Friday 25 June 2010

Phoenix at Last!

We have arrived in the glorious sunshine of Arizona! It was a long 10 and a half hour flight on Monday, followed by immigration and a bit of a drive from the airport but we made it in the end. The first thing you notice is the incredible heat, it was up to 45 degrees today which is DSC00226pretty unreal. It really takes your breath away every time you step outside, and I can only imagine that inside the planes is going to be very hot indeed! However, we are still yet to find out as unfortunately we  started in earnest on Tuesday morning with another week of Ground School! Just when we thought it was all over!

We have had quite a few briefings on procedures at the airport and the local area, and have just started moving on to dealing with the flying side of things. We are due to have our first lesson on Tuesday, though the schedules are not published yet so we will have to wait and see. We also had a big trip out to WalMart to pick up supplies, there are a number of barbecues on site so that is what we are living from at the moment. We also have a couple of swimming pools which we have madeDSC00233 great use of so far! And this evening we are heading out on our own to find a restaurant for dinner. We have a couple of cars for the course and it looks like I will be driving so we will see how that goes!

At the moment we are all pretty tired and suffering from jet lag so hopefully the weekend will sort us out and we can be full of energy ready to hit the ground running next week!

Also, nearly forgot to mention, our exam results came in:

  • Air Law – 97%
  • Mass & Balance – 100%
  • Performance – 97%
  • Flight Planning – 94%
  • General Navigation – 100%
  • Radio Navigation – 98%
  • Operational Procedures – 96%

Well, I did even better this time around and my overall average for the JAA exams was 96.3%. If somebody had told me that would be my score at the start of the course I never would have believed them! My hope now is that my flying lives up to that score!

4 comments:

  1. Hey great posts keep the work up mate! glad to hear you got great results. Im 16 at the moment is there any advice that you can give me?? my A Level choices are:
    - Physics
    - Maths
    - Economics
    - Chemistry

    Im hoping that i hopefully can get the chance to go Oxford for pilot school.

    p.s great blog keep the work up mate!!!

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  2. Sorrry forgot to mention how great the first picture is!!!!

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  3. Hey, thanks for the comments! I have so many good photos it's hard to choose, Arizona is a stunning place!

    My best advice would be to work hard at college; although you only need GCSEs to get in to Oxford, anything extra you have on your CV will help you get a job at the end. Maths and Physics are the most important. Other than that, start reading as much about the industry as you can, Flight International is a good magazine for that. And I would definitely say do a few hours flying with your local club, as you will know for sure whether this is really the career for you, and will prove to the Oxford selection guys that you have done your homework.

    Hope this all helps!

    Will

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  4. Thanks for the help!!

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