I'm now a fully qualified student pilot... again!

Today we flew a cross-country flight, which was the last of the four flights included in our rehearsal programme. Now I can fly cross-country as pilot in command in addition to traffic circuit and training area sorties. Our route was from Malmi to Hyvinkää, Lahti-Vesivehmaa, Mikkeli, Lappeenranta, Kymi and from there back to Malmi. So a total of six landings, of which four were touch and go's.

The Cap, ready for flight.

I've also been gaining a little pilot in command time flying in the training area. Sometimes I really need to shake myself awake and realize what I actually get to do on a daily basis. I don't have to endure some uninteresting job or read books and study things I'm not at all interested in. Okay, some of our theory subjects do not exactly lift me up to cloud nine but all in all, I am interested in every aspect of aviation and am trying to respect all of the different subjects related.

Ice is finally beginning to melt and summer is coming ^^

Flying is so much fun. Sometimes it gets daunting when you've done hard work planning and calculating everything and then the weather ruins everything or some technical problem arises, but once you get into the air, you forget all of that and it's always worth the trouble :)

Our little Cessna parked at the refueling lot in Lappeenranta Airport.

At Lappeenranta Airpot there was an old DC-3 parked in the civil apron. A very nice looking bird and in quite a good condition. Seems to be owned by an American museum called Hiller Aviation Museum. 

A fascinating sight, can I go flying already?

Exhibiting and promoting glider flying!

I spent some hours last weekend at Model Expo in behalf of Nummela Gliding Centre promoting sailplanes as a recreational activity and hobby. I have done a few of these gigs in the past and it's quite nice when you get to talk to people who are qenuinely interested and ask a lot of good questions about sailplane flying.

Our objective was to try and get new people to sign up for introductory flights, basic gliding courses and introduction courses. I think we caught a few people :)

Our stand, shared by Suomen Ilmailuliitto.

We also had a homemade gliding simulator to attract guests. It's a cockpit of a real glider and the software running is a commercial "Condor" gliding simulator.

Changing the language to English

I've decided to change the language of my blog from Finnish to English. This is mainly because I want my posts to be easily accessible and understandable to readers from everywhere in the world and because I think that English would suit this blog better.
This also allows me to gain a fair bit of good practise on my English language skills, which are quite essential in the world of aviation.

Since I don't yet have too many blog entries and for the sake of consistency, I will be randomly translating my previous posts. This will of course take a while and I don't plan to rush it.

Bad weather has been a bit of a problem lately and I sure hope that it would be possible to fly on thursday and friday. Well see then :)

Flying continues..!

The long-awaited flight period finally began this week! Last year we managed to fly about the same flights corresponding to the PPL flight training (which includes about 50 hours). Actually just the two last cross-country flights to controlled and uncontrolled aerodromes were all that I didn't get to fly last year because of weather and the beginning of our theory course.
So now we are supposed to continue where we left from. Our flight instructors have made a rehearsal programme to us, which includes one flight in the traffic circuit, one training area excercise, one basic instrument flying excercise and one cross-country flight. Last tuesday I flew the first two of these and now I am qualified to fly solo in traffic circuit and training area again.

Cessna-flights continue! I sure missed these little birds :)

Our CPL flight syllabus includes a total of 185 hours of flying divided into four different phases (not to be confused with the phases in the index I made). Last year we completed phase 1, which included all the flights up to the point where you are qualified to fly your first solo flight. Before the beginning of the theory course, we got almost into what's the end of phase 2. Phase one and two combined match the requirements for the private pilot's licence. So now we're about to enter phase 3, which begins with the familiarisation training to the Cessna 172 and ends to the point where we are ready to begin flying with the Piper Turbo Arrow IV. So phase 4 includes all of the Piper flights.

I bought a nice and handy case for my pilot's logbook :)

However, my course's familiarisation training for the 172 is delayed a bit further and for the meantime we'll continue to fly happily with the 152. Tomorrow, if weather allows, I am about to fly a couple of solo flights. Flying sure feels very exiting after such a long period of theory studying!

CPL theoretical examinations

For the last two days we have been sitting and doing the CPL theoretical examinations at the Finnish CAA, called TraFi. I must say that it hasn't been easy at all.. When you combine the facts that there's a huge load of subjects to master, very little time and a fast pace and the fact that most of the exams and some questions are ridiculous and unfair, it's fairly apparent that this is no easy task. We have students with background from a university (like I do) and universities of applied sciences and everybody agrees that the studies are comparably challenging.

So we had two days to sit through the 13 exams and apparently we were the first course to do the tests with a computer, that randomly selects different questions to each examinee. Most schools don't do the CPL exams at all, since the usual way is to go straight to the ATPL phase after basic theory and flight training. I think doing the CPL first, although it doesn't save time or money, is nice since you get to know the books and subjects before diving to the ATPL exams. I'm no longer afraid of the ATPL since now I know what's ahead, and we are going to have a lot more time sitting through the ATPL theory lessons (about 500 hours compared to 200) and after all, there's really not that much new things in the course compared to CPL theories. I'd say the CPL includes about 75% to 85% of the ATPL subjects.

We'll have to wait a while for the results, but to be honest I am fairly sure that I did not manage to pass them all in one go. The computer generated nothing but complex mathematical questions for me in general navigation and I just didn't have enough time. At least now I know what to do differently in the ATPL. And ATPL is the one that counts. I'm aiming for a first-time pass with at least 90% average.

Flying will start next week with a litte rehearsal flight programme created to us by our flight instructors.

Theoretical exams around the corner...

Tomorrow it begins. In the morning I have to head for the main building of Finnish CAA (TraFi) and do the CPL theoretical examinations. So today is the last day of our studying break and I think I should do some quick rehearsals with the flight computer and answer some random questions from the bank. There's so much to remember and I definitely don't feel ready enough..!