We've done a further 3 days of General Navigation this week, focusing mainly on various types of charts such as the Mercator, Lambert's conformal and the dreaded POLAR STEREOGRAPHIC charts. These are all types of charts used on a day to day basis in aviation, and as such, we are required to understand not only their properties, but also calculate things such as the distance and direction between points on the graphs (very simplified explanation..) and calculate the changes in scale across the chart, building on the basics of convergency and departure that we learnt last week. I've personally found this rather difficult as I'm not a natural mathematician and some of the questions require a decent amount of maths to come to the answer. However, General Navigation is a very hands-on topic, so I'm hoping that practice and perfecting the technique is the key to success!
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| This more or less sums up Polar Stereographic Charts for me! |
To finish off the week on Friday we had another day of HPL, which is in essence, "100 ways to lose your class 1 medical"! The causes of diabetes, hypoxia, stress, errors, the effects of alcohol on the body, the properties of the eye, nervous system, vestibular system and cardiovascular system are all things we have been learning about this week (to name a few!..). I'll be honest, these aren't the most interesting topics to learn about, but our instructor seems to have a story for almost every single one so that has definitely made it more enjoyable!
We have just over a week of lessons left from tomorrow onwards, and then following this is a couple of weeks of revision, so the first exams are getting closer by the day!
Hi George, just found your blog through CTC newsletter. My son who is 13 - is wanting to follow your path. We cant find anything for his age group to get his passion underway. I will show him this blog when he gets home from school. I would like CTC to consider a junior programme where kids such as my Dean, can start their basic learning of pilot training, which could be a precursor to where you are now. If you have any 'starter' info you could send to me, such as a computer simulator link, what education is needed to get started, which could be of value, I would really love to hear about it. . All the best to your group...Cheers Lyn, From Hamilton NZ. 05msns@gmail.com
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