First flight

This morning I had my very first flight!!
It's not possible to describe in any language the supermega feeling to be on the controls all by myself!!
We did a take-off from Falcon Field, went to the North-East practise area (between the mountains), touch&go followed by a full stop landing back to the Sabena ramp.
The temperature was just good (33°) not to have to much turbulence, blue sky's and a very nice instructor.
From now on the "real work" will begin. We should fly every day from now on until the solo check which will be within about 2 weeks.

Happy landings!!

After take-off, Runway's on the right

NE practise area












On final for 22L Falcon Field













Red mountain

Some more free days

Hi there!

Normally our first flight would be on Friday but they didn't plan us for whatever the reason was...
We hope everyone will be flying on Monday that but that's not sure yet, they predict some very nasty "you-don't-want-to-be around-thunderstorms" which are quite frequent in Arizona during the summer.
They can come together with very strong winds, gusts, heavy rain, bad visibility, ...
Let's hope for the best!!

We only received all the books and manuals on Wednesday so it was not that bad we didn't fly on Friday. We went to school, took the keys of some airplanes and studied some flows and procedures.
We even have to study some new noise abatement procedures because there were lot's of complains about the noise...

DUH, it's an AIRPORT!!... it's just the same like Brussels; people buy cheap houses next to the airport and than they complain about the noise, just UNBELIEVABLE!*!

One thing is sure, WE WON'T STOP FLYING for the next 6 months!!

Enkele sfeerbeelden

Enkele sfeesbeelden van deze week en "The Springs"




















Fitness & Squash




















Cinema

















Appartement

DA 20













Schoolvan













Washington airport

B777

Big pool

small pool

Week 1

Week one has almost finished and we are settled in our appartment.
From tomorrow on they predict that the temperature doesn't fall below 40°C. So it will be reeeaally hot!
Everyone is suffering from the heat but we begin to adapt...
we even begin to enjoy; our first BBQ was last weekend and at 10PM we were still sitting at the pool in our swimming outfit and then the temperatures are just good.

We arranged yesterday all our paperwork for our van so now all of our five can drive anywhere we want on the big american "lanes". The V8 engine is very powerful and snorrs quite loud but it drives soooo smooth and there's so much space inside!!

Today there was our first flight-briefings; the arrival and departure procedures of falcon field, pre-flight procedures of the DA20a (our first airplane we will fly) revision of controls/manoeuvres/speeds...
There is a good chance some of us we'll fly on Friday and as we get our books tomorrow we'll know what to do the next days. Flows, procedures, pitch-power of the DA20,...

We'll cross our fingers to get in the air as soon as possible!

See you soon!















































Pictures:

1. BBQ at the pool
2. Our Chevrolet van

First night in Mesa

Goodmorning, goodafternoon?!

At the moment I have no idea what time of the day we are.
It's now 0600 local time and I'm sitting here with small eyes in front of my laptop (together with my 3 other roommates) and we're so tired. At 2300 LT we went to bed and the jetlag is doing his job very good, sleep doesn't want to come...
I slept for 5 hours tonight and woke up because my body is still in Belgium where (it's 3PM over there) and it's already HOT: it's 6 hours in the morning and already 25°) and

But no wonder we have problems with our bodyrythms. we passed 7 time zones yesterday with a flight of 8 hours and then another stretch of 4 hours.
The flying and flight ententainment system is very nice but you have to know the limit!
For shure everyone was very happy the wheels of our A319 touched the tarmac in Phoenix.

Some guys of prom 10 toghether with Bob were waiting for us to get us home safely.
Pieter and me went with prom 10 with their cadillac (V8, 310 hp!!) via the airport to our appartments.
After some problems to get in our apartements we could finally get rid of our bags, change our uniform for some lighter clothes and go for our first American hamburger!

I'll first try to get some extra sleep before going to school... at 0900 I have to be @school for the fingerprints, to receive our badge and to have a little tour of the school.
We'll see what today will bring...

See you!

school at falcon airfield

B777 cockpit United

In the kitchen of B777

Obervation flight Jetair

Hi everyone,

Last weekend I had the oppertunity (after 3 times Jetair finally accepted my flight) to join the Jetair-crew with the B 737-500 to Djerba.
At SFA we have to do 10 observation flights (@ Jetair, Thomas Cook, Luxair or VLM/Cityjet) before our training ends to see the life of a real pilot "on-the-line".
This really helps to see everything we learn in the theoretical courses in real life.

On time performance is very important in aviation so I decided to arrive 2 hours in advance of the EOBT (estimated off blocks time = leaving the gate)
I checked the weather, notams, fuel, the flightplan, to say things short:
all the paperwork you should look at before you leave the crewroom.

As we were cruising above Reims I heard the wonderful phrase coming from the FO:
"did you ever did the radio? wanne try?"

"Beauty 6653 change to Roma frequency 123.325"
"frequency 123.325 bey bey beauty 6653" (= me)

"Roma Bonjourno Beauty 6653, FL 350 direct Ajjacio"
(=me:p yes I can speak Italian;)!

"beauty 6653 bonjourno radar contact, proceed as cleared"

We arrived at the gate, the Captain went out for the external check and than
the First officer allowed me to programme the whole FMC.
(which to FO checked afterwards offcourse, you'll never know I made a mistake so we could end up in Alaska:p...)
It's fun to do it once in real and I was amazed how slow the computer was.
(it still works with a processor of '86; no wonder it was quite slow...)

And than the flight went back to Liège.
Over there the ILS was U/S but the visibility was quite good so a visual approach was no problem.
Above the alps we made a diversion of a few miles because of (beautiful BUT dangerous) CB's on our flightpath.

Thanks to the crew for the nice flight!

Below some PIC's

Bey!



Approach preparation of the First Officer

It was way to hot in Djerba (37°C) and just to feel the heat I opened the window:p!
Thanks to the Captain!
















Holding short for an A/C on final approach.

The airport of Nice with Cannes and St. Tropez nearby