Reintroduction

I spent the last 7 hours in Gatwick reacquainting myself with the A320. Incredibly it had been over six months since I last saw the flight deck of a bus.

We flew Manchester-Gatwick-Manchester as a standard line flight then did some manoeuvres: engine failure/fire, hand flown ILS, VOR, LOC and visual approaches. My landings were a bit ... artistic ... but acceptable. Taxying was something else altogether, however the captain will always be doing that on line - and ground manoeuvring isn't a strong point of the otherwise extremely realistic simulator.

I now have a day to pack before flying off to Malaysia. I'm starting to feel excited, rushed and a bit sad about leaving all at the same time.

A fresh start

Having been finally recalled to work I thought it was time to change blog. The one I used to write, which is still online somewhere (but not for very long) got completely ignored, and updating it had become an unpleasant chore. The writing style was terrible too.

Here's what happened so far: In 2003 I started learning to fly in Canada. I got the PPL in 2005 then the CPL in early 2007. It was around that time that my family decided to move (back) to Europe and I decided I didn't want to be a Canadian bush pilot. I went to Oxford for 13 months of training and got my JAA ATPL in July 2008.

In October a Malaysian carrier asked Oxford to send them some newbie pilots and I was one of the people chosen. We were fully type rated by Christmas and flew out in January, however upon arrival some bureaucratic obstacles delayed the commencement of company training (and confirmed employment). Eventually we got fed up flew back home.

6 months later we have finally been called up again - we are to report to head office on July second...