Tinworm-wings: RT Exams

Tuesday 6 April 2010

RT Exams

I am working like buggery to revise (or learn) my RT for my Radio Telecommunications exams; written exam tomorrow, followed by a run through of the practical exam; then the practical-proper next week.

Lizzie and I did Richard Naish's ground school at Conington in February and it was excellent. We came away reassured that we could do this, having initially found the whole business horrendously daunting. At the end of the day, Lizzie who had done quite a bit of prep passed a mock and I was one mark short, relying very largely on the day's input from Richard.

The practical exam is reputedly the hardest flying-related exam there is and I have to admit I am definitely some way off being ready for that, as it involves following a flight through (using a computer linked to another in a different room) and doing all the calls along the route...and will include every type of call, all types of controller, etc. What I have done on the radio as a student pilot doesn't even begin to cover any of this, but at least I have achieved a small amount of confidence. I have never yet talked to an Air Traffic Controller but I have talked quite a lot to FISOs at Sywell.

When I had my engine failure, I had deliberately not taken my radio with me, even to monitor transmissions, having recently done the RT groundschool - didn't want to get tempted to make a call, when not licenced. I wonder if I would have got in trouble for calling in a Mayday? It was definitely a situation which called for one, ordinarily, except that in a microlight it really doesn't feel like too great a deal really, and maybe my time was better spent trying a re-start and finding a good place to land.

Right, well writing this isn't getting my revision done, so I am off now to revise. Think of me at Conington tomorrow.

Update

Right, well I am now averaging 82% on unseen mock exams (75% is a pass), so I am just about ready....but mustn't get complacent. Incidentally, I get my mocks by subscribing to Airquiz, but I don't do them online. I opt for offline, print them off and am emailed a marking sheet. Then I use my marked scripts to highlight areas needing further study. So far I have taken 5 of their exams and have another ready. I am not sure how many questions they have but I have seen repeats. The trick is not to learn their answers but to use them to identify areas of weakness. In theory I can generate random exams for the next two years, without limit....which is bloody good for a subscription of three quid.

Plus, they welcome emails if you think you might have identified a mistake, which I did, but it turned out that I had got it wrong and should have relied on CAP413 (CAA document....a heavy tome designed to cure insomnia) rather than my now out-of-date Pooleys. Degrees is appended when the last digit is a zero, incidentally; headings normally would not otherwise have degrees after the digits. Jon at Airquiz got back to me with that advice even though it was late at night on a Bank Holiday. Impressive.

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Ground handling (how to store an aeroplane at home and get it to the airfield)

A trial flight in a Thruster, when I was 28, c.1991

I have started to learn to fly before...TWICE! First time round I had just graduated and got a job at an aerodrome in Cornwall, where I earned flying hours by fuelling microlights, giving hourly weather reports to the Met office etc. The weather was bad, so there was little flying to be had...and in the end I was paid with broken propellers and bits of crashed fuselage to hang on the wall. The boss was a great bloke called Ian Stokes, who had been a leading light in forming the BMAA and had manufactured Thrusters in the early days . In retirement he moved to The Gambia and became a publican and, shockingly, was murdered this year.

Flying Rogues

ten years on from my first experiences at Moorland Flying School (and now nearly ten years ago) the flying school was under new management and my girlfriend and I booked full courses. We both made good progress initially but never felt we were being moved on and had difficulty pinning the instructor down to signing our logbooks. When another instructor signed himself as P1, we got suspicious, contacted the CAA and were horrified to learn that our instructor did not have a current instructor rating, that we had not been insured and that none of our hours counted towards our licences. We were eventually refunded and the instructors were prosecuted by the CAA.

The very sympathetic CAA investigator spoke to the BMAA on our behalf and my hours have been allowed to count (at the discretion of the school). But in point of fact, I flew way over the minimum number of hours subsequently, so it is really quite academic in the end.

Around 2001 an instructor in Norfolk tried to convince me that if I bought his aeroplane he could teach me at a cut rate, as I'd then be using my own plane. Great idea, I thought, except that it turned out that the aircraft in question had failed a noise test and could not be used from the instructor's field. He later admitted that I would have to learn on his aeroplane at the normal rate. He resisted showing me the paperwork, kept avoiding me and eventually, when it was quite clear I wasn't going to buy without the paperwork, told me to F-off.

So far my experience has been that there are a lot of rogues in flying, which is one reason why I was so very impressed by the professional set-up at Sywell.

by air to Africa

My sister and I were lucky to fly many thousands of miles in the 1960s and '70s in many aircraft types, including BOAC VC-10s, Boeing 707s and even a Nigerian Airways Dakota, as our dad (and later our mum) had teaching posts in Kenya and Nigeria. Those were still the romantic days of flying, when passengers walked across tarmac and up steps, rather than walking down the tubes that have turned passenger flying into a mundane affair. (Mind you, aren't take-offs still incredibly exciting!?)

Back then air hostesses GAVE children the sorts of nick-nacks that their parents have to pay fortunes for from the airline catalogue these days; things like model aeroplanes, keyrings etc. We were also given sweets to help us cope with depressurisation. (And they were hostesses, so nobody give me a hard time)

Mum says that I cracked my first joke when I was small, on a flight out to Kenya, when I said, "Mummy, shouldn't there be a wing on this side of the plane too". Apparently I got her with that one.

At Kano airport I remember standing behind an engine and thinking how hot it still was....and then being told that the engine was cold. The heat was Kano. I got a headache and took several days to aclimatise.

The airport perri-ways at Kano were littered with aircraft that didn't make it, including a burnt-out Mig 15. The Nigerian Airforce flew them and my dad played squash with one of their pilots, Ben, at the Kano Club. I recall a Mig fly-past on my birthday. Was it arranged with Ben over a beer? Was it a pure coincidence?

At Entebbe airport (Uganda) I remember climbing down the steps on to the runway and being encircled by soldiers with machine guns, who then went through all our belongings and confiscated my cherished Swiss Army penknife, purchased on one of numerous European stop-overs. That was in the twitchy time after the Israeli hijacking ...and mum had to stifle my protests.

Before my first flight to Nairobi, as an infant, I was scared stiff. I didn't understand that I wouldn't have to sit astride the fuselage, as I did on my pedalcar! In a funny way, I not only overcame that fear but have come full circle; microlighting is just like sitting on that pedalcar......open to the elements - real flying!