Some Norwawsome flying

Long time no see as usual.

During the last month we have continued to study instrument flying which means to fly with the help of radio beacons, GPS and instructions from air traffic control, see previous post.

Also, all students have been to the small city of Bardufoss close to Tromsö in northern Norway. My class stayed there for 6 days and flew among steep mountains, deep valleys and fjords. It was really awesome, and though we only flew about 6 hours per person it was a really valuable experience. This post is mainly for showing a bunch of photos from that week.

All flying was visual and the weather varied a lot so our ability to make important decisions when the weather deteriorates was also tested. We also flew two students together every time so that we can practice to cooperate which of course is a highly necessary skill when flying commercially.

While I'm present at each location of all photos, this time most of them are not my own, so I've put letters in front of all pictures taken with cameras belonging to classmates. R marked photos are Rickard's and G marked photos are Gustav's. Thank you, Rickard and Gustav!

Photos:

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Me and three classmates flew to Norway in this nice PA-31 Navajo that two teachers piloted. It took two refueling stops and about 5 hours flying time to get to Bardufoss. After a while we were pretty tired...

 Soon after departure from fuel stop Borlänge we passed over Falun! Nice to see from above!

 

 

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 The coastal fjord scenery was just stunning.

 

Lunch break in Kiruna. The ramp personnell was so kind that they gave us a ride to central town to get food since the only restaurant at the airport was already closed. This was the local recommendation and they had really good hamburgers!

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Cleared to land runway 10 ("one zero"), Bardufoss.

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School aircraft parking at Bardufoss. There was regular flights of Norwegian to Oslo from here, nice to watch their take-offs.

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One of the days we flew to Sweden, landed on Kiruna and Gällivare airports and flew around the mountain range  where Kebnekajse, Sweden's highest mountain, is. The clouds were however too low for us to see the top of Kebnekajse but flying beside it under the clouds was fantastic.

To fly blindfolded

I've definitely not done my homework lately regarding blog updating. Anyway, it hasn't happened too much in school since last time because of our 5 week summer holiday. 5 weeks is much shorter than other university holidays in Sweden so it felt quite short. But I when we will be working for an airline later we should be happy for maybe two weeks in the summer, so I guess it's best to get used to it.

After our host airline was decided, until we left for summer holidays on the day before midsummer, we practiced instrument flying in a simulator. After the holidays we've finally been flying again, after a long period on the ground - since April for many of us. So now we're doing instrument flying both in the simulator like before, and in the aircraft.

To fly by IFR, instrument flying rules, means that we can't just freely choose direction and altitude of flight, but we need clearance for anything we do throughout the flight. The reason is that IFR doesn't require us to see anything (we can go through clouds or fog) so the air traffic controller must make sure we keep a safe distance to all other traffic. So for example, when we are approaching our destination and need to change heading and/or altitude we get a simple clearance such as "University 415, turn right heading 260 degrees, descend altitude 2000 feet", and usually we need a couple of such clearances in order to approach the runway correctly for landing.

Since we finished our Private Pilot's Licence education in April, we do all radio communication in English. Also, we do a bunch of "call-outs", which also are in English, internally in the cockpit at certain occasions in order to remind each other (the other pilot) of important procedures to check. For example, on an instrument approach we have a certain altitude at which we must see the runway in order to be allowed to land. 1000 feet above that altitude we say loudly "1000 above - stabilized" if we are within certain limits of the ideal track to the runway, and later at 100 feet above we say "approaching minimums", and finally "minimums" at the exact altitude. If we still then can't see anything, we say "going around", set full power and climb as fast as possible to a decided safe altitude. Then we may try again on a new approach, or go to another airport that has better weather.

Next week will be really fun and exciting. On Thursday 15th me and three classmates will board one of the larger twin-engine aircrafts of the school, a Piper PA-31 Navajo, and fly as passengers to Bardufoss in northern Norway (fairly close to Tromsö, 150 km northwest of Kiruna). The rest of the class will fly commercially there. Then from Friday to the following Tuesday we'll fly the usual airplanes Cirrus SR-20 on a couple of navigations with two students in each plane (no instructor). We will decide routes and plan the flights all by ourselves, and the flights will most certainly include flying around in a couple of Norwegian fjords, flying over and around glaciers, Sweden's highest mountain Kebnekaise, going to Kiruna and maybe other Swedish destinations.

It will be really fun, the drawback is however that we'll probably need to pay for the regular flight tickets and the accomodation ourselves. We're trying to get CSN loan for it, but I'm personally not so optimistic about that. On the way back, except for another four classmates, we'll take regular flights back to Sweden on Wednesday 21st. I'm going to Stockholm in order to visit Falun for a few days, and then go back before school resumes in the week after that.

Photos:

My father visited me during the weekend before midsummer, and of course I showed him a part of Skåne from above with the flight club's airplane.

Then just a few days before the holidays, me and two classmates booked a flight club plane for the whole day and flew in the morning out of Swedish territory, the first time for any of us to do that. We went to the small island of Rügen in northern Germany and did some sightseeing during the day. In the photo is the Swedish coastline south of Malmö we're leaving behind us.

Three happy pilots on adventure.

On downwind for landing runway 09 at Rügen airport.

Having landed at Rügen regional airport. Funny but a little annoying that the tower controller tried to speak German with us several times during the approach. Luckily, my two friends knew some German from school. Anyway, it was a nice small airport without regular air traffic. The landing and parking fee was only 8 euros, so really cheap. In Sweden it's usually around 250 kr (28 euros) if you don't have a yearly free landing ticket.

At another occasion, I flew with a friend and we rounded Sweden's highest building of Turning Torso residential skyscraper in Malmö.

We then landed at Sturup airport. When landing at a larger airport, usually you get picked up by a security car and they drive you to the terminal. Nice service!

Recently this is the place where I study most often.

On a weekend, me and some classmates went to the famous art work of Nimis (which Lars Vilks made when he was young), which is composed of a number of tall irregular wooden towers, which are really fun to climb. Located in a national park, it's really beautiful, but also the work itself is completely illegal which makes it really interesting since it's construction started more than 30 years ago, and the enormous construction work was performed mainly by only one person.

Host airline decided

Blue skies!

Sorry for the generally very low update frequency, maybe I'll post more often onwards.

Since last time I've mainly been busy with theory studies in three subjects: Operational procedures, Mass & balance and Instrumentation. Split into two occasions I've passed all three exams at both school and for the Transport Agency. Now we only have four subjects left, two of which we will study in September and the last two of which we'll finish in January – this means most of the rest of the summer and the fall will be dedicated to flying and simulator lessons.

The phase of the practical training we're in now is IFR – instrument flying, as opposed to VFR – visual flying. In general IFR is about flying no matter the weather, and while private flying is almost exclusively VFR, commercial flying is almost exclusively IFR. Needless to say, it's a very important part to learn for all pilots who wants to fly in an airline. This far we've had a few simulator lessons, and while it's challenging to stabilize speed, height and direction without seeing anything through the windows, it's pretty fun.

With my own private pilot's license I've flown a few times with the flight club's PA-28, with both family and friends, it's really nice to be able to take a plane whenever I want and just go anywhere!

On Tuesday this week (June 4th) it had been one full year since we started at TFHS, the time has really passed by so fast! And while we were supposed to know which airline and which type of aircraft to fly during our internships in 2014 from the very first day, we still couldn't more than guess exactly one year later. But then, at 06:31 this morning (June 5th) we suddenly got a mail from our Chief Ground Instructor that it was finally to be unveiled for us two hours (!!) later at school. Luckily someone among us woke up early, saw the mail and could spread the message to the rest of the class.

So, starting around March next year we will first go on a two weeks company course at Norwegian Air Shuttle, then learn to fly a Boeing 737 in a full motion flight simulator for around two months including a final practical exam. Then we will board a real Boeing 737-800 without passengers and do 12 touch-and-go landings (landing and immediately taking off without stopping) at one occasion, after which we are certified to fly as first officers with passengers for Norwegian. After some months working as pilots we will write our graduation thesis and then graduate having got our MPL certificates and hopefully continue working for Norwegian if they hire us.

The Boeing 737 is the most common airliner in the world with over 7500 aircrafts produced. It was originally built in 1967 but the -800 version with modern instruments was introduced in 1997. The 737-800 has a maximum of 189 seats and can take-off weighing up to 80 tons. It has two engines, a maximum altitude of 12500 m and a cruise speed of 828 km/h.

 In a year I will sit in the cockpit of that one!

Me, sister and mother went on a short trip to Landskrona from Ljungbyhed.

Video about Norwegian: