torstai 28. elokuuta 2014

Final FNPT flights!

Yet another phase is behind me :)

I've now flown all of the FNPT simulator exercises (35 of them) and logged about 38 hours in the simulator, with another 38 observing from the right seat. I can't believe I've spent over three consecutive days in the sim!

OFP

Our last three flights were cross-country exercises. The first one was from Malmi to Lappeenranta which after we did some approaches so that the whole flight lasted about two hours. The next day it was time to fly from Malmi to Tampere and the last one was from Helsinki-Vantaa to Turku, which after we made a diversion to Tampere. The last flight was a so-called evaluation flight, where the school evaluates whether our progress has been good enough in order to move to the real airplane.

All in all these flights were quite demanding, since we also had to do all the necessary preflight planning as if we were about to fly the flights in real-life. Luckily I got overall above-than-average grades from the evaluation, despite a few embarrassing mistakes.

Now it's time to move on.. The Piper Turbo Arrow IV awaits, yet again! :)

maanantai 18. elokuuta 2014

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

sunnuntai 17. elokuuta 2014

FNPT Instrument Approaches

Simulator training has now progressed to the point that we've currently been doing approach flights. Basically we're spending the whole 1-hour session doing a certain approach procedure usually either on both ends of the runway or to one direction only. These approach flights have been a bit more challenging than doing only holdings or radio navigation exercises but still I don't feel like there's too much to handle.

ILS Y to RWY 15 at Helsinki-Vantaa

We started with a few ILS precision approach flights and continued with a few more VOR-based non-precision approaches, followed by NDB approaches and then went back to flying ILS's. All of these differ somewhat and in my opinion, although ILS is the precision approach and guides you usually very close to the runway center line, which makes it quite comfortable and induces quite a low-workload after you've adjusted to the procedure, I somehow like doing also the VOR and NDB approaches. There's a certain amount of fun included in the fact that they are not so precise and so you don't have to have everything so spot-on as in the ILS approaches. It is easier to accept that you might be a little high on the glide path or a little bit to the side. It's hard to explain, but all in all I think it has been very fun doing all of these interesting approaches.

We also flew one RNAV approach flight, and it seems they are also quite easy and you usually have very much time in your hands since the procedures are quite long usually. RNAV seems to be the way of the future so I think I'll be doing these quite a lot more in the future.

Also one interesting exercise was the circling approach, although it was pretty hard to simulate it since there's no side-view's in our FNPT trainer. In the circling approach, you basically do an approach to one runway and when you get it in sight, you circle to the opposite end of the runway visually keeping the runway in sight and then land visually. They are done usually if only one side of the runway has an instrument approach and the wind favors the opposite end, or if there is some kind of an obstacle that prevents approaching the intended runway directly (like a mountain, for example). Very interesting.

Lastly, there was the SRA and PAR approaches. These are somewhat rare and strange approaches, since the PAR, for example, is a precision approach that requires the plane to have a VHF radio only! The approach, flying to the correct direction and descending at the correct rate in relation to the runway is all done with the voice of a qualified ATCO, and eventually you find yourself from the runway. The SRA is basically a non-precision brother of the PAR.

So, only a few flights left and then it's time to move to the real airplane!

maanantai 11. elokuuta 2014

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. 

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