Guest Blog (Share your story)! – Above Ground Level

My name is Georgie and I’m a 19 year old cadet pilot at CTC wings. As I write this I am at the stage between finishing my Module 1 ATPL theory exams and starting the second set. I started my training in February and should hopefully be finished around summer 2014.

I haven’t had much flying experience at all; in fact, I’ve only had an hour! For my 18th birthday, my parents bought me a trial lesson at Shoreham Airport in a Diamond DA40, which I thoroughly loved. I was able to take control of this machine and finally get a feel of what it is like to soar through the air high above the ground. This merely confirmed to me that I needed to get into the skies as soon as possible!

Georgie on his trial flight at Shoreham

Even before this lesson I had never considered any other career. It has always been a pilot – and always an airline one; military flying has never particularly appealed to me. Give me an A320 over a Eurofighter and day of the week! Remember when you wrote little stories in infant school, and your family patronisingly asked what you’re going to be? Instead of replying “I want to be a rockstar”, or “I’d love to be superman”, I just wanted to fly big metal tubes through the sky. As I grew up I researched various ways to make this dream a reality, although I never imagined that I would be able to make it a reality. I researched plenty of flying schools, the RAF and any other way possible, although decided that the way for me was an integrated course with a flight training organisation. After finishing my GCSEs and A Levels I finally applied to CTC Wings, and to my surprise I was asked along to assessment, where I was offered a place on the course. I was over the moon – I had finally opened to door to my dream career!

One of CTC’s full motion simulators

As I mentioned, I began training at the end of February, where until now I have been studying seven of the fourteen ATPL theory subjects, and I begin the final seven in a few days’ time. This phase of ground school is by no means easy, and it has made me realise just how much I want this. Once I have finished these exams in a few months’ time, I make my way out to New Zealand for nine months to gain my CPL, flying both DA20s or Cessna 172s, before moving on to DA42s. After this I fly back to the UK to complete my instrument rating at Bournemouth in more DA42s, followed by my Airline Qualification Course. Writing it down makes it all sound so easy! After this, I end up in the big wide world of commercial aviation, finally getting to fly my Airbus, Boeing, or maybe even Embraer at 36,000ft and Mach .78.

I still have to pinch myself that this is actually happening, and I honestly don’t think it has still sunken in! If you have the flying bug, and dream of spreading your wings – do it, because if you don’t? Well, you’re bound to regret it!

Looks fun!

You can follow Georgie’s progress over at his own blog – http://georgiegotwings.blogspot.co.uk . Good luck with the rest of your training Georgie!

Share your Story!

In the very first Guest Blog, Nick writes about his love of flying and tells us how he started. If you would like to write a Guest Blog, you can contact me by commenting on the site or by tweeting me at @CJBstudentpilot

All photos in this post belong to Nick Lee.

‘‘When I grow up I want to be a pilot”!

…A sentence that I didn’t say when I was a child. Flying and becoming a pilot surprisingly wasn’t something I dreamt of doing from a young age, like most people. So, how did it all start out?

I had always been fascinated about aircraft as a young child, but I never really wanted to fly them. I liked the idea of how aircraft could defy gravity and how they could soar high above the earth effortlessly, while taking passengers around the world. I think my main aim was to design aircraft and and become an aircraft engineer.

At school I never worked to the best of my ability, because as teenagers you have so many distractions around you, therefore it is easy to get distracted by the simplest of things such as computer games and social networking sites. Having passed all my GCSEs, it was the next decision to make in life. So September 2010 came around, I went onto studying Aviation at College for two years, having decided I wanted to do something within Aviation. A good month had past and I was really enjoying the course! All the lecturers had previously worked in the aviation industry, therefore they had a lot of raw knowledge of the whole industry It wasn’t until a friend in my class mentioned the words PPL and Flying in class, would I have known anything about learning to fly or becoming a pilot. Later that night after class, I went home and searched about learning to fly and where to start, as the thought of learning to fly really intrigued me. Every night I looked up more and more information about flying and it just dawned on me that I really wanted to become a pilot!

January 2011 came around. My parents kindly enough bought me a trial flight at a my local aerodrome and I was instantly hooked after the one hour flight in the Piper PA28 Warrior III. Exactly a month after my trial flight I startedmy Private Pilots License in the PA28 Warrior III at 16 Years Old. Training was thoroughly enjoyable and I completed my first solo on 12th July 2011. From August 2011-August 2012, I kept on having lessons every now and then. This obviously wasn’t the best for currency and training, but college and other work was really slowing me down. From August 2012, I said to myself that you have to complete your PPL before March 2013. Therefore I studied hard in order to complete the rest of my PPL exams and I finished off with a 94% average between all the 7 exams, which was very surprising! I had also started having lessons again on a weekly basis, which also benefited me a lot. I was also very lucky to have got so many lessons in during the winter period, but it was all down to my instructor pushing me in order to reach my goal. Before you knew it, I was ready for my PPL Skills Test. My skills test was on the 8th December 2012 and yes I was nervous! I won’t talk about the Skills Test too much, but all I will say is that I was tested on everything I learnt during my training. Therefore if you make any mistakes during your test, don’t feel like its an immediate fail, just listen to what the examiner has to say and take everything on-board. At the end of the day, they’re not there to fail you, but to ensure you can operate the aircraft safely and efficiently. At 1415 we landed, just as the horrible weather was approaching and I really didn’t having a clue if I passed or failed! About 5 minutes later, while taxxing back to the apron, the examiner said ‘Ill put you out of your misery…….you PASSED!’ I really wasn’t expecting to hear that! From not knowing I wanted to be a pilot until two years ago, to becoming a pilot. I just felt overwhelmed! This was really the start of the next step in life! (Word of Advice- Just treat the examiner like your instructor/friend and have fun! Good Luck to anyone that’s working towards their skills test!)

Nick taxiing at Perranporth

A month on (January 2013), my EASA PPL License had come through the door and my word was I happy! I had also bought a share in an aircraft in order to start hour building towards my commercial pilots license. As I write this, I am still hour building and enjoying it very much so! It’s truly amazing how I can travel around the UK and Europe in order to visit different airfields and cities and build up my flying experience. Fortunately I have been able to fly a lot recently therefore have had the chance to visit a lot of airfields in the UK. I am also nearing the 100 hour mark! I am due to start my ATPLs in September 2013, this will be 6 months of hard work but it’ll mean I am one step closer towards my dream!

Once again Thank You to ‘thestudentpilotblog’ for letting me write about my experience up till now! And I hope anyone wanting to become a pilot can follow their dream! You can follow my Youtube Channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/Nickilaa or Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/hdflyingvideos for the latest updates and flying videos during my hour building and training!

Happy Flying from Nickilaa