I'm a solo flyer

Good evening!

Now an important milestone in my career has been accomplished: my first solo flight. Last week was the third consecutive week of practical flight training, and thanks to the weather being flyable every day except one 10 of the 12 students in my class, including myself, managed to do our first solo flight before this week's theory classes. Of course we have been looking forward to this moment a lot so it was a rewarding experience, and a great feeling to manage to fly an airplane all by ourselves!

The days before the solo flight we practised a lot of starts and landings and also emergency procedures if the engine stops at take-off, landing or low altitudes in general. Our airplane is a very safe plane and the geography in rural Skåne is very forgiving, so even in the very unlikely event that the engine stops we should be able to land safely on a field or even on the same runway we just left, no matter when in happens.

On Friday, the very day of our solo flights, we began flying just as we had the day before (on the ”final rehersal”) flying back and forth landing and starting immediately again (”touch-and-go landings”) on the same runway. After three such landings, if the instructor judges that we're ready, he/she steps out and we continue doing the same thing for another four landings all by ourselves. All of us that had passed the ”final rehersal” could complete our solo flights. Later in the day the class gathered and those who finished their solo flights that same day were all greeted by respective instructor and then soaked by a bucket of cold water. This is an old tradition...

In the evening the same day, last Friday, I ”hitchhiked” to Jönköping, where I had decided to spend the weekend, with my classmate who was going to his hometown Linköping. In Jönköping I met my cousin and my aunt who both live there, and then my friend Andreas from my physics class in Uppsala who guided me around the town. We also went fishing (no bites) and on a half day trip to Eksjö, a small and cute old town in the countryside where they had a pretty large air show. On Sunday evening, I tried the famous Jönköping kebab pizza (it was great!), and then hitchhiked back to Ljungbyhed with Sören and a perfect week came to an end.

This week we have had only theory lessons studying the final parts of the Private Pilot License stuff. Next week I will, together with half my class, fly again and we'll do our first solo flights outside the airport area and simple navigation flying according to a predecided timetable, and more. The following week the other half of the class will fly while we others will have final theory repetition before the final school exams in three weeks from now, on September 13th. Another week later we will do in principle the same exams but for Transportstyrelsen, the Swedish aviation authorities, and if we pass all parts of that exam then we are ready for acquiring a Private Pilot License regarding the theory part. The exam consists of ten parts or so and each part costs 500 SEK per try, so I better succeed on the first try...

Finally, some bad news, however not affecting me this far. Believe it or not, while Ljungbyhed is a rural village, it's locally known for having lots of burglars and thieves. And since my class arrived in June, we've been exposed to a lot of trouble. As of before, we had heard about lots of people getting their bicycles and car gasoline stolen. Then in the beginning of the summer someone, who seemed to have aquired a key to our housing, stole food from the refrigerators. It's hard to believe, but a lot of things from a new pork fillet to an open package (!) of ham have gone missing. Soon after, expensive sport shoes put outside one's apartment also were stolen.

We then let change the locks and barricaded the basement doors. Then they broke one's bicycle lock (but changed their mind and put the bicycle at another place), and also they stole more gasoline from cars on the parking lot. A while later, people once again entered the building, presumably through veranda doors that someone forgot to lock, and stole more food and other stuff. The straw that broke the camel's back came yesterday when they stole a motorcycle belonging to one of the military pilots who are here temporarily. So starting tonight, we will take turns staying awake on guard during the nights.

Blue skies!

Photos:

Four very excited TFHS students line up on solo flight day.

My instructor leaves me alone for the first time.

A very happy me.

 

 

Six very wet but happy students.

 

Jönköping sightseeing and fishing with Andreas.

 

 

Eksjö air show (flygdag) 2012.

Eksjö wodden town, popular tourist destination.

Beautiful and completely quiet advanced flying with a sailplane. Must try flying a sailplane sometime as well! By the way, did you know that the age limit to aquire a sailplane pilot license is 15 years, and that it usually costs only around 20 000-25 000 SEK? As a comparison, to aquire a PPL for engine-driven aircraft you need to be 17 years and often pay more than 100 000 SEK.

An ordinary day at TFHS

Hello! We're now in the beginning of our fourth week of flying, and while we have some theory and final tests in between we have at least another four fun weeks in the sky before the long Swedish winter and only theory studies. The final tests are on September 13th, all eight or so of them in one day. If we fail any of the tests we will do re-exams the following week, and in both cases around September 20th we will do the offical theory exams for Transportstyrelsen (The Transportation Bureau) that are neccessary for our Private Pilot Licenses (PPL). After that, the theory lessons will become more advanced as we'll start studying what an airline pilot needs to know, as opposed to a pilot who only flies small airplanes in his free time.

I thought I could make an example on how our daily schedule on flight weeks looks like:

• 06:50 – I wake up, eat breakfast.
• 07:35 – I do the 10 minute walk to the school's hangar for weather briefing.
• 07:45-08:10 – One of us students (taking turns) shows weather maps and weather forecasts for the day with the projector and discusses whether we will be able to fly as scheduled or not. Afterwards each flight instructor meets his/her three students and we have a short briefing about today's flight lessons. The student who is scheduled to fly in the morning stays, the rest of us walk home.
• 09:45 – If I'm flying the second round, I'll walk back to the hangar and meet my instructor personally, and if there's no questions about the weather or the flight lesson we'll immediately walk out to the airplane. I do a ”Pre-flight check”, checking that nothing seems damaged on the fuselage, that air vents are not obstructed and that there's fuel and oil.
• 10:15 – While reading the checklists so that everything is checked and ok, I start up the engine, ask the airport tower for fresh weather information, and then ask for clearance to taxi (=drive on the ground) to the runway holding point.
• 10:25-11:10 – I ask the tower for permission to depart, then do the take-off mostly from Runway 29R (the right runway in the direction 290 degrees). I fly at 200 m altitude most often west to the coast north of Helsingborg and then do the scheduled exercises. For example having climbed to 700 meters, the instructor turns the power to idle (pretending that the engine has stopped) and I'm then supposed to find a suitable field on the ground for emergency landing and then ”try” (pretending to try) to re-start the engine while I'm flying towards the field and prepare to land. When we're approaching ground, the instructor gives full power again and I climb back to the original altitude. When the exercises are finished, I head back to Ljungbyhed, gets permission to land and then do the landing.
• 11:15 – Having taxied back to the parking area outside the hangar I shut down the engine and I have debriefing with the instructor about how it went, and fill out my log book etc.
• 11:40 – Back home I eat lunch (usually leftovers from yesterday's dinner) and the rest of the day I study with my theory books and/or play videgames etc, and of course eat dinner. 1-2 days a week I do some exercise, in the gym or playing football etc.

As you can see, we have quite a calm schedule when we're flying – as opposed to the theory weeks with classes from 08:00 to 16:30 most days. However, of course we are supposed to prepare for each flight lesson by reading about the exercises and learn checklists etc. by heart.

If the weather is bad and we can't fly, then we usually are free the whole day. Of course we all want to fly though, so we're not exactly happy when it happens. In the three weeks this far I've done 13 lessons, which means two lessons were cancelled because of bad weather. In the very unstable weather that this summer has given us, that is quite a good record I think.

Please ask if you wonder anything, or just leave a comment anyway!

Photos:

 

The parking area in front of the hangar. A PA-31, that we will just fly a little in fall next year up front, and five Cirrus SR-20 that we fly during most of our training in Ljungbyhed. The school owns six PA-31 and six SR-20.

The interior of Cirrus SR-20. Four seats, a 200 horsepower engine, 200 km/h cruise speed, 100 km/h stall speed (minimum flying speed), 212 liters gasoline gives a range of 1450 km.

 

 

Passing Åstorp at 200 meters towards Öresund. It is actually pouring down straight ahead (first picture) which we passed through a few seconds.

At 1500 meters at the coast, amazing clouds.

 

My textbooks for Private Pilot License – we're supposed to memorize all of this in about three months. Also the map I use when flying, folded around the areas we usually use. The heights in black digits (2500, 65(00) ) are the maximum heights in feet (30 cm) that we don't need to ask the Air Traffic Control for clearance for.

Short break for everything but resting

Hello again! My second of three consecutive weeks of dedicated flying has just ended, and while I will talk about the latest experiences and some photos from that later, first I'll talk about my vacation in July.

In the end of June I had just completed four flight lessons and had a week of theory studies before the holiday. On Wednesday July 5th, we had our last theory class, and on the next day I packed my rucksack and took bus and train to Lund, changed to the train for Denmark and went to Copenhagen. There I met my friend Jacob from Uppsala and we boarded another train to Hamburg, this time using our Interrail passes for (mostly) free travel in all of Western Europe.

After having changed train again in Hamburg we arrived in Berlin in the evening (Thursday), and took the U-Bahn (metro) to Alexanderplatz, where our hostel was located. Then we spent two days sightseeing in Berlin. We climbed the TV tower, saw a lot of Berlin wall graffiti, ate currywurst, visited the stasi museum and more. Satisfied on Saturday evening, we boarded the night train to Basel on the border to Swtizerland. Having arrived on Sunday morning, we continued to Bern for a calm day of sightseeing in a city that unfortunately didn't offer much on a Sunday except nice weather.

On the next day we climbed the cathedral of Bern and then the nearby mountain Gurten, and otherwise mostly relaxed walking around in the very beautiful town. I even swam in the intensely green river dividing the city, it was quite cold and also rapid. After two days in Bern, on Tuesday morning we head south again. Because our train from Bern to Milano was delayed we missed our connection to the French border and we had to wait a while for a slower train why our arrival was delayed three whole hours... Around 11 hours after departure from Bern we finally arrived in Monaco and spent the evening there.

Monaco was really fascinating being a beautiful and modern tiny city. It felt like someone dug up two square kilometers of the finest parts of Paris and put them on a steep hill by the French riviera coastline. The view was fantastic indeed. Satisfied after just a few hours in Monaco, we took the local train for 20 minutes to Nice, and checked in at the hostel there. And we were relieved that the only hostel we used with air-conditioner was the place where we needed it the most.

On Wednesday we stayed in Nice, walked around the Old town, climbed a hill by the sea and just relaxed on the beach with a few swims in the warm water. The weather was really warm and sunny so it was a great day. Then on Thursday morning we took the TGV to Paris. Being the fastest conventional rail service on earth right now it was a highlight, really nice. In Paris where I've visited before, we climbed the Eiffel tower to the second floor, walked the Champs-Élysées, climbed the Arc de triomphe and saw the Louvre.

On Friday around lunch, after seeing Notre dame, we took the last train of our joint travel: Thalys to Amsterdam. In Amsterdam I only had an afternoon and evening, so we hurriedly saw some parks, museums, governmental buildings and statues etc., finishing by visiting the Red light district, without entering anywhere... While Jacob stayed in Amsterdam two more days before taking another train back to Sweden, I left on Saturday morning flying with Ryanair from Weeze to Skavsta. Weeze being located past the border to Germany 3.5 hours by bus from Amsterdam, and Skavsta 4 hours from Falun by bus+train it was a quite tiring end of the trip.

In Falun for the remaining two weeks of my summer holidays, I did a few skydives, visited friends and family and returned via Uppsala to Ljungbyhed on Saturday-Sunday July 28-29.

Photos:

Berlin TV tower in Alexanderplatz close to our hostel. As most of you know, I love high places so I could not *not* go up there.

A part of the Berlin wall. On the other side there was a lot of art with political satire etc.

The former Stasi headquarters, now a pretty interesting museum. Stasi was a very scary organisation...

The legendary Tempelhof airport is a huge park since a couple of months only. Quite popular it seemed.

Bern. The unestimated Swiss capital. Small city but very beautiful.

 

Monaco. Really nice, unfortunately most people will never have the privilege of being able to live here.

 

Nice. Very touristy but still really nice place for relaxing and sea swimming.

TGV, the pride of France.

 

Paris was as superb a tourist destination as ever.

 

My friend Rembrandt and a part of the Red light district.

 

I'm still not sure if the extra 5 hours of travel by choosing Ryanair instead of another airline was worth the saved roughly 500 kronor... Anyway, I'm so looking forward to work in such a beauty, with this surrealistic but fantastic view.

Back home in Dalarna again. We do have a very beautiful landscape as well, even though I'm quite used to it.

Canoeing in Runn, it's nice to do this kind of fun simple activities about once a year.

My grandmother visited me on the skydiving camp in Orsa in northern Dalarna. My family's dog Zorro came along.

 

New semester, tons of new things to learn

Finally back in business! Now I've been in Ljungbyhed a week and flown every day! We've practised climbing, descending, navigating manually (not GPS), using flaps (for slow flying), avoiding stall (when you fly too slow so that the airplane begins to fall down/störta), flying at max-speed (370 km/h in our plane) and most importantly, landing. On Thursday I did my first landing ever, safely, and on Friday we flew back and forth around the runway doing 7 landings and take-offs in a row. So now, for the first time, I feel that I could fly without any help and still be fine, if nothing unusual happens.

So this has been a very fun week and I've learnt so much. I haven't hesitated a bit about choosing this course, it's so fun and I'm so excited about the rest of the course!

Apart from flying one hour a day and doing self studies we've been educated in airplane washing this week. We do it completely by hand spraying detergent (rengöringsmedel) and rubbing with a fabric cloth (tygtrasa). Every day we have to clean the wings, the hood (motorhuv), the tail and the wheel legs, and once a week the whole class gathers to clean the rest as well – the roof, the sides and underneath the body and wings.

Next week the military will come to Ljungbyhed for a few weeks of fighter pilot training – so we will not be alone in the air the next two weeks. Even though the fighter pilot students fly old planes, it'll be cool to see a lot of jet airplanes around. My class will have another two weeks of just flight lessons, then two weeks theory and another week of flying before our theory final exams in the middle of September. While we stop all flying before the winter (our planes are not certified for flying in cold weather) I think we'll have time to do our first solo flights before that.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask in the comments! Next update will probably be about my three weeks summer vacation, and come up in a few days.

Photos:

Three Cirrus SR-20 ready to be boarded for another lesson.

Some of the military's SK-60 share hangar with us. Next week we will see them in action.

The school main building as seen from the airport tower.

 

A student on landing final and another two students queing for start.

 

We visited the tower to learn how they work and get some tips on radio communication.