August 5, 2012

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.

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