Final Entry

Here we are, this is the final post I'm going to write into this blog and it's already 2017..! :)

I'm writing this post sitting in a hotel room near my home base as I have standby rostered for today and that certainly led me into being bored enough to finally decide to write something here..

As you might have guessed, I have now managed to get what I so much wanted during the years in flight school: A job as an airline pilot. I am now a First Officer flying a Bombardier CRJ-900 regional jet mainly in the regions of Scandinavia and Northern Europe. I have been an employee of the company for over a year now, been flying for about 10 months and currently have about 500 hours on type and a total time of a bit more than 1000 hours.

In addition to working very hard during the whole flight school to an extent that I really can say that I'm proud of myself, I have also been very lucky. The times were just starting to get a bit better during the last phases of my pilot education, and this led to nice opportunities from the start. A flight instructor course started in autumn 2014 in the same flight school I was enrolled in, and I decided to attend the course since there were no obvious other opportunities available at the time.

The course went nicely and everyone of us got a freelance-instructor job from the same school. I started flight instructing on PPL-level and this also led to an opening in our school's parent company, were I started flying the King Air commercially every now and then, flying mainly cargo flights between Finland and Sweden, but also some charter and ambulance flights.

My first year after graduating went by like this, instructing at my previous school and flying the King Air maybe once or twice a month. I gathered about 100 hours of instructing and about 60 hours flying the King. Then I heard about a random email address regarding a possible new regional jet operation in Scandinavia through the grapevine of our company/school, sent an application and a CV with absolutely no connections or information, and here I am now. That's how strange and unpredictable life is :)

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So, that's it! I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog and I hope that some of you find the information and stories here interesting and motivating if you are considering this profession or are already studying to become a pilot. I sure have enjoyed writing this from the beginning and as I have mentioned, I have written this as much to myself as for you all. This is a great way to look back on those few flight school years, that go by more quickly than what I'd never imagined!

I can truly recommend this job for all who are interested in aviation. For me, this job is exactly what I thought it is. If you expect the right things and and are truly interested in the core of the job itself and are prepared to work hard, this is a very nice and good way to make a living. There definitely are downsides, but for me the upsides make up for them.

Remember not to expect unrealistic things to come out of this. Sometimes it all gets very tiring. At times, you would very much rather stay at home than go flying and believe me, seeing the sunrise from above the clouds, how beautiful it may look, definitely isn't worth waking up at 4am. In my opinion, no job is better than being home with family, friends and personal hobbies. I've always known this and now that I do what I truly want to do for the rest of my life, it's all more clear.

I have the best job in the world :)

Finland International Airshow @ EFHF

One week after Tour de Sky there was the Finland International Airshow held at Malmi Airport and yet again I was on duty promoting the school. This time we had quite a lot on offer since examples from our whole fleet we're there for the public to see, including four C152's, the C172. one Piper Turbo Arrow and our sister company Scanwing's King Air C90 (which I'll be flying later on in our training) and even our flagship, the Cessna Citation CJ2+ business jet.

The weekend was fun, although I was very tired when it ended!

Pic's, or it didn't happen:

The C152's on display

Cessna 172 Crew ;)

One of each type we're flying in our training

Tour de Sky @ Oulu Airport

I got a chance to go to an airshow called Tour de Sky, which was held at Oulu Airport in northern Finland to present our school once again. We flew there with the school's Piper Turbo Arrow OH-PGA with three other schoolmates and stayed for the weekend. It was very nice to get a chance to fly cross-country with the Piper. We flew to Oulu via Jyväskylä so everyone could fly at least one leg.

Flight to Oulu, sitting as a passenger on the right seat

The weekend went nicely and people were quite interested in our Piper and school overall. It was nice to get to talk to different people and of course see all the airshow participants. There was quite a lot of jets, for example an Italian team called "Frecce Tricolori" consisting of ten jet fighters doing formation flying. Other memorable show's were the F-16 Demo Team from Holland and the MIG-29 from Eastern Europe.

Our nice PGA on display

SL's Dream Team

The crowd was quite interested in our aircraft, but we were more interested on the fighter jets ;)

Frecce Tricolori

A real 1:1 Hawker Hurricane. We got a chance to get a closer look on this beauty at Jyväskylä airport, where we both happened to land to refuel. 

Back to Malmi

Jämi Fly In 2014

I attended Jämi Fly In once again this year. We flew there with my schoolmate and hanged at the airfield for the day. I really liked this year's airshow since it included a lot of WWI fighters, which I am very fond of. It was nice to see the Fokker Dr.1 again and also the S.E.5.a for the first time. I was surprised by how small it was. I even thought it was 3/4 scale when I first saw it.

Some WWI warbird action at Jämi

A small update on the situation

Recently I've been extremely busy and it feels all things start to stack up quite a bit. I've practically done aviation-related things from eight to ten hours a day and don't seem to have much of free time for the next few weeks or so.

In addition to some few theoretical studies we have left, I've now been starting to practice question bank exercises more intensively. The final six exams will be on the 16th and 17th of next month. After that, all of it will hopefully be finally over. I have experienced some anxiety since I really want to repeat my success and pass also these six exams on the first time. However, studying seems to be much harder now that summer is knocking on the door and weather gets better and better, so I just have to focus and repeat to myself that passing these exams is the best way I can make all aviation-related things move forward.

We have also had our first briefings on the next phase, which is IR-training in the FNPTII simulator. Our course actually had some simulator flights already planned for this week but we requested to postpone those until the exams are over.

... :)

In addition to school-related things, I have two other flying-related things going on that have been taking a lot of my time. Both of them could be described as work, which I am extremely happy for. However, I've decided not to go too much in depth on those until things become more clear. I don't want to hype things before something actually happens for real.. Also, I have to somehow figure out how to write work-related things here since it's a bit more complicated than writing about school :)

I recently also joined Malmi Aviation Club and was going to start flying with their Cessna 172 and Diamond DA-40 but decided to put those things on hold until I have a little less going on...

Mayday mayday mayday!

Our Mayday holiday started today and since me and one of my course mates didn't have anything special planned for the afternoon, we went to a nice place near EFHK to watch some airliners landing to runway 22L. I'm not very much into plane-spotting and don't even have a real camera but decided to take a few iPad-quality pictures for this blog :)

Japan Airlines / Boeing 787 Dreamliner

Flybe Finland / ATR-72

Finnair / Airbus A340...

...which apparently lost two of its engines right before touchdown ;)

A Visit to Finnish Meteorological Institute

Recently our course visited the Finnish Meteorological Institute, which is situated in Kumpula, Helsinki. We got a presentation on what the institute provides for aviation and how the meteorological information is gathered from different sources and then presented as aviation weather data.

A few screens on one desk. Maybe one of them could be used for facebooking without losing too much data?

It was interesting to see how all those many different sources of information and weather data is gathered and made into an SW-chart for example. This visit was of course part of our ATPL meteorological studies, and with this it came to its end. So now we're supposed to be ready for the school exam!

The Airbus A320 in retro-livery :)

A Visit to EFIN

Last week we visited Finland's Area Control Centre (EFIN), which is located in the city of Tampere. The visit was part of our Air Law studies and we were actually about to go there earlier on but it was postponed to a later date.

Area Control Centre of Finland

The Area Control Centre is responsible for coordinating air traffic that fly over Finland and traffic between airports on national flight routes. We got a short presentation about the building and the history of Finnish ACC, whichafter we could go to the main room where all the actual ATC service and communication is done.

Air Traffic Controllers doing their job and us watching closely :)

It was interesting to see how the controllers managed different flights and very often talked to their closely workmates about situation-related things, informing each other about incoming flights and changes to flight routes or altitudes. Of course there was a lot involved so I didn't get hold of everything that was happening.

The workspace

All in all, it was a nice visit and of a sort that's becoming quite rare nowadays. EFIN is being transferred to Helsinki and it seems getting a visit after that will become much harder.

Meanwhile, ATPL studies continue and hours go by. We've been mainly going through Meteorology, Flight Planning & Monitoring and Radio Navigation. Actually we finished the latter a while ago and already took the school exam. I got 88%, which is okay. Only five more school exams left and then it's time for the final challenge..!

Infinite Flight

I got an iPad Air for Christmas and of course had to search for everything aviation-related from the App Store right away. I found this nice flight sim called "Infinite Flight", which I can very much recommend. You can fly with mainly passenger jets and there's many more limitations mostly because of the limited platform, but I've still enjoyed it very much.

I think the hook for me is that you can plan flights, and make real, mainly VOR-based, IFR-flights, manage the autopilot and set waypoints etc. In addition, landing is actually quite challenging and requires you to stabilize the approach or else everything will fall apart very quickly.

Here's some pictures:

Blue1's B717 is a nice, familiar addition to the fleet.

The cockpit of an ERJ-195. The instruments don't actually work but all important parameters are presented quite nicely otherwise.

A Norwegian B737-800 taking off from one of the airports in the Caribbean.

Quite a nice climb gradient here.

Okay, now back to the books.. :)

Flying to Copenhagen and Kuusamo

The past two weekendends I've been away a bit more than usually. Two weeks ago I got a chance to fly to Copenhagen in order to travel to southern Sweden from there and then drive my sisters car all the way back to Finland. It was a nice trip and I finally got a chance to listen to lots of music by myself while driving. There's nothing better than a long drive and a handful of Anjunabeats- and Future Sound of Egypt -trance music collections!

The weekend after that I flew to Kuusamo with my father for some skiing. It was very nice, although the temperature was about -30 degrees! Here's some flying-related pictures I took:

Our ride home from Kuusamo was the A319. This time I didn't even try to gain a jumpseat position, since I wanted to accompany my father for the duration of the flight. Takeoff sure was quick and with lots of flex power, since it was so cold.

A little anti-icing before takeoff. If I recall correctly, this was my first time I was a passenger on a flight, which needed to go through the remote before takeoff.

My first time in the business class. Food seems to reflect modern times. A few slices of roast beef and cold spaghetti...

...but at least the champagne was free of charge! :>

Christmas holiday begins!

Now it's time to take a little break from studying and travel to Joensuu for some Christmas and New Year holidays. Merry Christmas to all fellow pilots and readers and see you next year! :)

Jämi Fly In 2013

Last sunday we decided to attend Jämi Fly In and fly there with an ultralight airplane with my father. Jämi is situated not too far away from Tampere and the flight time from Nummela airfield is about one hour depending on the wind. Jämi Fly In has traditionally been a very good event which started out as a gathering for experimental airplane pilots and has now evolved into a family event with an airshow and lots of food and aviation related shops and stalls.

Our ultralight parked at Jämi airfield.

The flight to Jämi was nice. We cruised at about 2500 feet and the wind was all the time very light so it was an easy go. I had carefully read through the arrival procedures and made the appropriate user waypoints to the GPS beforehands so navigating and arriving at the airfield didn't pose a problem. There was a certain predefined route, which you had to follow unless instructed otherwise. This was to keep the traffic situation under control although the airfield stayed as an uncontrolled aerodrome for the whole event.

Some aerobatics :)

The airshow included lots of model airplanes, glider aerobatics, other aerobatic performances with a Pitts Special and Su-26, for example, parachuting, experimental airplanes, the Tuulia Team (which flies the same Tuulia's I have a licence for) and the Fouga Magister. My favourite was of course the Fokker DVII, which was flown by a Swedish airline pilot Mikael Carlson. I love WWI fighters and it was very nice to see this one flying!

The Fokker DVII

Another interesting airplane we saw was the Tiira, which is an illegally built experimental aircraft made out of home materials. It uses greenhouse plastic for covering material and has no ailerons. A certain Finnish gentleman built this plane in the 70's and flew many years without a licence until the police came and took the airplane away (he has built at least two new ones after that and continues illegal flying). It now stays in a museum. What's also interesting is that this one hasn't got a single instrument on board. What an aircraft!

I'd like to give this one a go... or maybe not!

I guess this rules out instrument flying?

Travelling to Copenhagen..

I got a chance to fly to Copenhagen for the weekend with my family, with the intention of going to look my sisters newborne horse at the stables in southern Sweden. I gladly accepted since in addition to being fond of animals, I don't really get to fly on airliners that often, maybe once or twice a year.

I tried to make my way into the jumpseat by showing my school ID card but it appears Finnair's company policy is that you have to be in the company in order to make it to the front. Being a student pilot isn't enough, or so the F/O told me at least. However I know random people have made their way to the cockpit so I guess it all depends on the mood of the captain :)

There it is waiting for us, the Airbus 321 :)

Airborne.

Lappeenranta International Airshow 2013

I spent the weekend promoting our school in this year's biggest airshow in Finland, the Lappeenranta International Airshow (LIAS). When I heard of the opportunity to go there for free on behalf of our school, I instantly volunteered to be part of the team. I'm very happy I decided to go there instead of spending a free weekend in Helsinki.

After setting everything up we mainly did promotional work from about ten a.m. to five or six p.m. talking to people and telling facts about our training whenever asked and so on. The evenings went by in our camping site, which had a nice outdoor grill place and many small cottages for us to sleep in.

All in all, I met many interesting persons, got to know some of my coursemates and older students better and of course saw all the airshow's performers every day. So, a very nice weekend well spent!

Here's some pictures:

Our stand from the front. There was three of our airplanes for the public to see, the C152, Piper Arrow and the King Air.

The Team.

King Air on display. Visitors could also go inside the cabin. I got to spend a lot of time there too. This plane was essentially like a motor home to us during the show.

Promoting Scanwings and the Citation CJ2+.

The Royal Jordanian Falcons aerobatic team. The Jordanian king obviously has a soft spot for aviation.

The Harvard, a military trainer aircraft from the times of WWII.

Finnish Aviation Academy's Embraer Phenom 100, used in multi-engine training.

I got to fly back to Malmi as a passenger in the backseat of our Piper Arrow. Quite a nice way to travel and the view's were fantastic :)

Home at last :)

Plane spotting

Every now and then some pretty interesting aircraft visit Malmi airport and it's nice to walk around the apron taking a closer look on them. Today's guest was the Short SC.7 Skyvan being used as a research airplane by the Aalto University.

The flying box. Probably not the most beautiful airplane in the world.. :)

How's this for symmetry?

Promoting the school @ Air & Motor Show

An event focusing mainly on cars, bikes and aerobatic airplanes called Air & Motor Show was organized today at Malmi. Since our school's operating from there and has lately been doing a lot of work trying to gain more publicity, it was decided we would promote our airline and private pilot's courses at the event. I was of course one of the volunteers who immediately signed up for the task. I've been promoting gliding on behalf of Nummela Gliding Centre before and have always liked to do this sorts of things so I was very happy to attend!

We had a nice stand with our King Air at the front. Back at the hangar there was a Piper on which people could jump into and look at the interior. Inside our hangar there was also four C152's on display. We mainly promoted and handed flyers on our school's new PPL course with the conditional possibility to continue on to professional pilot training after the course.

Our stand and hangar with the King Air C90 on display. This one has an extended nose with a cargo hold making the plane look like a bird with a beak.

Introducing the Piper to a young boy, although I haven't even flown this one yet :)

I spent quite a while on the captain's seat of our King Air, checking everything out.. A very fine airplane, can't wait to fly this next year!

I took a little detour and checked out the competing flight school's Cirrus SR22, a nice and modern IFR-, G1000- and anti-ice equipped four-seater.