G SXTY
29th Jun 2008, 22:47
I have posted this because I want to illustrate what is involved in getting from starry-eyed wannabe to airline pilot. Hopefully it will encourage some guys who are just starting off (just as Pilot Pete's story inspired me a few years ago). It's also a reminder of just how long and difficult the journey can be. Some people will have had an easier path to the airlines, I know that many more have been through much worse than me. It's quite a long read, but that reflects the amount of work required - there are quite a few episodes and experiences that I've left out for reasons of space, but I hope you find it useful nonetheless.
Getting Started
Some people are born wanting to be an airline pilot. Not me, as a kid I wanted to be a train driver. In the end I was neither - after a degree in International Transport, I drifted into a career in steel and shipping. 'Career' is putting it a bit strongly - I worked for a shipping line for a while, than as a steel trader, and finally for British Steel / Corus for eight years - but each job felt like a way of paying the bills rather than a long term career.
I blame Pprune for getting me into flying. I had always been interested in aviation, but the enthusiasm never went further than flight-simming, reading books, going to museums and visiting the spectators' balcony at Heathrow (back in the days when they actually had one). A career as an airline pilot was about as likely as going to the moon, and not knowing anyone in the industry, I naively believed that all airline pilots were either sponsored cadets or ex-military, and I was too old to get into the industry in my late twenties.
Then, around 1999, I discovered Pprune. To my amazement, not only was it possible for older guys to change careers and get into flying, but lots of people were actually doing it. The final push came from a boss at work, who'd had a few flying lessons and reckoned I'd love it. So, having driven past Stapleford aerodrome hundreds of times over the years, one cold and grey November afternoon I finally plucked up the courage to go in - just for a look around, of course. A rather optimistic sign outside said; "Learn to fly from only £45!" and I didn't know any better. Walking into reception I met a group of bored instructors, and was immediately pounced upon. One of them offered to let me have a look at an aircraft, so within minutes I was sat in a Cessna 152. The instrument panel was just like MS Flightsim - only a bit more dog-eared - and I was enthralled (easily impressed in those days). Inevitably, I agreed to go for a trial lesson. We started up, taxied out, took off and the man said; "You have control." And that was it, I was hooked. I knew that whatever else happened, I just wanted to fly. Back on the ground, I was brought back down to earth with a bump - we discussed training costs. I quickly realised I would struggle to fund the PPL, never mind fly as a hobby. But could I really do it as a career? Sitting in the right hand seat of an airliner was maybe now a bit more likely than going to the moon, but only slightly.
A few weeks later I had a business trip which involved flying from Stansted to Amsterdam. It was a horrible winter's morning, cold foggy and dark, but I had with me my logbook and a hand-written note to the skipper, introducing myself as an 'ever so humble student pilot and asking if I could visit the flightdeck. I handed it to the number one as we boarded, and within moments she was back to tell me; "The captain asks if you would like to sit in the flightdeck for takeoff?" I've never been out of my seat so quickly. And so, with me strapped in on the 146's jumpseat, we groped our way out to the runway, lined up and took off into the murk. About 1,000 feet above the ground, the cloud started to lighten, and then we burst out into a stunningly beautiful clear blue sky, above a sea of cotton wool, stretching as far as the eye could see. I was dumbstruck - this really was the moment. All it needed was a trumpet fanfare and choirs of angels singing the Hallelujah chorus. I knew then and there that this was the job for me - I absolutely had to do this every day.
Financial realities meant that progress was slow, and was only possible at all with the support of my wife. With only two lessons per month, it took 5 months before I went solo, but at least I was flying. I was growing increasingly restless at work, and I started to seriously consider speeding things up by quitting my job, taking out a huge loan and signing up for an integrated course. The month was August 2001 . . . Fortunately I resisted the temptation, it seemed too much of a gamble even with a booming job market. Then came 9/11. Within a month, Julie had lost her job in corporate removals - her clients had decided to batten down the hatches and stop moving staff around. With only one income, flying was now out of the question. It was six months before she found work and I could get back into training. Courtesy of the UK weather, there were the usual interminable delays for my cross-country qualifying flight (postponed 13 times) and the final hour of solo cross-country, but eventually I was ready for the skills test. For once the weather was kind - one of those beautiful clear winter days with 50 miles visibility and not a breath of wind. The test itself was a non-event, and felt like a bit of an anti-climax. I'd passed in minimum hours, but it had taken over two years and cost around £6,000. I was impatient to get on - the PPL was out of the way, what was next?
Hours Building
Like many people, I decided to go off to Florida to build some cheap hours. The sensible way would have been to wait a couple of months and get an FAA ticket issued on the back of my new JAA PPL. But I was in a hurry - the PPL had taken too long, I wanted to fly, and I had a block of leave to use up.
I booked up with Naples Air Centre for a few hours conversion training, which would prepare me for a FAA PPL check ride. With this out of the way I would be free to build lots of cheap hours while taking in the sights of Florida. That was the theory - life, as they say, is all about timing. I arrived in Naples to discover that one of the most highly recommended schools in the USA had been shut down the previous day in a dispute with the state authorities. After a couple of days of hanging around hoping for the problem to go away, I joined another school at the airport. Unsurprisingly, their sole C150 was suddenly in great demand . . . As a result I managed to fly less than four hours during my first week in Florida, before the inevitable happened and they too were shut down over the same dispute.
Fortunately I had teamed up with a very helpful and supportive instructor, and suddenly out of work himself, he managed to find another school in nearby Fort Myers where we could rent. Our first flight was interesting, to put it mildly. A night cross-country from Fort Myers to Palm Beach and back, we were flying a rather elderly C150 which - as we found out a little too late - had a blocked fuel line and only sipped avgas from one wing. The full story deserves a chapter on its own, but suffice to say that I learned a lot about flying that evening. The Everglades in the pitch dark is not the best of places to have a fuel emergency, and I have had a healthy obsession with fuel management ever since . . .
Things could only improve after that, and the second week was much better - avoiding 'gators on the runway at Marco Island, looking down on the clouds from 9,000' on the way to Key West, flying IFR through Orlando, in and out of fluffy cumulus, and best of all, being chased down the ILS by a Learjet at Daytona. (Top tip: a 2,000hr FAA IR instructor makes a great safety pilot, and will ensure you get much better use of your time than simply drilling holes in the sky). Even so, I managed just 20hrs flying in two weeks, making the trip an expensive - if valuable - experience. The rest of my hours building was to done back in the UK - pricier and less exotic, but fewer alligators to contend with.
ATPL written exams
Rather like a trip to the dentist, you can only put these off for so long. I bit the bullet around Easter 2004 and signed up with Bristol Ground School. When the first huge pile of books arrived I almost wished I had gone to the dentist instead, but by disciplining myself to stick to a sensible schedule, reading on the train to and from work, and doing progress tests in the evenings, I made steady progress. The only subjects I really struggled with were parts of General Nav. (which almost had me in tears and was clearly designed by some evil navigator as a way of getting back at pilots) and gyroscopes. How do you work out gyroscopic precession? Who knows? Who cares? I finished the second set of exams in May 2005 and was pleasantly amazed to find I had passed them all first time with decent averages. With the ATPLs out of the way and nearly 150hrs in my log book it was almost time for the CPL. Gulp.
Commercial Training (1st attempt)
Thus far all my training and studying had been part time. The day job meant I could pay as I went, meaning I had no debts, although nor did I have any savings. Having researched the CPL and IR, I decided that realistically I could only do them full-time. This meant quitting my job and dipping into the equity in the house, a big step both financially and psychologically. Still, the job market was looking good, I was full of confidence and couldn't wait to get started. Being a cautious type, I had considered my options if everything went pear-shaped. Plan 'B' was to avoid burning any bridges with my previous employer with a view to getting my old job back. Plan 'C' was to sell up, move to the South of France and get a job pushing an ice-cream cart along a nudist beach. I particularly liked plan C.
I booked my CPL with PAT at Bournemouth and ticked off the days while I worked my notice. Then, two days before I finished at Corus, Julie dropped the bombshell. She wanted a divorce. With hindsight, stress had been building in our marriage for some time and for various reasons (not least me spending the last year with my head in the ATPL books). Not for one moment did I see it coming, however, and I was devastated. For a few weeks I tried to muddle on and finish the hours-building, but I could barely cope with the mechanics of flying a Cessna, let alone anything complicated like talking to air traffic control. It became increasingly clear that the CPL was a non-starter; I simply wasn't up to it emotionally, and my funding depended on her financial support. I finally bowed to the inevitable, told PAT I'd have to put things on hold indefinitely and went back cap in hand to get my old job back.
Commercial Training (2nd attempt)
The two years that followed were easily the worst of my life. Having been so close, I resented being back at work and loathed the daily commute with a passion I can barely describe. The airliners flying overhead each day just rubbed in my sense of failure. The divorce dragged on interminably - it was on then off more times than I care to remember. Then my mother was diagnosed with cancer, which if nothing else put all the other 'worries' into perspective. Mercifully she was to make a full recovery, but I knew things couldn't go on like this for much longer.
By early 2007 the 'now or never' moment was fast approaching. I had a year left on my ATPL credits, and I had no intention of re-sitting the exams. The choice was stark and pressing; give up on my dream and settle for a safe, well-paid but boring job, or throw caution to the wind and go for it. It would be a massive gamble; I knew there would be no going back and I would be spending thousands with no guarantee of success. The job market had been strong for several years - how much longer would it continue, and what if I couldn't find a job at the end of it? Objectively, my decision was somewhere between foolhardy and daft, but for the first time in my life, I let my heart overrule my head. I jacked my job in (again) and called PAT.
Once the decision was made, everything became simpler. Suddenly there were no choices to make, no 'what ifs' - it simply had to work, full stop. I started the CPL in August and for once my timing was good. The British summer finally arrived and offered up lots of good VFR days, making nav trips a pleasure. Doing the CPL in a twin added complexity, but I hoped the experience would be useful when it came to the IR. The pressures of spending hundreds of pounds an hour started to mount, however, and by the day of the skills test I was pretty wound up. Not because I couldn't do it - I just knew how much failure would cost. I partialed - on timed turns of all things. I'd had no problem with these during training, and my instructor diagnosed a severe case of 'examitis'. The retest a few days later was excruciating - I have never been so stressed before an exam. I thought my flying was awful, but the examiner decided it was good enough, and to my intense relief told me I'd passed. I was happy to let him fly us back to Bournemouth . . .
Strangely I found the IR much more straightforward than the CPL. Take out the variables of VFR flying (like being able to see out of the window) and things are a lot simpler. I even started to enjoy the experience, and back seat rides were a pleasure - floating along above the clouds while some other poor victim sweated away with an ADF needle. The IR skills test was a completely different experience to the CPL, and I felt very confident on the day. Which was just as well, as I did my best to throw it away, going 300' below my cleared altitude while coping with Cardiff ATC's humourous attempts at vectoring.
The icing on the cake was an alternator failure 100' before top of climb on the way home (the sort of thing that's only supposed to happen in the sim) but the examiner was clearly in a generous mood, and as we taxied back in he told me I had passed. I was quite literally lost for words and on the verge of tears, but it started to sink in as I drove home that evening, an idiotic grin appearing that would last for days.
Job Hunting
First things first, I went to the local dole office - sorry, Job Centre Plus - and signed on. "What type of work are you looking for?" "Commercial Pilot." "Erm, I'll just do a search of the local job centres for you . . ." And they did, bless them. Strangely, no airlines seem to advertise at Job Centre Plus.
As I may have mentioned, life is all about timing. Flybe reopened their online application scheme 10 days after I passed the IR. My application went in the same morning. I filled out other applications and sent off various CVs, but this was the one I really wanted. I knew they had asked my school for recommendations, and mine was one of several names to go forward, but it still seemed too much to hope. Then, after what seemed like forever but was actually a couple of months, came the call inviting me for an interview.
Top tip no. 2 - a school might get you an interview, but that's just the start of it. I researched like my life depended on it. I borrowed books on interview techniques, I read-up on technical questions, I learned the company history by heart. I found out how many seats a Q400 has. I contacted Dash 8 pilots I knew, I pestered Flybe pilots via Pprune. I even managed to get a mock interview with a kindly recruiter from another airline. In short, I was prepared. Which is no more than they expect. The interview was on a Friday afternoon, friendly but probing, and I left feeling I had done as well as I could - but you can never be sure.
The invitation to the sim assessment came on the Monday morning, and I set about preparing as thoroughly for that as I'd done for the interview. Top tip no. 3 - ask around on Pprune for advice - you would be amazed at some of the help on offer. On the day, I was paired with a young Oxford graduate (and star of YouTube) who flew a raw data ILS like we were on rails. Fortunately I had gone first, and while not quite up to her standard, at least I hadn't cocked anything up (there's nowhere to hide in the sim, and it's blatantly obvious when someone is struggling). All I could do now was wait.
Airline Pilot
The sim was on a Saturday. Monday morning, my mobile was switched on, 5 bar signal strength, and I was willing it to ring by staring at it as hard as I could. At 10:23hrs it rang - an Exeter number. Hands shaking, I answered. "Hello, is this G SXTY?" Of course it is. "This is xxx from Flybe." I know. "How are you today?" I'm great thanks. "Thanks for coming along for the simulator assessment." I'm sure she's doing it deliberately - please just put me out of my misery. "I'm pleased to tell you you've passed, we would like to offer you a job."
I cried. Honestly, I really did. All the grief, all the aggravation, the costs, the daft exam questions, the traumas, the sacrifices, it all came down to this moment. And I'd made it. Even months later, the thought of that phone call gives me goose bumps.
Everything happened very quickly now. In no time I was back in Exeter for the ground school, which was hard work but good fun, with a bunch of great new colleagues. I got to meet a Q400 up close - it looked a lot bigger than a Duchess. Company induction and the type rating ground school took one month, at the end of which we all passed the exams and received crisp new uniforms. After a bit of posing in front of the mirror (just to see if it fitted, of course) we were straight off to the sim.
After some pretty gruelling sim sessions during commercial training, I arrived at Farnborough with more than a few nerves. To my amazement, I ended up enjoying the experience. The standard of coaching and instruction was extremely high, and the various TRIs and TREs were very consistent, friendly and down to earth. The emphasis was very much on training rather than testing, and the final LST felt like just another training session. With the simulator finished, that just left the small matter of flying the real aeroplane. . .
After one false start and a 24 hour delay, two of us trainees met our instructor at Exeter airport for the circuits. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep the night before, but it's difficult to say whether that was down to nerves or just excitement. My colleague got to go first while I watched from the jumpseat. Annoyingly, he managed some very nice landings and completed his session in the minimum 6 circuits. No pressure on me then . . . I strapped into the right hand seat, we taxied out, lined up and I had control. The instructor set power and we were off. Oh blimey - an empty Q400 accelerates like a bat out of hell, even with full flex, and we were airborne in no time. No autopilot, just hand flying and getting a feel for the machine. Unsurprisingly it's very stable compared to a light aircraft, but with the stability comes loads of inertia. With some gentle coaching from the left hand seat, I managed some reasonably stable approaches and acceptable landings. The acceleration from a touch and go is even more jaw-dropping, and pulling back on the column was rather like going up in an extremely fast lift. After an hour, I had done my 6 take offs and landings, and would have happily carried on all day, but apparently time was up and ops wanted their aeroplane back.
And that was that. Paperwork signed, off to Gatwick, and the next day my licence was endorsed with a Q400 type rating. While I waited in the CAA's canteen (heavily subsidised by all of us) I stood on the balcony watching a procession of airliners come and go, including a few Dash 8s. Shortly I would be joining them - it was a very proud moment, and quite literally a dream come true.
Getting Started
Some people are born wanting to be an airline pilot. Not me, as a kid I wanted to be a train driver. In the end I was neither - after a degree in International Transport, I drifted into a career in steel and shipping. 'Career' is putting it a bit strongly - I worked for a shipping line for a while, than as a steel trader, and finally for British Steel / Corus for eight years - but each job felt like a way of paying the bills rather than a long term career.
I blame Pprune for getting me into flying. I had always been interested in aviation, but the enthusiasm never went further than flight-simming, reading books, going to museums and visiting the spectators' balcony at Heathrow (back in the days when they actually had one). A career as an airline pilot was about as likely as going to the moon, and not knowing anyone in the industry, I naively believed that all airline pilots were either sponsored cadets or ex-military, and I was too old to get into the industry in my late twenties.
Then, around 1999, I discovered Pprune. To my amazement, not only was it possible for older guys to change careers and get into flying, but lots of people were actually doing it. The final push came from a boss at work, who'd had a few flying lessons and reckoned I'd love it. So, having driven past Stapleford aerodrome hundreds of times over the years, one cold and grey November afternoon I finally plucked up the courage to go in - just for a look around, of course. A rather optimistic sign outside said; "Learn to fly from only £45!" and I didn't know any better. Walking into reception I met a group of bored instructors, and was immediately pounced upon. One of them offered to let me have a look at an aircraft, so within minutes I was sat in a Cessna 152. The instrument panel was just like MS Flightsim - only a bit more dog-eared - and I was enthralled (easily impressed in those days). Inevitably, I agreed to go for a trial lesson. We started up, taxied out, took off and the man said; "You have control." And that was it, I was hooked. I knew that whatever else happened, I just wanted to fly. Back on the ground, I was brought back down to earth with a bump - we discussed training costs. I quickly realised I would struggle to fund the PPL, never mind fly as a hobby. But could I really do it as a career? Sitting in the right hand seat of an airliner was maybe now a bit more likely than going to the moon, but only slightly.
A few weeks later I had a business trip which involved flying from Stansted to Amsterdam. It was a horrible winter's morning, cold foggy and dark, but I had with me my logbook and a hand-written note to the skipper, introducing myself as an 'ever so humble student pilot and asking if I could visit the flightdeck. I handed it to the number one as we boarded, and within moments she was back to tell me; "The captain asks if you would like to sit in the flightdeck for takeoff?" I've never been out of my seat so quickly. And so, with me strapped in on the 146's jumpseat, we groped our way out to the runway, lined up and took off into the murk. About 1,000 feet above the ground, the cloud started to lighten, and then we burst out into a stunningly beautiful clear blue sky, above a sea of cotton wool, stretching as far as the eye could see. I was dumbstruck - this really was the moment. All it needed was a trumpet fanfare and choirs of angels singing the Hallelujah chorus. I knew then and there that this was the job for me - I absolutely had to do this every day.
Financial realities meant that progress was slow, and was only possible at all with the support of my wife. With only two lessons per month, it took 5 months before I went solo, but at least I was flying. I was growing increasingly restless at work, and I started to seriously consider speeding things up by quitting my job, taking out a huge loan and signing up for an integrated course. The month was August 2001 . . . Fortunately I resisted the temptation, it seemed too much of a gamble even with a booming job market. Then came 9/11. Within a month, Julie had lost her job in corporate removals - her clients had decided to batten down the hatches and stop moving staff around. With only one income, flying was now out of the question. It was six months before she found work and I could get back into training. Courtesy of the UK weather, there were the usual interminable delays for my cross-country qualifying flight (postponed 13 times) and the final hour of solo cross-country, but eventually I was ready for the skills test. For once the weather was kind - one of those beautiful clear winter days with 50 miles visibility and not a breath of wind. The test itself was a non-event, and felt like a bit of an anti-climax. I'd passed in minimum hours, but it had taken over two years and cost around £6,000. I was impatient to get on - the PPL was out of the way, what was next?
Hours Building
Like many people, I decided to go off to Florida to build some cheap hours. The sensible way would have been to wait a couple of months and get an FAA ticket issued on the back of my new JAA PPL. But I was in a hurry - the PPL had taken too long, I wanted to fly, and I had a block of leave to use up.
I booked up with Naples Air Centre for a few hours conversion training, which would prepare me for a FAA PPL check ride. With this out of the way I would be free to build lots of cheap hours while taking in the sights of Florida. That was the theory - life, as they say, is all about timing. I arrived in Naples to discover that one of the most highly recommended schools in the USA had been shut down the previous day in a dispute with the state authorities. After a couple of days of hanging around hoping for the problem to go away, I joined another school at the airport. Unsurprisingly, their sole C150 was suddenly in great demand . . . As a result I managed to fly less than four hours during my first week in Florida, before the inevitable happened and they too were shut down over the same dispute.
Fortunately I had teamed up with a very helpful and supportive instructor, and suddenly out of work himself, he managed to find another school in nearby Fort Myers where we could rent. Our first flight was interesting, to put it mildly. A night cross-country from Fort Myers to Palm Beach and back, we were flying a rather elderly C150 which - as we found out a little too late - had a blocked fuel line and only sipped avgas from one wing. The full story deserves a chapter on its own, but suffice to say that I learned a lot about flying that evening. The Everglades in the pitch dark is not the best of places to have a fuel emergency, and I have had a healthy obsession with fuel management ever since . . .
Things could only improve after that, and the second week was much better - avoiding 'gators on the runway at Marco Island, looking down on the clouds from 9,000' on the way to Key West, flying IFR through Orlando, in and out of fluffy cumulus, and best of all, being chased down the ILS by a Learjet at Daytona. (Top tip: a 2,000hr FAA IR instructor makes a great safety pilot, and will ensure you get much better use of your time than simply drilling holes in the sky). Even so, I managed just 20hrs flying in two weeks, making the trip an expensive - if valuable - experience. The rest of my hours building was to done back in the UK - pricier and less exotic, but fewer alligators to contend with.
ATPL written exams
Rather like a trip to the dentist, you can only put these off for so long. I bit the bullet around Easter 2004 and signed up with Bristol Ground School. When the first huge pile of books arrived I almost wished I had gone to the dentist instead, but by disciplining myself to stick to a sensible schedule, reading on the train to and from work, and doing progress tests in the evenings, I made steady progress. The only subjects I really struggled with were parts of General Nav. (which almost had me in tears and was clearly designed by some evil navigator as a way of getting back at pilots) and gyroscopes. How do you work out gyroscopic precession? Who knows? Who cares? I finished the second set of exams in May 2005 and was pleasantly amazed to find I had passed them all first time with decent averages. With the ATPLs out of the way and nearly 150hrs in my log book it was almost time for the CPL. Gulp.
Commercial Training (1st attempt)
Thus far all my training and studying had been part time. The day job meant I could pay as I went, meaning I had no debts, although nor did I have any savings. Having researched the CPL and IR, I decided that realistically I could only do them full-time. This meant quitting my job and dipping into the equity in the house, a big step both financially and psychologically. Still, the job market was looking good, I was full of confidence and couldn't wait to get started. Being a cautious type, I had considered my options if everything went pear-shaped. Plan 'B' was to avoid burning any bridges with my previous employer with a view to getting my old job back. Plan 'C' was to sell up, move to the South of France and get a job pushing an ice-cream cart along a nudist beach. I particularly liked plan C.
I booked my CPL with PAT at Bournemouth and ticked off the days while I worked my notice. Then, two days before I finished at Corus, Julie dropped the bombshell. She wanted a divorce. With hindsight, stress had been building in our marriage for some time and for various reasons (not least me spending the last year with my head in the ATPL books). Not for one moment did I see it coming, however, and I was devastated. For a few weeks I tried to muddle on and finish the hours-building, but I could barely cope with the mechanics of flying a Cessna, let alone anything complicated like talking to air traffic control. It became increasingly clear that the CPL was a non-starter; I simply wasn't up to it emotionally, and my funding depended on her financial support. I finally bowed to the inevitable, told PAT I'd have to put things on hold indefinitely and went back cap in hand to get my old job back.
Commercial Training (2nd attempt)
The two years that followed were easily the worst of my life. Having been so close, I resented being back at work and loathed the daily commute with a passion I can barely describe. The airliners flying overhead each day just rubbed in my sense of failure. The divorce dragged on interminably - it was on then off more times than I care to remember. Then my mother was diagnosed with cancer, which if nothing else put all the other 'worries' into perspective. Mercifully she was to make a full recovery, but I knew things couldn't go on like this for much longer.
By early 2007 the 'now or never' moment was fast approaching. I had a year left on my ATPL credits, and I had no intention of re-sitting the exams. The choice was stark and pressing; give up on my dream and settle for a safe, well-paid but boring job, or throw caution to the wind and go for it. It would be a massive gamble; I knew there would be no going back and I would be spending thousands with no guarantee of success. The job market had been strong for several years - how much longer would it continue, and what if I couldn't find a job at the end of it? Objectively, my decision was somewhere between foolhardy and daft, but for the first time in my life, I let my heart overrule my head. I jacked my job in (again) and called PAT.
Once the decision was made, everything became simpler. Suddenly there were no choices to make, no 'what ifs' - it simply had to work, full stop. I started the CPL in August and for once my timing was good. The British summer finally arrived and offered up lots of good VFR days, making nav trips a pleasure. Doing the CPL in a twin added complexity, but I hoped the experience would be useful when it came to the IR. The pressures of spending hundreds of pounds an hour started to mount, however, and by the day of the skills test I was pretty wound up. Not because I couldn't do it - I just knew how much failure would cost. I partialed - on timed turns of all things. I'd had no problem with these during training, and my instructor diagnosed a severe case of 'examitis'. The retest a few days later was excruciating - I have never been so stressed before an exam. I thought my flying was awful, but the examiner decided it was good enough, and to my intense relief told me I'd passed. I was happy to let him fly us back to Bournemouth . . .
Strangely I found the IR much more straightforward than the CPL. Take out the variables of VFR flying (like being able to see out of the window) and things are a lot simpler. I even started to enjoy the experience, and back seat rides were a pleasure - floating along above the clouds while some other poor victim sweated away with an ADF needle. The IR skills test was a completely different experience to the CPL, and I felt very confident on the day. Which was just as well, as I did my best to throw it away, going 300' below my cleared altitude while coping with Cardiff ATC's humourous attempts at vectoring.
The icing on the cake was an alternator failure 100' before top of climb on the way home (the sort of thing that's only supposed to happen in the sim) but the examiner was clearly in a generous mood, and as we taxied back in he told me I had passed. I was quite literally lost for words and on the verge of tears, but it started to sink in as I drove home that evening, an idiotic grin appearing that would last for days.
Job Hunting
First things first, I went to the local dole office - sorry, Job Centre Plus - and signed on. "What type of work are you looking for?" "Commercial Pilot." "Erm, I'll just do a search of the local job centres for you . . ." And they did, bless them. Strangely, no airlines seem to advertise at Job Centre Plus.
As I may have mentioned, life is all about timing. Flybe reopened their online application scheme 10 days after I passed the IR. My application went in the same morning. I filled out other applications and sent off various CVs, but this was the one I really wanted. I knew they had asked my school for recommendations, and mine was one of several names to go forward, but it still seemed too much to hope. Then, after what seemed like forever but was actually a couple of months, came the call inviting me for an interview.
Top tip no. 2 - a school might get you an interview, but that's just the start of it. I researched like my life depended on it. I borrowed books on interview techniques, I read-up on technical questions, I learned the company history by heart. I found out how many seats a Q400 has. I contacted Dash 8 pilots I knew, I pestered Flybe pilots via Pprune. I even managed to get a mock interview with a kindly recruiter from another airline. In short, I was prepared. Which is no more than they expect. The interview was on a Friday afternoon, friendly but probing, and I left feeling I had done as well as I could - but you can never be sure.
The invitation to the sim assessment came on the Monday morning, and I set about preparing as thoroughly for that as I'd done for the interview. Top tip no. 3 - ask around on Pprune for advice - you would be amazed at some of the help on offer. On the day, I was paired with a young Oxford graduate (and star of YouTube) who flew a raw data ILS like we were on rails. Fortunately I had gone first, and while not quite up to her standard, at least I hadn't cocked anything up (there's nowhere to hide in the sim, and it's blatantly obvious when someone is struggling). All I could do now was wait.
Airline Pilot
The sim was on a Saturday. Monday morning, my mobile was switched on, 5 bar signal strength, and I was willing it to ring by staring at it as hard as I could. At 10:23hrs it rang - an Exeter number. Hands shaking, I answered. "Hello, is this G SXTY?" Of course it is. "This is xxx from Flybe." I know. "How are you today?" I'm great thanks. "Thanks for coming along for the simulator assessment." I'm sure she's doing it deliberately - please just put me out of my misery. "I'm pleased to tell you you've passed, we would like to offer you a job."
I cried. Honestly, I really did. All the grief, all the aggravation, the costs, the daft exam questions, the traumas, the sacrifices, it all came down to this moment. And I'd made it. Even months later, the thought of that phone call gives me goose bumps.
Everything happened very quickly now. In no time I was back in Exeter for the ground school, which was hard work but good fun, with a bunch of great new colleagues. I got to meet a Q400 up close - it looked a lot bigger than a Duchess. Company induction and the type rating ground school took one month, at the end of which we all passed the exams and received crisp new uniforms. After a bit of posing in front of the mirror (just to see if it fitted, of course) we were straight off to the sim.
After some pretty gruelling sim sessions during commercial training, I arrived at Farnborough with more than a few nerves. To my amazement, I ended up enjoying the experience. The standard of coaching and instruction was extremely high, and the various TRIs and TREs were very consistent, friendly and down to earth. The emphasis was very much on training rather than testing, and the final LST felt like just another training session. With the simulator finished, that just left the small matter of flying the real aeroplane. . .
After one false start and a 24 hour delay, two of us trainees met our instructor at Exeter airport for the circuits. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep the night before, but it's difficult to say whether that was down to nerves or just excitement. My colleague got to go first while I watched from the jumpseat. Annoyingly, he managed some very nice landings and completed his session in the minimum 6 circuits. No pressure on me then . . . I strapped into the right hand seat, we taxied out, lined up and I had control. The instructor set power and we were off. Oh blimey - an empty Q400 accelerates like a bat out of hell, even with full flex, and we were airborne in no time. No autopilot, just hand flying and getting a feel for the machine. Unsurprisingly it's very stable compared to a light aircraft, but with the stability comes loads of inertia. With some gentle coaching from the left hand seat, I managed some reasonably stable approaches and acceptable landings. The acceleration from a touch and go is even more jaw-dropping, and pulling back on the column was rather like going up in an extremely fast lift. After an hour, I had done my 6 take offs and landings, and would have happily carried on all day, but apparently time was up and ops wanted their aeroplane back.
And that was that. Paperwork signed, off to Gatwick, and the next day my licence was endorsed with a Q400 type rating. While I waited in the CAA's canteen (heavily subsidised by all of us) I stood on the balcony watching a procession of airliners come and go, including a few Dash 8s. Shortly I would be joining them - it was a very proud moment, and quite literally a dream come true.