh set of challenges and learning, but far more practical as we are now sent over to Phoenix to embark on learning how to fly aircraft in an aircraft and not a classroom, much more practical, less theory.

However,

The road to this point did not run smoothly, after we finished our last EASA we were informed we had a meeting with the centre manager that day, the beer was put on hold.. sounds ominous! AP360 were told we were being split up, half staying in the UK to do their CPL and half going the USA with a 1 month delay to do theirs. The reason being is bitter sweet, the early flight training instructors in the USA are traditionally American recently qualified ATPL pilots looking to gain hours and then move into an airline, but because of a change in law and the demand for pilots, consequentially instructors are hard to come by, good there are jobs out there, bad we all cannot go.

It was a shame to split our group up because we have a great group of pilots but volunteers were found to stay in the UK and the rest of us get to pack our bags but by the sounds of it- it maybe a blessing for some people who have commitments in the UK- I am going to the US.

Just finished exams and waiting for the meeting

After we had the news we all went to our planned meal in Oxford, it was great to have everyone out and a relief that we didn't have to worry about exams for now as the results came the next day, 5 instructor also came out and we where pleased to see they were not driving and got stuck in! I moved out of my house that weekend and came home. Shutting the door of my rented room for (what I hoped) was the last time was strange, I had sat in that room for so many hours at a time, (my record was 20 hours at the desk- showoff...) pouring over work like so many others on my course and now it was over- I was pleased to be moving on!

AP360 in Oxford

The week after we also had the Flight Safety Week at Oxford which was an introduction to practical flying, we also had 2 days of university work to do, for example, finding evidence for an argument and having a team on team debate, our topic was the expansion of Heathrow, I was on the 'for' team- it was a good in-depth discussion and got a little heated at times like we were barristers disputing each other evidence! If I could of shouted 'objection' I would of done...  On the 4th day the course also had a British Airways Senior First Officer come in called Karl Cambridge- the day was a very interesting consisting of team exercises and hearing an insight of day to day pilot life-  then came the last day, the best day, not because it was the last day, but because we where picking up our headset and other training equipment and having the Phoenix brief on what lies ahead- it sounds great!

Dickie (ground instructor) and I

So to cut a long story short I am due to leave the country on the 23rd of November and return at the end of April, I am truly excited to get into the cockpit and start flying- the thing we all want to do. The hard work is going to start again soon, in a totally new environment and structure with some very different challenges coming up, e.g. weather related or even scorpion on what iv heard.

The count down calendar

Getting kitted up

In the mean time I am going to relax, do some degree work and get ready for America. I am also representing OAA down at Heathrow at the Flyer Show on Saturday the 1st of November, come down, should be a good!
http://www.pilottrainingexhibitions.com/london/

Thanks for reading as ever.