First day of IFR training!

Today was our first day of instrument flight training and I've now flown for two hours with the FNPTII simulator!

FNTP II

Our IR-training consists in total of 50 hours of flying, of which 35 hours are flown with our FNPTII (Flight Navigation Procedures Trainer), which is a fixed-base "simulator" that emulates the flight characteristics of the Piper Turbo Arrow. After the FNPT flights, 15 hours are flown with the real plane and hopefully at least a few of the hours in actual instrument meteorological conditions.

My "office" at the moment

The first three flights (of which two I've now flown) are not actually part of the IR syllabus but are intended to give a little introduction to the trainer and make students comfortable with the controls before the actual IR training begins. However, we already did some interesting flight figures and ILS approaches just for practice.

ILS

Flying with the FNPT is actually quite demanding and somehow more challenging than the real aircraft since it's much harder to keep in trim. After two flights I already felt quite exhausted and tired. But after all, I like the challenge and can't wait to learn new things as we progress further.

Until then..!

At last it's behind me!

Whoa.. Frankly, I'm speechless at the moment.

I did the last half of the ATPL exams today and the day before, and I just got to know that I have managed to pass them all! I have thus reached my goal, which was to pass all of the exams in one go and with good grades. I couldn't be happier!

Never worked so hard for a piece of paper :)

Here's a little summary:

Subjects in total: 14
Number of practice questions answered: 22 542
Hours spent studying: Countless!
Average score: 91,4%

Well deserved..!

Now it's time to focus solely on flying! See you next time when the Instrument Flight Training begins! :)