Epilogue

What happens next?

As I’d gone back home to Sheffield I applied for a temporary job working at NEXT again as who knew how long I’d have to wait, heard horror stories of it taking years to find an airline job and I needed my license before I could even apply. There are also deadlines for when you can apply by or have to wait until the next intake for quite a few of the partner airlines.

I had a nerve wracking 3 weeks of waiting for my license to arrive from the CAA and my final report from Oxford. I needed both to apply for an airline. Blue book in hand I immediately applied for Easyjet and Jet2. I heard back from both! The easyjet assessment day took place at Oxford, so I got to go back for a weekend! Already it felt strange to be an outsider. The jet2 initial assessment was an online maths test and personality profile.

A week later I had a missed call from jet2 whilst I was at work, the message said they were inviting me for an interview and I was so happy! I went home and checked my emails and there was one from Oxford congratulating me on my results of the assessment day and that easyJet were offering me a position flying their A320 fleet. Too good to refuse and I joined the orange family straight away. This was just about a month after leaving Oxford! I’m so happy that my dream and goal of becoming a first officer (and validating the web address of this blog) has actually come true!

Josh and I also did a refresher sim before type rating in the Oxford 737s:

Next came type rating (I had to wait until August for a course to become available), I did this at Woodford in Manchester so conveniently close to home. Then I was allocated my base which is Berlin SXF, I’ve been in Germany ever since, flying for easyjet and generally loving life. After an induction course in Gatwick and Base training in Nimes, I began my line training in October 2016. I’m now (July 2018) almost at the stage of unfreezing my license now which means more paperwork for the CAA but that’s how it goes. There are the yearly medical and 6 monthly sims and tech exams so you’re never 100% finished training and there’s always more to learn.

Day 1 of type rating: I was happy to be there!

Graduation

Our graduation was postponed until May 2017 but it was such a fun evening and so good to see all our coursemates and instructors again, I was also pleasantly surprised to have bagged ‘best in flight training’ in my course and won a framed certificate and a pen.

I want to round off this blog by saying thank to everyone who has read it this far (sorry it took so long), thank you for your messages and support and I’m always happy to offer advice about my experiences of training. 

Good luck and happy flying!

Emily x

MCC/JOC

For the sake of my own TO DO list I finally have to tick this off (Sorry for the loooong hiatus; out flying!)

The final phase of the intergrated course at Oxford is the MCC/JOC (Multi-crew cooperation and jet orientation course), which for AP365 fell right after New year’s as we finished our IRs just before Christmas, so finally nice to have a break! This is by far the shortest phase lasting only 3 weeks and I’m already feeling nostalgic at having to leave Oxford (and terrified at the prospect of job searching). It was also sad saying goodbye to the EPST students on our course, who complete this section in Holland, whittling us down to 3 members in 365, however students finish their IR phase at all different times so we were mushed together with a few other courses.


My lovely Oxford neighbours and basically family invited me to volunteer at the animal shelter at the weekends and help to walk the dogs, so there is still definitely time to take a break and unwind. The MCC phase felt a lot less stressful than IR, even though there was still a lot to learn. 

Important during this phase are regular careers meetings with the team, making my CV as attractive as possible. I also got to see my IR instructor’s report and Arizona training reports which was surprisingly positive the whole way through, mostly I was praised on my attitude towards learning and this gave me a massive boost and a good feeling to begin MCC on.

Week 1: ground school

Feeling like the big dogs in the school, we walk across the apron to the simulator building, raybans and high-vis jackets donned, knowing we’re getting the envious glances from students just starting their ATPL ground school phase and how cool we look. The MCC takes place in the massive, full motion 737-400 simulators at Oxford! So excited to start HOWEVER your first week is ground school. Again. It was at least a bit more relaxed this time with no formal exams and we spent a lot of time discussing the ‘soft skills’ of teamwork, cooperation, as well as having to learn how to do the performance we’d need to complete the training. Here are a few of my performance cards showing speeds for us to bug in the sim for different flap settings, you worked these out before every ‘flight’.

We were separated into pairs and I’m staying with Josh my IR partner so at least we already know we can get on! We also had homework, we needed to learn the SOPs and flows BEFORE getting our hands on the real simulator, this meant a lot of time spent going over and over the cockpit set up, so much so that instead of living in the centre as some students did, we build our own, highly sophisticated cardboard cockpit to practice on. The checklist comprises of one piece of A4 paper, everything else has to be memorised and it is a check list, not a read and do list. This is quite different than the books we were given when flying the Archer or Seneca.

Week 2: Teamwork

The emphasis on MCC is not how you fly the sim, though each session is graded and commented on, the main thing is learning how to operate with another person, as throughout the whole flight training you’ve done everything yourself. Now you have to incorporate the other person, asking for their opinion in problem solving and lowering the landing gear etc; A very different dynamic. However, I really enjoyed this and we always had a laugh. Every session the full motion was on so you really felt any hard landings. There was also a camera in there so crew in the briefing room could see what was going on (and how badly you were messing up).

Although we only had 5 days of 4 hour sessions, we really felt like we were getting the hang of the plane and putting into practice the SOPs and IR skills which now had to be applied making more use of the automatics and complex boeing system. Failure management is also very different in a jet as the display shows what the failure is and often which checklist to apply. Each session was tracked for debriefing purposes and it’s so satisfying to feel like you flew the ‘jet’ well.

Week 3: Complex failures

After getting a hang of the basics we were given complex problems to solve whilst in the air, although doing everything correctly wasn’t essential (we are NOT 737 type rated yet) it is important to try and think about the problem as a team and come up with the best plan. We had everything from dual hydraulics failures, electric trim failure (it’s so heavy to turn manually!), engine failures (pretty much expected this every take off) and rejected take off procedures. This was the most fun as the sim’s response to an RTO is to throw the whole thing forward 90 degrees. Here’s a trace of an engine failure, I think I kept it pretty straight:

Suddenly after 5 more intense days of 4 hour sessions, you have completed the last objective and you are done. You get your forms signed off, go see the careers counsellor and hand in your pass. Josh, Oskar and I went to our favourite pub once again for a drink and said our farewells. It was emotional and I was sad to be leaving my little house and the friends that I’d made here as well as my neighbours (I still go and stay with them when I get my medical done). I finished the course 29^th January 2016 and honestly loved the whole thing.