Base Training

After three glorious weeks of waiting due to a delay in issuing my airside ID, I was finally rostered to do base training back at East Midlands. If you are unfamiliar, base training is essentially where the newbie demonstrates to the man in the left hand seat that they can perform at least six take offs and landings without killing anyone.

Before the big day, every cadet has to do what's called Preliminary Simulator Circuit Training (PSCT), which is an hour in the sim to practice how to fly the B737 in the circuit, pretty straight forward, but at the same time important to get right so that you get the most out of base training. There is a requirement to do base training within 21 days of the PSCT, which is exactly what I had to do. It was fine by me really, since even my incredible flying abilities do deteriorate after a few weeks without flying.

The day I almost flew

The base training is usually done in groups of five cadets. On the left hand seat is the Base Training Captain, who guides you and makes sure that nobody dies, and a First Officer who acts as a safety pilot in the jump seat, and is also there to ensure that nobody dies. The first day was unsuccessful, owing to some rather miserable conditions. The second day, we reported back to the training centre for our second attempt, with even worse weather conditions. However, Il Capitano decided to take us up to Prestwick where the weather was surprisingly better.

Base training was the single greatest hour of my life. Even as I write this, I can clearly remember l how amazing every aspect of the flight was, from advancing the thrust levers for take off, to manually flying the thing down the glide path and touching down. This is also the first day where everyone gets to put on their shiny new uniform, which made me feel a lot more professional.

It was remarkable how much easier the aircraft was to fly in comparison to the simulator. In the sim, you only really need to breathe on the controls when making the corrections to remain stable during an approach, but in the aircraft, you really get to man handle it to get it to do what you need, and this makes it more forgiving. The simulators are generally designed to be more sensitive, so the transition is much easier.

The next stage for me and my fellow comrades was a visit to Airline's newly built head offices in Dublin for a wings ceremony. Apparently this is quite a new thing for pilots who have just completed their type rating or operator conversion course. It is pretty cool getting to see it, and it does make you feel a sense of achievement, as well as being part of a humongous company.

After the HQ visit, it was onto the supernumerary (SNY) flights. Before being rostered for line training, every Low Hour First Officer has to complete at least 12 sectors of these SNYs, which is simply sitting in the jumpseat as an observer in order to familarise with the operations of line flying. These are very useful as it is the chance to practice radio calls, do the paperwork, and even getting to do the preflight setup and shut down in the flight deck. I see it as a way to ease everyone into the line training, without directly throwing people in at the deep end, so it is in everyone's interest to get as much out of these flights as possible.


I'll be posting my next update as soon as I can, in the meantime good luck with whatever you are doing, and happy flying!