Sorry once again for lack of updates. Thought I'd pass this on about Wednesday's accident involving one of FTE's Warriors: the local paper has a good picture. If anyone is able to furnish me with a rough translation of the Spanish, t'would be fantastic.
Information so far is that the engine failed downwind in the circuit (solo student), and he put it in a field on realising he wouldn't make the runway. The landing was apparantly textbook up until the point where it hit a small ridge in the middle of the field (which hadn't been visible from above), which took out the landing gear. The pilot walked away from it though, which is the important thing.
More than that, we'll have to wait for the accident report...
Friday, 20 February 2009
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
The Story So Far...
In the beginning, the universe was created...
...actually, let's skip on a bit from there (with apologies to the late Douglas Adams). Grovelling apologies also for not having updated this recently - it's been rather a frantic couple of weeks. Anyway, I shall attempt to summarise the last couple of weeks of life at FTE. Wish me luck...
I arrived on that Thursday evening after the weird and wonderful journey (as retold in excruciating detail previously) and was met at the airport by one of my course mentors, Annie. Course Mentors (of the student variety - another variety appears later) are students on a more senior course (there are about 10 courses starting per year, each with between 8 and 14 students, average about 12 I think) who are assigned to a new course to help them settle in, show them the ropes, get them drunk, etc. Thursday ended with a visit to the bar (very very cheap drinks, models of aircraft made from beer cans stuck to the ceiling) and an introduction to the rest of my course, who were already there, having flown Ryanair on the Wednesday.
Friday during the day involved all the various admin-type things: lots of paperwork, photographs for the air-side pass, uniform fitting, introductions to various important people, and picking up the course materials. This turned out to be a leather flight case with various odds and ends in, and the 9 large ring binders with the Phase 1 course notes on. It's at this point that it hits you just how much you've got to learn in the next 19 weeks...
Having done all of this, we were released from the interminable mountain of paperwork in time for Happy Hour at the bar. Inconceivable though it may seem, the €1.80 Beer is reduced significantly in price on Fridays from 5 to 6pm, and Saturdays from 8 to 9pm. Following this quite healthy warm up, we were taken in to town for the traditional FTE night out. This apparently involves several drinks at a bar, followed by dinner at a Mexican restaurant (where, while waiting for a table, our mentors and their friends plied us - and themselves - with improbable quantities of Margarita), followed by more drinking, followed by a visit to Bereber, the local nightclub. I gave up due to exhaustion well before Bereber, and came back around midnight, but I found out later that those with more stamina wandered back to campus at around 6am. The definition of a good night out here is when you go to Saturday breakfast before going to bed...
The rest of the weekend was rather quiet (owing in no small part to the hangovers some people were nursing), and also that we needed to hit the ground running first thing on Monday.
The ground training schedule here is actually rather good - each lesson is one hour long, and there's a 15 minute break between each lesson, during which you can go to the crew room, which has tea, coffee and toast available 24/7. This all does a rather good job of breaking up the day and keeping you focused for the whole time. 6 lessons in a day, with an hour in the middle for lunch. Basically you're working 9-5, but with 2 hours off at various intervals in the meantime.
The ground instructors are mostly ex-military types of some description (quite a lot are Flight Engineers, Navigators, etc.), and most of our ones are teaching us their specialist subject. You get some real characters though, such as (without mentioning names) the misanthropic South African who insists that the classroom globe be turned upside down to show the southern hemisphere at the top ("it's the top of the world you know"); and the one who reminds me inescapably (in terms of voice and certain mannerisms) of Mr McKay from Porridge... We also get one instructor assigned as our Course Mentor (as distinct from the Course Mentors...) who keeps half an eye out and helps us settle in.
So that's been my schedule for the past week and a half - 6 lessons per day, 5 days per week, spending an hour or two in the evenings looking over what was covered that day, and then chilling out. Tests come at various times - the Week 9 Progress Tests in all the ground school subjects are the first big milestone, followed by the (internal) Mocks, which happen the week before the real exams on 1st and 2nd June. It sounds like a long way away, but it apparently arrives rather quickly.
These first exams are 6 multiple choice papers, and cover all the material of Phase 1. Phase 2 alternates flying with groundschool, day in, day out, and there are then a further 8 exams. The pass mark is 75% (but most airlines want to see significantly above that).
That about sums up my time here so far. This weekend my course are off to Gibraltar for the day - looking to stock up on essentials at Morrisons, and use the duty-free benefits to the full.
My parents are also coming out here in a couple of weeks, and then again over Easter. Not sure quite when I'll crack and need a weekend at home in Blighty, but I'm told it happens...
...actually, let's skip on a bit from there (with apologies to the late Douglas Adams). Grovelling apologies also for not having updated this recently - it's been rather a frantic couple of weeks. Anyway, I shall attempt to summarise the last couple of weeks of life at FTE. Wish me luck...
I arrived on that Thursday evening after the weird and wonderful journey (as retold in excruciating detail previously) and was met at the airport by one of my course mentors, Annie. Course Mentors (of the student variety - another variety appears later) are students on a more senior course (there are about 10 courses starting per year, each with between 8 and 14 students, average about 12 I think) who are assigned to a new course to help them settle in, show them the ropes, get them drunk, etc. Thursday ended with a visit to the bar (very very cheap drinks, models of aircraft made from beer cans stuck to the ceiling) and an introduction to the rest of my course, who were already there, having flown Ryanair on the Wednesday.
Friday during the day involved all the various admin-type things: lots of paperwork, photographs for the air-side pass, uniform fitting, introductions to various important people, and picking up the course materials. This turned out to be a leather flight case with various odds and ends in, and the 9 large ring binders with the Phase 1 course notes on. It's at this point that it hits you just how much you've got to learn in the next 19 weeks...
Having done all of this, we were released from the interminable mountain of paperwork in time for Happy Hour at the bar. Inconceivable though it may seem, the €1.80 Beer is reduced significantly in price on Fridays from 5 to 6pm, and Saturdays from 8 to 9pm. Following this quite healthy warm up, we were taken in to town for the traditional FTE night out. This apparently involves several drinks at a bar, followed by dinner at a Mexican restaurant (where, while waiting for a table, our mentors and their friends plied us - and themselves - with improbable quantities of Margarita), followed by more drinking, followed by a visit to Bereber, the local nightclub. I gave up due to exhaustion well before Bereber, and came back around midnight, but I found out later that those with more stamina wandered back to campus at around 6am. The definition of a good night out here is when you go to Saturday breakfast before going to bed...
The rest of the weekend was rather quiet (owing in no small part to the hangovers some people were nursing), and also that we needed to hit the ground running first thing on Monday.
The ground training schedule here is actually rather good - each lesson is one hour long, and there's a 15 minute break between each lesson, during which you can go to the crew room, which has tea, coffee and toast available 24/7. This all does a rather good job of breaking up the day and keeping you focused for the whole time. 6 lessons in a day, with an hour in the middle for lunch. Basically you're working 9-5, but with 2 hours off at various intervals in the meantime.
The ground instructors are mostly ex-military types of some description (quite a lot are Flight Engineers, Navigators, etc.), and most of our ones are teaching us their specialist subject. You get some real characters though, such as (without mentioning names) the misanthropic South African who insists that the classroom globe be turned upside down to show the southern hemisphere at the top ("it's the top of the world you know"); and the one who reminds me inescapably (in terms of voice and certain mannerisms) of Mr McKay from Porridge... We also get one instructor assigned as our Course Mentor (as distinct from the Course Mentors...) who keeps half an eye out and helps us settle in.
So that's been my schedule for the past week and a half - 6 lessons per day, 5 days per week, spending an hour or two in the evenings looking over what was covered that day, and then chilling out. Tests come at various times - the Week 9 Progress Tests in all the ground school subjects are the first big milestone, followed by the (internal) Mocks, which happen the week before the real exams on 1st and 2nd June. It sounds like a long way away, but it apparently arrives rather quickly.
These first exams are 6 multiple choice papers, and cover all the material of Phase 1. Phase 2 alternates flying with groundschool, day in, day out, and there are then a further 8 exams. The pass mark is 75% (but most airlines want to see significantly above that).
That about sums up my time here so far. This weekend my course are off to Gibraltar for the day - looking to stock up on essentials at Morrisons, and use the duty-free benefits to the full.
My parents are also coming out here in a couple of weeks, and then again over Easter. Not sure quite when I'll crack and need a weekend at home in Blighty, but I'm told it happens...
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