Module 3 Exams + APD 2

Well, it's finally happened! After 6 long months, over 32,000 practice questions and endless cups of coffee later, ATPL ground school has finally come to an end!

A few light notes I've made over the course of ground school...

Last time I updated the blog, I was just about to sit my Module 3 mocks, which thankfully I passed first time, meaning I could then make the final push towards the last 6 exams. So, about a week later, I sat what I hoped was my last set of exams..

The real exams were a bit of a mixed bag really; my Systems/Engines/Electrics exam was by far the hardest exam I've sat, whereas the VFR and IFR Comms exams were 'slightly' easier, to say the least! We didn't get the results through until quite late the morning after, which meant I was rather anxious during my exit interview at 9.15 am! However, they did eventually come through, so I finally have a complete set of 14 exam results:

• Human Performance and Limitations - 92%
• Principles of Flight - 94%
• General Navigation - 95%
• Mass & Balance - 94%
• Flight Planning & Monitoring - 93%
• AGK: Instrumentation - 98%
• Radio Navigation - 98%
• Performance - 92%
• Airframe/Systems/Power Plant/Electrics - 90%
• VFR Communications - 100%
• Meteorology - 90%
• Air Law - 97%
• Operational Procedures - 93%
• IFR Communications - 100%

• Overall Average = 95%

I was told by a former cadet before starting my training that "The more work you put in at ground school, the more you get out". So with that mindset, I've worked harder over the last 6 months than I've ever worked in my entire life! I'm absolutely delighted with the results I've achieved, and the same goes for my course mates, who've all done brilliantly as well!

After a rather long night of celebrations after our exams, we came in the following day for our exit interviews, and the day after that, our second Airline Preparation Day (APD 2). We were joined by a former CTC cadet who is now flying as a SFO for Monarch Airlines, and the day mainly consisted of reflection on the skills we've learnt and experiences we'e had over the course of ground school, whilst also looking towards the future and what we hope to achieve during the next phase of our training out in NZ / USA.

The only downside of the day was finding out that due to various circumstances out in the USA, our flight out is delayed, meaning we don't fly out until early March. Whilst the news is a little disappointing, it gives me a chance to relax and see family before another 6 months away from home.

As am writing this, we've now got less than 3 weeks until the 6 of us on CP135G fly out to Phoenix, therefore I've got time to have a quick holiday before heading off. The other 9 of my course mates have already flown out to NZ and look like they're having a great time, which is making me rather jealous right now! That being said, next time I update this blog I'll be out in Phoenix, and so I'll finally have a chance to experience what the USA has to offer!

A final photo in front of the so-called 'Mansion'. (Credits: @jakeyreynolds)

Weeks 19,20,21 + 22: Module 3 and Christmas Break

I think it's an appropriate time for a long overdue blog update! The Christmas break has just come to an end, so it's time to head back for the last few weeks of ground school before flying out to Phoenix for the next stage of my training. Over the course of what turned out to be a very busy December, we've managed to cover the rest of the Module 3 syllabus (apart from one lesson when we get back!).

The first of which is Meteorology, which includes all the sorts of weather that we as pilots can expect on a day-to-day basis, as well as severe weather such as hurricanes and monsoons that we need to be aware of! In addition to learning the ins and outs of how these sorts of weather form, we've also been learning how to interpret weather reports in the forms of METARs and TAFs, which give pilots a summary of the conditions for the area in which they are planning to fly, whether it be a calm day with few clouds and good visibility, or rain showers with potential thunderstorm activity!

An example of a METAR for London Heathrow (EGLL)

Further to this, we learnt about different types of weather charts, which help give a visual representation of the weather over a certain area, which could be the wind conditions, as well as the types of cloud and conditions that these bring with them. For example, below is an image of a cumulonimbus cloud, which can extend thousands of feet through the atmosphere, and brings with it rather nasty conditions such as icing, rain, hail, thunderstorms and severe turbulence (To name a few!), so it's definitely one to be avoided if at all possible!

As enjoyable as Meteorology was, it's proven to be rather difficult at some points. There are many variables to consider regarding weather so you really have to think about the answer sometimes, meaning it doesn't jump out at you unlike some other subjects we've studied!

The second big topic of module 3 we completed before the Christmas break was Aircraft General Knowledge. This is split into 3 sub topics; Airframes and Systems, Electrics, and Engines.

Electrics mainly deals with things such as AC and DC generators and how electrical power is generated and distributed throughout the aircraft, in turn supplying power to other systems. I was never brilliant at Physics, so some parts of it I've found tricky to understand, but fortunately there isn't much to learn which makes things a bit easier!

Airframes and Systems covers the broad range of different systems onboard the aircraft, without which it wouldn't get off the ground! For example, Hydraulic systems onboard the aircraft utilise fluid under pressure which is then pumped around the system to generate large forces used to operate things such as the landing gear, flight control surfaces and wheel brakes. Fuel systems, flight controls and the construction of modern aircraft  are a few more examples of areas which we've looked at in depth over the last few weeks.

The final part of the AGK syllabus was Engines, which was by far the most interesting part of the subject. Aircraft engines are essentially based on the principle of "Suck, squeeze, bang, blow". In a nutshell, this implies that air enters the engine intake, is compressed and mixed with fuel, ignited and produces a significant amount of power which is then converted to thrust, used to propel the aircraft through the air. Of course the process isn't as simple as I've made it sound, it's rather intricate and very precise to operate correctly, which makes you realise how clever the engineering is!

The inner workings of a gas turbine engine.

So after a busy month of teaching, we had about a week or so off over the Christmas period before coming back to sit our mock exams. We also had what will sadly be one of our last group dinners together, as our course soon parts ways to go off to both the USA and NZ! I'm glad to say I was able to spend time with friends and family over the break, and also watch a bit of rugby whilst I was back, meaning I've come back rested and am now ready to make the final push over the last 3 weeks of ground school!

Weeks 16,17 & 18: Module 2 Exams and Starting Module 3

As I've been rather lazy with the blog over the last couple of weeks, it's about time I posted an update of what's been going on since completing my Module 2 mock exams nearly a month ago!

So, after more long days and many cups of coffee later, I finally sat my Module 2 exams on the 9th and 10th of November. I'm really happy to say that the hard work is still paying off, as I achieved a 95% average across the 4 exams, and especially as I managed to get 98% in two of my exams, which was a pretty good feeling! To be honest, everyone did really well, all getting first time passes across the board, so only six exams now stand between us and flight training! Looking back on it, I'd have to say that Module 2 was a pretty tough 2 months, so I'm very glad that it's finally over!

We managed to have a well-deserved night off following our exams, however due to Christmas coming around soon and therefore affecting the teaching schedule over the Christmas period, we went straight into module 3 the following morning (after not many hours sleep!..). Despite this, it was still a great night, although I think a few people felt a bit worse for wear the next day!

So, we're now back into the daily routine! We all had our Visa meeting last week, which means for us guys going to the USA, we're going to have to take a trip the US embassy in London at some point soon to get our Student Visas sorted out. Although this is a bit of pain, it shows how we're getting quite close to finishing ground school now, which I guess is a bit of an incentive!

We've also just come to the end of our first Module 3 topic, which was Air Law, and I'm sure you could have a good guess at what that's about! Air Law is essentially a collection of the various laws and procedures that govern commercial aviation today. The origins of what makes up these rules can be traced back to the Chicago Convention in 1944, in which 52 states set about establishing laws that they would all adopt as their own over their own territory. This led to the formation of ICAO (The International Civil Aviation Organisation) in 1947 who to this day have a large number of Standards and Recommended Practices which member states such as the UK, France, Germany, Spain etc. follow. These govern all aspects of aviation, from the rules regarding Search & Rescue, all the way through to the colour of taxiway signs at airports. It's not been a overly difficult subject, however the sheer quantity of information has made it more of an exercise in learning facts!

We've now made a start on 3 other subjects, including Meteorology which I've been quite looking forward to, and I'll talk about this in the next couple of weeks. I also enjoyed helping out at another busy open day on Saturday, which I managed to fit in before the workload starts to build up again!

Weeks 13,14 +15: Radio Navigation And Mock Exams

I think it's about time to write a new post! Apologies for the lack of activity, it's been a rather busy few weeks as we draw towards the end of Module 2.

I thought I'd give a brief explanation of what we've been learning in our last topic of module 2, which was Radio Navigation. In aviation, accurate navigation using navigation aids is essential and simply wouldn't be possible without them! And depending on where we are in the world and what stage of flight we're in, there are a broad selection of nav aids that we'll use to guide us along the flight path.

VORs and DMEs are the main nav aids that aircraft use en route, which we'll tune into on their respective frequencies, giving us a bearing and a distance from the beacons themselves to help determine our position. So for example, a VOR sends out signals allowing aircraft to determine their bearing from the beacon, or how far off their desired track to or from the VOR station they are. Whilst a DME uses what's known as pulse interrogation. The DME station and the aircraft will send radio pulses to each other, and measure the time it takes to transmit and receive them to determine the aircraft's slant range from the DME. Here's a traditional VOR indicator, which nowadays you're more likely to find in smaller aircraft than big jets!

Another side of Radio Navigation was looking at the systems which are used for guiding the aeroplane on final approach and landing. The main system which is used all over the world is known as the Instrument Landing System (ILS). This is a ground-based system which provides both lateral and sometimes vertical guidance for aircraft to keep them on the runway centreline, and the optimum descent path to land on the runway at the correct point. It's usually only used for the approach when flying, but if there's poor visibility, it can be used to to complete the landing automatically without the pilots actually touching the controls! An example of this is in the video below, where the ILS is guiding the aircraft down to the runway, whilst the pilots are monitoring all the instruments to make sure it's all working as it should!

Radio Navigation was very interesting as a subject, but at the same time, it was ENORMOUS. Lots and lots of information to learn about other navigation aids, such as GPS and RADAR. But for the sake of keeping the blog at a suitable length, I though it was best to focus on a few systems rather than all of them or this would start to turn into an essay!

After finishing Radio Navigation we had just over a week to prepare for our Module 2 mock exams, which weren't easy, but thankfully I passed them all with pretty good marks. Since then, it's just been solid revision, so I'm hoping that the real exams on Monday and Tuesday go just as well!

Weeks 11 + 12: Flight Planning

With just over 3 days of lessons left to go in Module 2, exams are again looming... Thankfully we have a decent number of study days between now and then, so there's still ample time to continue working away at our 4 subjects.

Following Performance a couple of weeks ago, we made a start on Flight Planning. You may remember whilst I was studying General Navigation that I mentioned we had been briefly introduced to charts and given a basic understanding of how to use them. Flight Planning has taken this one rather large step further and taught us how to utilise navigation aids such as VORs and DMEs in conjunction with airways to plan a route from A to B. This is all well and good flying across the sky at 35,000ft, but you also need to take off and land at airports safely; this is where SIDS (Standard Instrument Departures) and STARS (Standard Terminal Arrival Routes) come into play. These are essentially pre-planned paths that guide aeroplanes in and out of airports in a safe fashion though the use of waypoints, rather than having a free-for-all to land and take off! Here's an example of a Standard Instrument Departure at London Heathrow; think of it as a slip road that you'd use to join the motorway!

The other side of Flight Planning focuses on the important cost in commercial aviation, and that is of course fuel. Airlines don't like their aircraft to carry more fuel than they need, as it's obviously very expensive and carrying more means burning extra fuel to lift the heavier aircraft into the sky. Therefore, we were taught using a multitude of graphs and tables how to determine the amount of fuel different aircraft would need for a specific operation dependant on the sector distance, and the amount of fuel per hour the aircraft would burn, including reserves for emergencies, adverse weather etc. Riveting stuff I know, but burning unnecessary amounts of fuel is inefficient and drives up costs, so airlines like to keep it to a minimum. We finished off the week with an exercise in which we planned a flight from London Stansted to Biarritz, filling in a flight plan, plotting the route on the chart and working out the fuel we would need, which was quite an enjoyable end to the topic.

After quite a busy few days of ground school this week, we celebrated the birthday of one of my course mates Rumanul, with a Chinese on Friday night. This is one the few meals out we've actually been able to have as a group, so it's good to have an evening off every once in a while from work and relax!

Weeks 10 + 11: Performance

Another two weeks of ground school have come and gone, as has another lengthy subject; Performance. It's mainly related to, funnily enough, the performance of an aircraft at the various stages of flight and the external conditions that can have significant effects on the aircraft in question.

So for example, we are required to work out (with the seemingly endless supply of graphs), the distance required for the aircraft to take off depending on the weight, altitude, temperature, wind, slope etc, and the speeds at which it will lift off the runway and safely climb away at a given rate of climb and thrust setting. I think a lot of people assume planes apply full power, hurtle down the runway and take off the same way every time, but there's a lot of factors that I've just mentioned which can make a huge difference. Having a runway contaminated with water can cause its takeoff and landing distance to increase because of the lack of friction, so making sure the aircraft has enough runway is very important!

There's also a decent chunk of theory involved, some of which we originally covered in Principles of Flight, which fortunately makes the learning curve a little less steep!

Although Performance is of course relevant, I'd be lying if I said it was my favourite subject! There's a lot of speeds and numbers to learn off by heart, and it's not as interesting as some of the other subjects I've done. Oh well, I'd best get on with it!

I also had a good time volunteering at the CTC Open Day the Saturday before last. It was good to give aspiring pilots some advice and just have a general chat, as this time last year I was in the same position! I also managed to get some time in the simulator, which is always a bonus!

Week 9: Instruments

A week of lessons is over, and so is another topic; Instruments, which is split into two parts. Basic Instruments is associated with mostly mechanical instruments and how they operate in relation to pressure and temperature. So for example, an airspeed indicator is fed with both total pressure as well as static pressure (pressure of the ambient air) and therefore the differential pressure between them is used to determine speed. It's a clever, yet simple piece of kit..

Moving on from this (and the concept of gyroscopes, thank goodness!), we finished off the topic with Advanced Instruments from Thursday until Saturday, which was taught to us by two Airbus A320 pilots. This is more to do with the technical, computer sides of things and deals with components of modern aircraft such as the Autopilot System and Flight Management Computer (FMC). The FMC contains all the navigation and performance data which pilots need to navigate a flight a plan effectively whilst also determining the optimum speeds and altitude at which to fly. Despite having a very important and complex job, it's actually quite weak in terms of power compared with today's computers funnily enough! We also covered the automated, safety sides of things like the TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) which in a nutshell, alerts the pilots if you're flying a little bit close to another aircraft! 

The Control Display Unit (CDU), used to access the Flight Management Computer (FMC)

Advanced Instruments has definitely been the most interesting part of Ground School for me so far, and it's all relevant stuff which we'll be using on a daily basis in our careers. Although right now it's just a lot to take in and remember! We also had a brief simulator session on Saturday morning in the 737-700 to have a go at programming the systems and seeing how they actually work in reality. It was great fun, and certainly gave me a motivation boost (not that I needed one!). 

Credits go to my course mate Eren for the photos..  https://instagram.com/eren12/