Helicopter Dreams

Nice end of the week, I passed the Air Law (AL) and Operational Procedures (OP) exams for the authorities today. Now I deserve a hell of a midsummers eve celebration, cheers!

AL (Air Law): QT (PASSED) LFV (PASSED)
OP (Operational Procedures): QT (PASSED) LFV (PASSED)
RNAV (Radio Navigation): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
HP (Human Performance):  QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
COM (Communication): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
AGN (Aircraft General Knowledge): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
AGN INSTR (AGN Instrumentation): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
MB (Mass & Balance): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
FP (Flight Planning & Monitoring): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
PERF (Performance): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
POF (Principles of Flight): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
MET (Meteorology): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
GNAV (General Navigation): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)

I thought I could share my study notes that I’ve put a lot of time and effort in here on my blog. I’ll upload it some time, really good stuff!

So, now it’s time for a new round of theory tests. Qualifying tests at school followed by a test for the authorities in all the subjects covered in the CPL(H) course that will finish in the end of 2009. As I mentioned the first period covers four of the thirteen subjects and last week I passed the QT’s in Air Law and Operational Procedures. My plan now is to write these tests at the authorities on Thursday, wish me good luck.

As I did before, here is the status:

AL (Air Law): QT (PASSED) LFV (NOT DONE)
OP (Operational Procedures): QT (PASSED) LFV (NOT DONE)
RNAV (Radio Navigation): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
HP (Human Performance):  QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
COM (Communication): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
AGN (Aircraft General Knowledge): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
AGN INSTR (AGN Instrumentation): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
MB (Mass & Balance): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
FP (Flight Planning & Monitoring): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
PERF (Performance): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
POF (Principles of Flight): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
MET (Meteorology): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)
GNAV (General Navigation): QT (NOT DONE) LFV (NOT DONE)

After gone through two weeks of hard study, covering Air Law, Operational Procedures, Human Performance and Radio Navigation, I now need to study even more to pass first the Qualifying Tests at school and then the exams for the Swedish Aviation Authorities (Luftfartsstyrelsen). A couple of days ago I decided to check on internet for good resources in Radio Navigation and then I found this database with 14 000 JAA ATPL questions that you can use for free! A perfect resource preparing for the exams. The alternative would be to subscribe to the Oxford Aviation database, now that’s just waist of money, I’ll stick to this site instead.

So, maybe you’re interested to check it out, here you are: http://www.aviationtire.com/atpl.cfm

Now it’s time for a glass of wine, it’s Friday night for gods sake, no study tonight!

I just love the web! Today I found a perfect summary of the ATPL theory course, thank you Rob Groothuis for that piece of paper! Well structured, divided in each subject. For those of you that are interested to take part of it, just click the link above (links to the pdf document) and you’ll save some time when preparing the exams.

Thanks Rob!

So, what happened? After two months of silence, a Private Pilot Licence in my pocket, I’ve now decided to continue with the next challenge, the Commercial Pilot Licence. Why stop now? Now it’s just to mobilise energy to go through the theory and start looking for some financing (if you have some extra money, give me a call).

This week I started the theory part of the CPL(H) course at Flygteoriskolan. The theory part is pretty much the same as in the ATPL course except from some parts. And instead of studying full time for 6 months as in the ATPL course, this on is based on a lot of home studies, then you meet for 3 x 2 weeks in class and examination.

The first part that started this week will cover the following subjects, Air Law, Operational Procedures, Radio Navigation and Human Performance. For those of you that have gone through the ATPL course you know that it’s shit loads of reading. I for sure know what to do this summer, fun!

Tomorrow I’ll go flying with SE-JUU (see picture below) from Bromma airport, so if you’re in Stockholm and you see a black little bubble flying over your head, wave to me!

I passed all 4 tests at LFV today, so here is the updated status:

Accumulated flight time:  10 hours
COM: QT (PASSED) LFV (PASSED)
HP:  QT (PASSED) LFV (PASSED)
AL: QT (PASSED) LFV (PASSED) 
OP: QT (PASSED) LFV (PASSED)  
AGN: QT (PASSED) LFV (NOT DONE) 
FPP: QT (PASSED) LFV (PASSED) 
PF: QT (PASSED) LFV (PASSED) 
MET: QT (PASSED) LFV (NOT DONE) 
NAV: QT (PASSED) LFV (NOT DONE) 

3 more to go! I’ll do them one by one during the coming weeks, first some vacation, 2 weeks of chillout on Koh Mook (Thailand) followed by some hard core skiing in Whistler, Canada, where my sister’s working. Im worth it!

FPP (Flight Planning and Performance) - 95 %
AGN (Air craft General Knowledge) - 85 %

That means that I have passed all the 9 qualifying tests at school, great! Tomorrow I’ll write 4 of them for LFV. If, if if I pass them I have 3 more before I’m totally done with the theory.

 Status right now:
Accumulated flight time:  10 hours
COM: QT (PASSED) LFV (PASSED)
HP:  QT (PASSED) LFV (PASSED)
AL: QT (PASSED) LFV (NOT DONE) 
OP: QT (PASSED) LFV (NOT DONE)  
AGN: QT (PASSED) LFV (NOT DONE) 
FPP: QT (PASSED) LFV (NOT DONE) 
PF: QT (PASSED) LFV (NOT DONE) 
MET: QT (PASSED) LFV (NOT DONE) 
NAV: QT (PASSED) LFV (NOT DONE)  

Now it’s time to chill for the rest of the day! 

AL (Air Law) - 95 %
OP (Operational Procedures) - 95 %
PF (Principles of flight) - 85 %

Just got back after three Qualifying tests followed by a three hour lesson in AGN. So “!%#& tired and need to reload by sweet dreams about carburators and load factors because tomorrow av 8 AM I’ll write the last two tests, AGN (Aircraft General Knowledge) and FPP (Flight Planning & Performance).

Later when I have more time I’ll tell more about the tests and what I find tricky and share with you some good things to have in mind when writing the tests.

Time for bed…Zzzzzz!

Tuesday night and only two more days before the last exams at school. so the schedule looks like this:

• Yesterday night: Study Air Law (AL) and Operational Procedures (OP)
• Tonight: Study Principles of Flight (PF)
• Wednesday night: Study Aircraft General Knowledge (AGN)
• Thursday night: Study Flight Planning and Performance (FPP)
• Friday: Qualifying tests in AL, OP, PF
• Friday night: last lesson in AGN
• Saturday: Qualifying tests in AGN & FPP
• Sunday: SLEEP (preferred) or writing the tests for LFV (is I pass any of the QT of course)

YES I know! I should have started my studies earlier than this, but don’t you remember how you did back in the days in school???

I’ll really try to close this theory part ASAP so that I can focus on the fun part, TO FLY. I still have about 35-40 hours left before I can feel the smell of my certificate.

Back to work…

On Friday, we started the PPL (H) Bridge course. Three weekends where we´ll cover the topics:

• Air Law (AL)
• Operational Procedures (OP)
• Principles of Flight (PF)
• Aircraft General Knowledge (AGN)
• Flight Planning and Performance (FPP)

We are about 20 people in the group from all parts of Sweden and I don’t really know how many of us that will continue with the commercial licence CPL (H) in november. Don”t ask me, I haven’t decided yet but as soon as i get up in the air again I guess I have

There are rumors saying that there are plans of starting a CPL “light” course covering more or less the same amount of information than in the regular CPL course, but in 200 hours instead of in 700 hours, can someone explain to me how this will work (probably no one)? I’ll follow up on this issue later on…

Today we had 6 hours of Aerodynamics talking about different forces and theories of flying an helicopter, airfoils, drag, translational lift, Bernoulli’s Principle, Newton’s third law, Angle of attack, Gyroscopic Precession, semirigid rotors, autorotation, torque, Ground effect, transverse flow effect, dissymmetry of lift, flapping.

Now it starts to get really interesting, need to dig a bit deeper into the subject! What I also need now is some sleep, good night!