Well, I survived the first week!

Week one of ATPL ground school, done. And it's just flown by! A bit scary considering my test 1 exams are now in 5 weeks!

So far, it's been going great although really tiring, I'm hoping that wears off once I get into the swing of being back at school again. I come home from school and spend a few hours consolidating what we've done that day or as the instructors put it "writing a new textbook needlessly". But it helps and we don't have much hardcore homework yet. At the end of each day we have CBT periods with a small test at the end and I've been getting pretty good marks on those so I'm feeling good so far, I thought I'd find this phase more difficult (though I know it will get harder).

Wearing the full uniform and playing with the MASSIVE CRP-5 computer in an instruments class:

My favourite subject at the moment is 'Meterology', and we're doing about the atmosphere, there's a fair amount to learn like all the standard ISA temperatures and pressures for different altitudes but I find it quite interesting. I'm also finding that a lot of the classes link together which definitely helps broaden your understanding and finding out how the pressure we learn about about in say, Met will affect the ASI (airspeed instrument) readings we're studying in 'Aircraft Instruments'. I also love Human Performance but I knew I would, so far we've watched a few videos and discussed what went wrong, really not been difficult at the moment!

My least favourite subject is probably 'Systems', I'm finding it a little dry and technical at the moment as we're learning about structures and composite materials and the different stresses and strains experienced during flight. It feels a little like an engineering course rather than a pilot course however we are only on chapter one and its relevance will probably become clear soon. I guess we have to know that kind of thing to be aware of how the structure of the airplane could be affect by our (extreme) flying. Who knows? I am interested to see if my opinion of my subjects changes throughout the course, which it definitely will.

This weekend I went back into Oxford again to be a tourist and I've got to say what a gorgeous city! The sun was shining and we went all around just enjoying it. There won't be much free time later on in the course so I might as well enjoy seeing this part of the country while I can (while the weather stays nice!)