Back to IFR

To begin with, the trip back to Europe hasn't been very pleasant. I had such a great time in NZ, either in flight or during my days off, so I didn't really want to go home. I knew, family and friends were waiting for me and I looked forward to catch up with them but still, I was gutted to go home!

After a week in France, it was already the time to go back to school in Bournemouth to finish the instrument rating phase. The instrument rating phase down here is mainly composed with sim session.

Thomson B737-800 which you can see in BOH.

 We've been told during our introduction day that the partner airlines have raised up their standards meaning that the instructor's expectations have also to be higher. A fail in the test or even a partial doesn't seem to be an option.

The first few sims are called UK Orientation. They are design to get familiar with the UK IFR procedures and the R/T which is slightly different from the Phraseology in NZ. Also, as the airspace is a lot busier here, there are much more frequencies and radio calls to do. It reminds me the French airspace.
Then the following sims are called LOFT. These flights are proper routes between major airports such as Manchester, Birmingham, London Heathrow... The aim of these flight is rather to focus on all the non technical aspects of a flight such as decision making during emergencies, weather diversion...

This part of the training is very demanding, intense,  and not necessary rewarding because when you think you did a good flight, your instructor manage to give you a massive list of points to improve, but it's very interesting! I love it!

CPLised

This is it... I'm now a commercial pilot!

My CPL flight test has been the most demanding flight I've ever experienced. I had already cancel one flight test due to weather, and the second day, even if the weather was still really bad I decided to go to get it done.

The ceiling was about 1000ft lowering to 800ft at some points so I had to do diversions after diversions to get to my destination, because I obviously had to remain clear of clouds but also keep 500ft from the terrain, which often rises in New Zealand forcing me to make track adjustments to fly over flatter terrains and maintain VFR.

I had hard times during this navigation leg, but I managed to do it safely and legally. The rest of the flight was more conventional with all the general handling exercises and the circuits. I had only two emergencies. One engine fire in flight leading to a full engine shutdown, and one alternator failure.

I did four circuits, one normal, one flapless, one asymmetric go around and the last one was the asymmetric landing for a stop and go with a rejected take off due to a bird strike.

After 2.2hrs, I finally parked the aircraft on the "bravo" stand, took all my belongings and jump into a briefing room to get the good news that I had passed my CPL!

My GPS trace of this flight

I'm leaving NZ in two days, I wish I could stay here a bit longer, but everything has an end... 

The IR training in Bournemouth starts in 14 days so the break will be quiet short. I know it's gonna be really stressfull, but I really look forward to fly in the English's busy sky!

ILS in Wellington Intl' Airport, NZ

Another thing wich will stay in my mind forever... my first ILS.

I always dreamt to land in an international airport with lot of traffics, half a dozen of frequencies, and where your flying has to be really accurate to meet ATC requirements.

All of that happened yesterday in Wellington, the actual capital of New Zeland. The route down there was pretty straight forward, switching from GPS to NDB and VOR navaids all way down to get finally vectored to intercept the localiser for the ILS LOC DME approach for runway 16.

I flew down there at night, so the 12DME final gave us amazing views over the city and all its lights. Unfortunately the quality of the Gopro is not good enough to reflect the reality but still, this video will remind me this fantastic experience for ever!

Last NZ IFR sim

I had recently my last sim session, here in New Zeland. It was an IFR route from Hamilton to Auckland and back. 

The flight sequence was pretty straight forward. Departure from hamilton flying a SID to intercept the HN5A STAR, then get radar vectored by Auckland control to intercept the Loc of the ILS 23L for a touch and go and back to Hamilton via H211 to join the 12DME arc for a NDB DME 18L.

The departure was fine, smooth, I was ahead of the aircraft, but just before I changed frequency from Christchurch control to Auckland control, all stations received a sigmet, severe icing and severe turbulence in Auckland area. 

I then listened Auckland Atis on 127.8 and the weather was deteriorating and the wind was builting up to G45kt. The cloud base was OVC001.

I knew already I wouldn't get visual before and at DA (223ft), but I decided to give it a try. I intercepted the Loc, configured the aircraft as we got closer to the glideslope and flew the ILS App for runway 23L fighting against the turbulences. As expected I didn't get visual at the Decision Altitude of 223ft.

"DA not visual, missed approach", I switched the ILS frequency to the VOR frequency to fly the missed approach, got on track and told the control I was established on the missed approach. Auckland Control asked me my intentions and I took the decision to divert to Hamilton where the weather was supposed to be better. I was then cleared to cancel the missed approach when passing 2000' for a left turn on track to the airway H211.

When I was established on the H211, I changed to Christchurch control on 125.3. They asked my intentions, and I requested a NDB DME approach via the 12Dme Arc. I then briefed my self on both the Arc and the approach. 

While I was briefing I got an ECU/A failure I decided to switch from "ECU Auto" to "ECU B" but my instructor told me at that point to check in the QRH. I realised that I had made a mistake I then followed the QRH for a ECU failure and everything went back to normal. 

Instructor 1 - Student 0 

This process took all my brain resources when I should have checked the DME distance to turn to join the Arc. But I didn't. When I realised how close we were I turn immediately and I ended up at 11.7DME. Not too bad but it could have been better.

I was figuring out a correct heading to compensate for wind and to come back on the exact 12DME Arc when the instructor decided I wasn't busy enough and failed my left engine (the critical engine in a DA42). The most important thing is to fly the aircraft then deal with the engine failure. 

By the time I finished with the EFATO drills I was passing the lead radial. I intercepted the final approach course of 184° and made a PAN PAN call to let the control know that I had an engine failure. I was approaching the Minimum Decision Altitude of 550ft but I was still in IMC.

"50ft prior MDA, not visual, missed approach". We were established on the missed approach performing between 150 and 200ft/min, when I lost the ADF. I made a radio call to inform them that I wasn't able to fly the missed approach and requested radar terrain to join the VOR hold.

Few minutes later I was established in the hold at 3000ft, and briefed my self for the VOR DME approach for 18L. Few seconds after beacon outbound I lost the DME, so I switch to the VOR plate and activated the timer. 

During the approach my instructor asked me to check the circuit breakers, and two of them were popped out, my ADF and my DME.

Instructor 2 - Student 0

I became visual at 700ft and waited my committed altitude to select the landing flaps. Over the threshold I got a left engine fire warning. I tried not to get distracted by the warning and landed the aircraft, and then dealt with the fire.

The screen freezed and the instructor told me to shut everything down. That was it, a very intense 2 hours sim session!

The instructor was pretty happy with what I did. He told me I could have been more fluent with the electrical failure though.

I remember few years, or even few month, ago when I was reading some other blogs I had no idea about all of these specific terms to IFR, what were all the procedures, how mentally busy you could be in a N-1 approach... But know I'm so glad to get the big picture. I know I still have a lot to do and a lot to learn, but there are some flights or sims after which you can't be more convinced that you really want to become an airline pilot.