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!