Day 10

After a chill-out evening with Pieter (other classmate from Aalst who is living in Leuven during the theoretical training at SFA) with some good beers in "De blauwe kater" (a pub in Leuven), I got up friday morning later than usual. Not that I didn't want to go to school, but the weather was typical Belgian: rainy. On those moments the only thing you wish is getting that ATPL as soon als possible, finding a job with an airliner and spending most part of the day ABOVE those rainy clouds.

courses of the day were: Communications (Don't use always "Roger") and principles of flight (what's lift, drag, ...). In the evening we (people from prom6) also received an e-mail from jetair with the schedule of the next 15 days (01/10 - 15/10) to arrange an observation flight if we want so. Only problem: we still didn't receive our uniform which is obligatory for those flights! Can't wait to enter a jetair cockpit with my newly fresh SFA uniform for my first observation flight. By the way: one of the destinations is Cancun (in Mexico), but I think I'll skip that destination in my choice: I don't want to spend the whole weekend on OO-TUC :-).

day 09

Yesterday no news, because I had to study the whole chapter about basic radio. Today it's the 9th day we had courses and so was there also our first internal examination about a chapter we finished. Not a very huge chapter, but still fast enough. I don't know the result yet, I'm always a bit scared when making predictions, but I think I'll have the 75% a man must have to pass.

Now it's time for a relaxed evening (unfortunatly not Kili time), tomorrow again the last day of the "workweek" and then a weekend to study. Yesterday and today we had "Mass and Balance" and we have to know quit a lot by hearth (what's included in the MTOW, MLW, DOM, DEM, TL, ..., the weight you use for a male / female / infant / cabin crew / ... on different kind of flights and conversions between meters, feet, yard, NM, SM, kg, lbs, N.kg, N.lb, ...) to make a loadplan. And you can be sure you don't want to make mistakes with that ;-).

PS: today we also had fysio; that's about human limitations etc. subject one: THE HEART !! Hmmm would that be on request from the people of medex? ;-)

day 07

Today, we saw in the morning an A330 (big one) of Brussels Airlines, ALMOST making a go-around because a smaller plane from Air France was still on the runway. But he cleared the runway just on time so that the big birdy could make a succesful touchdown.

Later, while in the classroom (electrics ... pfff ...) we heard a noice and felt it too: an airbus A300 of DHL was doing some engine tests next to our building ... kewl :-).

And last but not least: I received my BIAC badge !!! No strugling with the fax machine any more in the morning ;-)

day 06

After a nice but short weekend w/o enough hours of sleep, there was again a monday. I guess it will always be hard getting up on a monday, but it wasn't raining, we spotted again some nice (smaller) aircraft landing on RWY 25L (invasion of the germans, all lufthansa planes (CRJ, Airbus A319)), and the courses were again interesting.

This week thursday we have our first internal test (so that's not the official one from the goverment, but it's still important). It's about a chapter which is already finished (that shows that all classes are in fast forward mode ;-)): basic radio. Need sleep vs must study every evening, conclusion: the blogsite might be a bit outdated sometimes this week. But I'll update again at the end of the week or in the weekend, that's for sure!

And wish me luck for thursday, bcause I'm a bit nervous already!

day 04

While going with our bikes from the railway station of Kortenberg to SFA, we cross the "on finals route" of runway 25L (Left). Sometimes it's very quit, almost no traffic, but in the morning you can be lucky to see some heavies landing (Boeing 767 or 777 of American Airlines, Contintal Airlines, Delta Airlines ... and Airbus A330 of Jet Airways). Every time you see and hear one of them landing, you know why you're doing all this effort. Maybe some day I'll take my camera with my and make a short movie of it.

In the morning, we had electrics, which wasn't very difficult (the basics I had while studying MCT). Normally we would have had instrument navigation in the afternoon, but because the teacher couldn't be there, they replaced it by 1 hour basic radio. Next week we'll have our first test of it, and as you may know, the minimum score is always ... 75%. So I'm gonna study now :-).

This weekend (including tomorrow evening) I'm on an AFS weekend, so probably no update tomorrow evening.

have a nice weekend everyone !

day 03

Shortly: today we had navigation (interesting !) and more about instruments (working about the altimeter and vertical speed indicator (VSI)). And I saw a plane making a go-around this morning; hooray :p

day 02

Today was the first day we had "meteo" ... and to get into the right mood for that, there was this morning ... RAIN. The typical belgian rain. Anyway, I went trough it with my bike, to the railway station, arrived there really on time (good to know for tomorrow), took the train to Kortenberg (direct and only 10 minutes !), then again by bike to SFA (at least I'll practise sport 4 times a day :p), this time they received the fax from SFA with my name on it @ the security entrance :-), drank a coffee with my other classmates and went to the classroom on time.
And then we waited ... and waited ... the teacher wasn't there and wouldn't come. Normally we would have had 3 hours Mass and Balance, instead of that we went to the departure area of the airport to drink something. Expensive but sweet :-). Some of us went into the B-terminal, but since I don't have my airport badge already I wasn't allowed :(. Another time then !

In the afternoon, we had meteo. Interesting, but also not easy. The book of Instrumentation is crying for attention, gonna have a look at it now ;-)

Hasta mañana !