Pictures

As promised...

A family of giant cumulonimbus (cumulonimbi?) forcing us off the airway. The tops were a good 6-8000ft above us.

A Singapore 777 trying to race us, 6000ft above.

More clouds, in the most amazing sunset ever. Pity we were pointing the wrong way - it was difficult to take pictures.

S.

Office work and free flights

Spent the morning walking from desk to desk at work in another stamp-and-signature collecting exercise. I was also briefed on how to use the duty/rostering system and shown how flight planning works. Still no date for those 3 sims that separate me from flying online.

A friend and I decided, on a whim, to go to the beach for a few days in East Malaysia as we have nothing better to do. Flight takes off at 1700 local. The joys of ID90 (very very reduced fare) travel mean that we only paid £9 - RM50 (The price of a taxi into town) which is a tenth of the full last-minute fare.

I think it may be time for some pictures soon - once I find a suitably fast internet connection.

CRM

Cee Arr Em. A word used extensively in aviation, it stands for Cockpit/Crew Resource Management and we spent the lsat 2 days digging deep into it's meaning and application. Googling the term will tell you that "CRM is concerned not so much with the technical knowledge and skills required to fly and operate an aircraft but rather with the cognitive and interpersonal skills needed to manage the flight within an organised aviation system." That sounds very nice, but it doesn't really mean anything.

At my company it goes even further and we call it Company Resource Management. We looked into the interaction between the flight deck and the cabin, air traffic, ground handling and even general cultural factors affecting human interaction - a good thing as the airline employs people from all over the place and, operating in Asia, has to deal with some fairly strong local traditions which aren't compatible with aviation safety. The course was as much for first officers, to learn about CRM, as it was for captains, to remind them about CRM. Much too long to go into details about, but the single most important word is safety.

Next week RVSM and an air law exam, then (probably) more office hopping to get forms stamped and cards issued.

Safe to fly...

Safety training finished yesterday with an afternoon in the pool going over post-ditching procedures. Safety training for pilots isn't as thorough as for cabin crew, but we still need to know how to evacuate, fight fires, use oxygen and what the cabin crew will be doing to deal with whatever situations they face. I found my 3 days worth unpleasantly difficult so I really feel for the poor girls (and a few guys) who have over 2 weeks worth.

Another part of the safety training is company policy which is very relevant to pilots. Items such as maximum invalid passengers or infants we can carry, company procedure for dealing with ... security sensitive ... situations, procures for fuelling with passengers on board and/or engines running (I'd like to see the latter happen in H&S minded Europe), etc. Training completes with an exam which must be passed with 90% or better.

Training continues - how to talk to customers today, dangerous goods tomorrow then first aid and CRM next week...

S.

Smile!

First day in the classroom. The first 2 hour lecture was about the company and it's culture (big family - all equal), work ethic (smile!), how great the boss is, how the airline started and it's amazing growth, what the future will look like, how great the boss is, all the awards it won and how we should behave while wearing the uniform (smile!) and represent the company.

We were also handed a list of destinations and told to memorise it by the end of the week, airport names, time zone, currency and IATA codes included. I strongly question the reasoning behind learning some of the items by heart, but...

We were then paraded around the academy to shake the hand of everyone in the building, while smiling of course. Rather embarrassing for us and the groups of host... flight attendants we barged in on. The office staff seemed used to it.

The afternoon brought a session of Airbus Computer Based Torture explaining all the features of the cabin systems: doors, O2, lights, IFE, lavatories, etc.

Papertrail

First day (back) at work today - although one could say it was genuinely my first day at work as I actually did something: Rush around more offices than I can remember fetching/delivering/copying papers, being briefed about all the briefings which will take place, collecting the training schedule and doing a lot of waiting. I was also assigned my permanent base: WBKK.

Tomorrow is another day of paperwork and going to see various agencies. SOP training starts Monday morning for about 4 weeks.