No more training! (For now...) [ENGLISH VERSION]

Here I am again, as expected as a fully qualified First officer. Since last week i am completely finished with my linetraining and my nice little life can continue. No more worries about annoying questions during my flights but just doing my job and enjoying each flight from my office at +30 000ft.

Since the last post I have experienced a few things, both in flight and outside of that. I have flown a lot of hours and also a few flights with Yannick. That had the genius idea to put two trainees together in one flight with a trainingcaptain. Doing this meant we could get more time in the cockpit without extra captains. Because we have a bit of a shortage on trainingcaptains at the moment.

It was nice for a change to fly together with Yannick and to observe each other to learn from mistakes and positive things. But it also meant that we could only fly two sectors  and had to sit on the jumpseat for the first two sectors. I prefer the right seat though, a bit more comfort and at least you get a lunchtable.

My last flight I shared with another pilot was also one I won't forget soon. We had a flight to Semarang and Penang. That first destination isn't that far from here so it were short sectors. I was flying the first sector and after that Diogo and myself switched from seats so that we each had a short and a long sector to keep it fair. Once we arrived after the third sector in Penang I got back in the front seat. After my entire preparation I was about to start my briefing when the engineer entered the cockpit and started to talk to the captain. After a short discussion the captain left with the engineer without any explanation. Diogo and me looked at each other and wondering what the problem was. After a while the captain returned and he explained we might have a fuel leak.

During refueling one of the engines seemed to have a leak but they weren't sure if it was a real leak or a remainder of the refuelingproces. We had to start our engine first before they could see more. The problem was that the passengers were already boarding, a standard procedure with our company.  Especially with almost 10 people in need of wheelchairs. We had to wait until everybody boarded and the doors were closed before we could start the engine at the gate. Once we started the engine it was soon obvious that there was indeed a fuel leak at the right hand engine. The weird thing was that my captain already experienced the failure of the same part. Also the engineers experienced this failure three times before, all with planes from Jakarta. Maybe it's time to investigate this a bit.

Time for a nightstop in Penang until they flown in the spare part with the first flight from Kuala Lumpur and fixed the problem. All sounds nice but by the time we could leave for the hotel, had our dinner and got into bed it was already 01h30. And the morning after the wake-up call already sounded at 06h00.
After a nice breakfast and a short night we could leave again to the airport for a long flight back to Jakarta. It was my sector and I was happy I bought a Redbull to get over a little lapse of concentration. But we had three pilots in the cockpit to crosscheck each other and we reached Jakarta without any big problems. Time to get back home to get some rest.

For the rest of my flights nothing much specials happened outside the fact that you can really tell the wet season has started. Enroute we have to deviate quite a lot for thunderstorms and also above the airports we have now and than some nice cells. And I wasn't even talking about the turbulence and rain joining this weather.
Even in Jakarta there is some rain now and than and from time to time a nice big downpour. That makes the flying a bit more interesting ofcourse. Flying to avoid this weather and working a bit harder to keep your aircraft on path during landing these days. But that is why we had training and it is a bit more fun compared to flying with no wind or rain.

After my last flight on November 13th my captain told me I was ready for my check. And even before we finished with debriefing and the paperwork I received a text message that the day after I would do my line check. It was an early flight to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Two big airports at 1,5h and 2h from Jakarta. Time enough to ask me some things and make calculations during cruise.

It was a flight without much problems, just some theory I need to refresh since I didn't had much time to refresh the last few weeks. I was flying the first sector and the last two sectors, the second sector was for the captain to acces my PNF skills. The most interesting part of the flight was the final part of the last sector to Jakarta. I had to fly a Locator Only approach into Jakarta. This is a non-precision approach were we only have guidance in the horizontal plane through a radio beacon. Just showing if you need to correct left or right to regain the ideal line. The vertical part is something we need to correct  ourself. Normally we do ILS approaches were we get both vertical and horizontal guidance.
All nice this explanation but the point was that from 10 000ft my captain simulated a pilot incapacitation. This happens more that most people realize and it is important to know what to do to safely bring the plane down when it happens.

From that point on I had to do everything myself like communication, flying, checklists, etc till the point after landing where the captain miraculously came back to life. The fun part was that the captain was praying during this time although I don't know if it was to put some stress on me or for real. A fun, extra dimension to be honest.
The flying alone wasn't that big of a problem for me, I had to do this before during my MCC in my flighttraining in Brussels at SFA. And there it was a bit harder because it was combined with failures and without autopilot and stuff. Only the fact that it was in a real plane this time made it a bit different.

Once we got on the ground and after all the paperwork we discussed my flight a bit at Flight Operations and than I knew I passed and became a fully qualified FO for Air Asia. A big relief and time to go and celebrate in my opinion.

Normally I had another flight and a standby the days after but they changed my flight to another standby. The problem was that I was planning to go to Kuala Lumpur that standby day since I reached my limit for 7 days with that 4th day of flying. But with that last flight changing to standby I couldn't go to KL since my limit was not reached and they could still call me to fly. But after some talking to the guys from Flops I managed to change it to three days off and a day standby. Like this I could go to KL the day after.

The reason why I definitely wanted to go there? Well, as most of you know by know I guess I have a girlfriend these days. She flies for Air Asia X and is currently in Jedah due to a cooperation with Saudi Arabian Airlines for pelgrimflights to and from Kuala Lumpur. Because of this she is in KL for 24h now and than and I have to take advantage of those times. And what is a better way to celebrate the passing of my linecheck  than to celebrate with my girl in a 5 star hotel? ;)

It did require a bit of luck to get there because the 15th of November is an important holiday for the muslim community and on that day everybody wants to go home and celebrate it with family. It also meant that all the planes have been full for the past days and since we are flying with standby tickets it is the paying customer that has priority. I was lucky though since I had a last minute seat to join to KL.
The plane was fully packed, even on the jumpseat there was a captain on duty travel but I couldn't care less because I could join.

I did spend some time with Nurul. (That is her name for those who don't know it yet.)
The night she returned I went out for a night with some friends I know there before returning the day after to Jakarta for another day standby.

In the mean while I had my first flight already after release and went to the office to check how thing would go from now. Luckily both the chief pilot and the chief training were present. For the time being I will stay in Jakarta, at least for another month. That was a good thing since I also mentioned that I would like to stay till Ivo and Yannick are finished to join them in the same base. If it will really work out like that is a matter of wait and see.

Ivo also mentioned that he was sick waiting a bit and it helped because we went to crewing and he can start tomorrow.
As you can see things are starting to settle down a bit for all of us. Now the only thing left to do is to hope that Ivo and Yannick are finished soon so that we can leave for a nice base together.

I think it has been enough for a while here on the blog, at least for today. My next blogs will be about some adventures during flying and outside of that. I don't know how much it will be but just wait and see. Don't forget to check my album on Picasa now and than, I will try to update it with new pictures sometimes.

See you next time!