My new home...

On the 3rd of March I will be moving to Port Elizabeth to start my CPL course on the 5th of March. Being that Aptrac is based at Port Elizabeth International Airport, I will give you a bit of information about this airport. It is owned and operated by Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) and located approximately 2 miles south of the city's CBD, giving it the nickname "the10 minute Airport" as it takes only 10 minutes by road to reach any of the city's major areas. The first flight to Port Elizabeth was in 1917 from Cape Town by Major Allister Mackintosh Miller. The airport was established in 1929 and officially opened in 1939 boasting a single runway and hanger. In 2000, plans for a major terminal upgrade were drawn up and opened in 2004. The airport now has 3 runways. The main 1,980 meter asphalt runway, the second 1,167 meters long and a 1,160 meter long grass one. The airport has 13 parking bays and can accommodate 2 million passengers a year. The airport is visited by 1Time, Comair (British Airways), Airlink, South African Airways, South African Express and Velvet Sky. These airlines connect PE to Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and Bloemfontein.

Selecting a flight school

What should you look for when you choose a flight school? Well to me the most important thing is my own personal happiness. I know that sounds selfish but i'm the one who's going to be there for the next year or so so I should love the place. The two flight schools I had to choose between were 43 Air School in Port Alfred and Aptrac in Port Elizabeth. Let me tell you a bit about the two. We'll start with...

43 AIR SCHOOL

A widely recognized, professional flight school. Airlines from all over Africa send their pupils from their cadet training programs through 43. The school offers training all the way from PPL to ATPL. The campus at Port Alfred has everything built in. Sleeping accommodation, places to eat, gyms, maintenance hangers and more. It's a school most pilots in South Africa would kill to go through. 

APTRAC

Short for Airline Pilot Training Center. Aptrac hasn't been around as long as 43 Air School and isn't as widely recognized. It offers exactly the same training as 43 and at the same standard. The school offers a crew house near the airport and also has their own maintenance base at the airport.

So both schools are excellent. What made me choose Aptrac then?? Firstly was that 43 is,in my opinion, completely ridiculously priced. R500 000+ is ridiculous for a base price of a CPL and they have been known to have hidden costs. Secondly was the vibe. By vibe I mean the atmosphere of the whole place. 43 seemed sterile, like a prison. The instructors are miserable ex-SAAF people who think they are something special and this leads to students who think they're Top Gun. If you ever see a 43 plane land, watch how the students get out and strut from their plane at 1/16th normal walking speed with their sunglasses on, no matter the cloud cover. Aptrac is a happy place surrounded by happy students and instructors who are friends. Now i'm not saying there's is no discipline. There certainly is. Clean cut, uniform, show the CFI the utmost respect but do it all with a smile on your face. Gone are the days of the SAAF route to become an airline pilot. You can get your CPL at any reputable flight school and you will have a shot at becoming an airline pilot. All that's required in this modern day and age is skill and passion. You have those two and you're sorted. My biggest motivation for Aptrac though was the location. A proper international airport. If you want to become an airline pilot then what better place to do it? Be surrounded by the "real thing". Also my mentor lives in Port Elizabeth and it's a short drive to ask him any questions I have. So that's why I chose Aptrac. Comfort before beauty!

60 Hours with a Legend aboard.

When I landed on my last flight I had logged a total of 59,5 hours (or 59h 30m). So I was excited to hit 60 hours!

This flight,however,was different. I would be taking up a man who is recognized by my fellow aviators as a "Legend". Now I must admit that I was as nervous for this flight as my flight test but I was never going to let anyone know that. I try hard to never impress and rather just do what i'm supposed to do. I think I did that on this flight.After all,it's pointless trying to impress a 747 Captain in a Cessna! We took off from runway 19 and headed to the southern slope of the Helderberg. I kept my eyes on the Hobbs meter. Very close to being overhead my house, while in a steep turn, I hit 60 hours. Graham was at the controls at the time and I felt honored that he was with me. I don't celebrate every 10 hours in my logbook but this was the first time I didn't have to do a 10 hour check with an instructor! Getting back to the flight, Graham taught me some very helpful tips while we were up there. Such as how to find out where you will make contact with the ground by finding a stationary part of scenery(hard to explain in words,easier shown in the cockpit). He also improved my crosswind landing by about a million times. I botched the first one but after he had shown me the correct method it became a lot easier. After the flight he explained some more techniques to help me and advised me on how to better my flying. I don't really know what I was afraid of. He turned out to be an awesome copilot and I can now understand why all his students love him. I'm not going to write much on what he said to me but it was great to be able to share a cockpit with him. I can honestly say that he is exactly the type of pilot I want to be one day.

Thank you for all the interest you have shown in my flying over the years Graham! You are an awesome role model and I can't wait to work through the next step of my flying with you.

It's been a while...

I hadn't flown since February so I was desperate to get back in the air again. I was happy when weather,school and finances all allowed me to take up a family friend of mine.

It's always nice to fly with someone who knows what's going on in the aircraft. No stupid "what does this button do" questions. On the 14th of April we took off from runway 01 at Stellenbosch. We routed south to my hometown  of Somerset West and we flew overhead the mall, Strand beachfront and then a few steep turns over the golf course to try see his house. The weather was near perfect with only a few bumps so we flew rather low through the Helderburg gap back to Stellies which is always an awesome experience. We decided to do some touch and go's and I performed a relatively nice landing the first time(in my opinion anyway). The second time around I let him fly the downwind and base leg. The result was an extremely high final approach so a go-around was initiated.Totally his fault(Joke!).Unfortunately he had a dinner arrangement so we could on do one more landing and it was to be a full stop. I landed rather smoothly and taxied back to the hanger. After we shut down he explained to me how this flight was actually a very emotional moment for him because he went through a circle of teaching me to build and fly remote control airplanes all the way through to me actually taking him up in a full size aircraft. I never thought of it that way but when he said it, it really got me thinking..

Dave, thank you for all your help and guidance over the past couple of years. Your support and knowledge have really helped me to go from models to full size. Thank you for taking the time to teach me about how a plane flies or how engines and instruments work. And thank you for getting up all those early mornings to go to the r/c club or spending your weekends with me in your workshop building planes. You really have been a major influence in my flying and there is always a seat for you in my cockpit.

About me..

Up to this point I have just been telling random stories so I guess I should tell a little bit about myself. I'm 18 years old and got my PPL in November last year. I plan on becoming an Airline Pilot in the future and thought that blogging would be a great way for me to remember certain flights as well as sharing my stories. I'm currently in Matric at Somerset West Private School in Somerset West. After matriculating this year I plan on attending a flight college in Port Elizabeth, South Africa called Aptrac (Airline pilot training center) and I plan on doing my multi-engine Commercial pilots license with instrument rating as well as achieving what's known as a "frozen" Airline Transport pilot's license.The course takes approximately 14 months. I have my sights set on becoming a Captain of South African Airways on the Long-haul fleet. I have always loved flying and I'm lucky enough to know exactly what I want with my life. I haven't flown much recently. Only twice in February doing circuits and taking my Mom and grandpa up for a flight over Somerset West. Before next year I will be getting my night rating and building a few more hours...but more on that later.

The Flight test.

Monday, November 22 2010.Local time 14:00.I'm sweating, feel nauseas and can feel my heart beating. But on the surface I look calm and ready. The examiner and I walk out to Cessna 152 ZS-POV. I've been at the airfield since 10:00 sorting out flight logs,planning the route, filing the flight plans and calling Langebaan asking if we can do a touch and go at Saldanha. The examiner never asks if you've done it..he's essentially your first passenger. He wants to see that you can plan and execute a flight to a foreign airfield safely. I taxi out and take-off. Climb up to 1500 feet, and contact Cape Town Approach to activate our flight plan. All good so far. Reaching Paarl, we climb up to 3000 feet. The plan is to route north when suddenly the examiner goes "Weather's closing in.We gotta divert directly to Saldanha."Now I know this is part of the test because there's not a cloud in the sky.So I sort it all out on the map, turn onto our new heading and tell the examiner our new ETE and ETA (Estimated time en-route and estimated time arrival).He just knods. He's known for being a flippen scary examiner to the students but on the ground he's actually a really great guy. I do all the necessary radio calls and soon we're circling over Saldanha airfield. Suddenly my examiner pulls the throttle back to idle and calmly says "Shit,your engine just died.Sort it out." I do the ANC  (Aviate, Navigate and Communicate) and brief him for the emergency landing as if he's a passenger. I come in a bit fast but touch down safely and stop. His comment is "Ok." So we get airborne again. The next part of the test is down to Fisantekraal, Cape Town International Airport and home to Stellenbosch.Halfway to Fisantekraal he tells me to cancel our flight plan. We have 10 minutes to sunset and have to land on the fields below us.Another part of the test obviously.It's 16:00.I do the precautionary and he stays quiet. Then we climb up a bit higher and do upper air work.This comprises of stalls, steep turns, roll out on a heading, spins and rate 1 turns.No comment from the examiner. Touch down at Fisantekraal and the examiner wants me to do a short field take off. This is the stupidest thing ever in my opinion because it always takes longer to get airborne then a normal takeoff. But I do it and again there's no comment. Touch and go at Cape Town and we finally land back at Stellies after over 3 hours. As he's getting out he says "Haha,shit that was long! I'll see you inside." I take my time packing POV up and head to his office. As I sit down he just stares at me." Your landing at Saldanha was crap but you got us down, on your precautionary landing you missed a better field that was right next door but you would have survived, the upper air work was good and the radio work i'm happy with. You have a great feel with planes and you fly smoothly. It's just the smaller things that could use work. But that will come with time."He still doesn't smile."You know Daniel,I only pass people if I feel that I can trust my family's lives in their plane."Then he starts smiling and says "You passed.You're a pilot." Inside I shout with joy but on the surface i'm once again cool and calm and just say "Thank you sir." And shake his hand. I have 47,2 hours and I have just become a Private pilot.The greatest day of my life and my biggest achievement(so far!)..

My Long Nav.

Due to the fact that I am a slacker, I have been putting this off for a while. 8 months to be exact (eish!).So some of the details have gone a bit faded but I still remember the flight like it was yesterday. I flew the clubs new Cessna 172 ZS-SLM. I had chosen to do the Stellenbosch-George flight as I found it would be a good way for me to learn about flying into bigger airports. I arrived in the early morning,fueled the aircraft, faxed the flightplans through and called Overberg Air force base (since I would be doing a touch and go at a small airfield near Cape Aghullas called Andrews field and would be entering air force airspace), the chap was extremely friendly and my instructor and I were off by 0800..we flew first to Andrews Field, did the touch and go, and continued up South Africa's longest all white beach at low level. The friendly chap from earlier called us up on the radio and told us to look for whales as it was whale season(we spotted 19 whales). He then proceeded to crap on another guy for not calling before entering the airspace. This pleased my instructor because he could now see that I had thought ahead and done it. We continued up the coast towards Mossel Bay,contacted George tower and got instructions to land behind a South African Airlink Embraer. We landed, refueled, parked the plane and went and had lunch in the terminal. The flight back was much more routine though. We were at 8000 feet (so no whale-spotting) and had a head wind causing the flight to be much longer. We were also over land the whole flight, routing over Swellendam and then on to Stellenbosch. The total day's flying was a little over 5 hours in my logbook and a shitload of fun!