I hope to visit Belfast at some point Andrew!

Wow, ok, don’t really know where to start, but the beginning is usually a good place. Arrived at OAT yesterday at 10AM to meet my instructor, Paul Armstrong. Paul used to train at OAT himself and it was also his first day in the new job!

We had an extensive first day briefing explaining all the noise abatement procedures around the airport (there are a lot!) and then having a detailed look at the air space around Oxford. For VFR traffic the actual air space is very limited. To the immediate south we have Brize Norton which is restricted military air space, a little further South East we have Heathrow, Gatwick and London City airports. To the East we have Luton and Stansted, to the West Bristol and to the North Birmingham. The majority of our initial flying would be conducted over at Wescott and Milton Keynes.

The great thing about training at Oxford Aviation is that everything is set out as it would be in an airline and from day one you have to conduct everything, briefings, checks, flight logging in our airline ops department. So yesterday we briefed in the ops centre before logging the basic flying details into the computers, filing our VFR flight plan up to the tower and checking the weather. Yesterday runway 19 was in use and we had winds coming from the South west at about 20kts, gusting to 25kts…pretty hairy stuff when you’re flying a warrior!

We made our way out to the aircraft where I performed a supervised walk around. I had about 2.5 hours flying before I started the course and have done a couple of walk arounds, but never performed the take off or landing. Anyway, everything seemed in order and we got into our aircraft, G-BOUR and went through the pre-flight checks, once again, we use airline style check lists to get us used to the environment as soon into the course as possible. Everything was in order so we called to the tower for taxi clearance. After initially taxiing off the grass Paul, completely to my surprise, handed control over to me and told me that I would be taxiing us to the runway and lining us up. So we taxied to holding point Charlie for RWY 19. We held behind a departing Seneca before lining up. Paul then looked over to me and told me to get the thing in the air!!! :S I applied full throttle and at 65kts pulled back on the yoke, and low and behold we were airborne..simple!

The weather was not great yesterday and was pretty bumpy. We climbed to 3,000 feet where we performed some simple turns and got used to VFR navigation using landmarks. After about 30 minutes I wasn’t feeling too great and I’m ashamed to say, I threw up! I blame this entirely on nerves however!!

We headed back to Oxford it’s incredibility tight circuit, making a last minute left turn to establish ourselves on finals for 19. The approach felt like it was Kai Tak it was that tight!

Anyway, after hitting the sack early last night I got up at 7 this morning for a 9AM departure. As before we went through the normal airline style briefings. Today I was making two flights, both in G-BUMR. I performed the walk around unaccompanied and then, now feeling quite confident, taxied the aircraft to the runway, once again 19 for our departure. The airport was very busy this morning and we had to hold for about five minutes behind two arriving aircraft and a departing Seneca. I lined us up and applied full power and once again we were away. Luckily having relaxed into things my sickness had retreated and I was feeling very comfortable. The weather was great for our first flight with very few clouds in the sky. We performed so extreme unbalanced procedures to see how I recovered the aircraft and after about an hour we returned to base for an hours break and some lunch.

The afternoon I was once again flying Mike Romeo. We did very much the same as we had in the morning but flew out to the East a bit further, over flying Cranfield before turning back for home. Paul told me to line us up for finals, which I did, I then waited for him to say ‘I have control’ 800 feet, and still he hadn’t said anything, 400 feet and he still hadn’t said anything and then I looked across and he was smiling moronically at me!! I continued on finals and at the last minute flared, landing very close to the centre line and without bouncing 😀 I was very proud of myself!! After 2.55 hours of flying I had landed on my own, and not a bad one either 😀

I taxied us onto stand and we debriefed before calling it a day. I’m on leave now until next Thursday, but I’m scheduled to go up for four flights on Thursday next week and will probably be going solo on Friday. It soon comes around!

I’ll get the web site up and running when I get a chance. Sorry for the lack of photos, I haven’t really had a chance to take any yet! Just in case anyone is interested, my call sign in Oxford 86!

Expect to do loads of cross country flying while hour building.

That’s the plan! I’m being encouraged to fly into as many big airports as possible. I’ve got the majority of the UK on my list and I’m also planning to tour Germany and Italy to visit Dresden, Niederrhein, Rome Ciampino etc.

SuperFlyBoy.com should be online in the next day or so all being well..that incredibly egotisitcal web domain has been purchased by myself!

Now there’s a job I wouldn’t mind! Thanks NCLRULES!

I can’t say too much because nothing is set in stone and I don’t want to tempt fate, but I hopefully have a job lined up for when I finish in August. I can’t say who for or flying what or from where quite yet, but I’ll keep you all updated.

Thanks guys! Glad to hear both of your commetns Wysi and Skycruiser. During the meeting yesterday the CGI was insisting that if I left the APP BA would never look at me, however having just looked at the BA Citiexpress recruitment page they don’t seem to give a flying monkeys!!

As you say Ian, this gives me a chance to really enjoy my flying. The intense, and dare I say it somewhat military way in the which groundschool is conducted on the APP did not suit me or the way I work. It was a very intensive slog as opposed to a course in which I could excel and try and digest everything I was leanring. I think that by flying and doing the theory alongside I’m going to be in a much better position to really blitz the exams.

Furthermore, I don’t even want to go to BA! I want prospects damn it 😀