Pretty

6 Weeks

I've been here for 6 weeks now, and I still don't feel like I've moved here.  This is probably due to the fact that I am still living in a hotel - although actually I have downgraded from an apartment to a couch.  It is a sofa bed though so that helps.  I'm now going to treat you to my to do list.  You're welcome.

1.  Arrive in Oz - check
2.  Take 4 CASA exams - check
3.  Survive ground school - check (there is one course left to go but I'm not counting it)
4.  Do 3 jumpseats
5.  Go to the sim
6.  Finish line training (although, starting would be good enough)
7.  Find somewhere to live - check
8.  Find a car

On the subject of find a car, I went car shopping yesterday down by Archerfield.  Apparently there are loads of car dealers down there and they actually call it The Magic Mile for this reason.  I'm not quite sure what is magic about it - perhaps something to do with the prices of the cars, all mostly in the 20,000AUD range...

I did meet two cars more suited to my budget, and I shall list them below.

The first was a 1996 Honda Civic.  Manual, but electric windows, MP3 player, etc. drove really well, the major downside being that it had (and still has, I presume) 296000km on the clock.  You can see the price below!

Then there was a 1991 Toyota Camry, looks like the sort of car my grandmother would drive.  Yeehah!    21 years old, manual windows, lovely cassette player (has a cd stack in the boot), amazing A/C though.  243000km on the clock.

it doesn't really have that much of a gap under the bonnet - but RM decided to pop the bonnet just as I got ready to take a photo...

Vroom vroom!!!

Anyway that's where the car search stands at this point!!!  AAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHHHH!!!

TTFN!!!

Here I am again

I'm sorry people, I have been neglecting you!  The fact of the matter is, that life is incredibly boring right now, so I didn't want you all to die of boredom too.  Today was day 3 of ground school, in other words being initiated into the company's procedures, some of which are similar and others are hugely different, and in ways make it hard to believe that I will be flying the same airplane!

Tomorrow a few of us are doing CAR214/215 training.  What's that, you may ask.  Well, apparently we'll learn how to set up the refuelling panel and do a walkaround, etc. which will be very useful...

I have also put down the deposit on the property so I am officially moving!  Yay!  Tomorrow at least six of the Irish contingent (although they're not all Irish) are taking their CPL Law exam, so hopefully they all pass!  Then on Saturday I plan to head south to Logan to visit IKEA - I don't really like IKEA, but suppose it shall suffice.

We don't actually move to our new place until the 14th so another week on the couch it is!  Not actually a bad sofa bed to be honest, although I am looking forward to having my own room again, it is definitely nice to close the door and shut out the rest of the world once in awhile!

Right, that's all for now as ML has just turned up to do some Australian Incantations SOP drilling.

TTFN!!!

More groundschool

More groundschool, and yet more groundschool again.  Learning how to use FOS tables entirely differently from how I thought they would be used.  Strangely enough, the ATR groundschool instructor (who was observing) also found it different and did not exactly agree with using the F50 method on the AT72... ah well!

We got performance, cold weather operations, PRM ILS and fuel calculations out of the way.  Don't ask - I don't know the answers!  Tomorrow I think we are doing some CBT (computer based training) and loadsheets, and then the next day will be SOPs.  Right now I should be reading what they call the FOPPT, I don't know what this stands for, but it's a document about 800 pages long.  I don't think I'll get very far tonight - maybe a page or two?!

I shall leave you all with a picture of my father aged fairly young, which I swiped from Somewhere.  

TTFN!!!

Flying

I forgot to say in my last post, because I was way too excited about the property, that I have now got my roster for the rest of June and first half of July and see that it's all kicking off!  I fly to Auckland on the 26th of June for the simulator there, four days in the sim and two days off, which is great because it means an opportunity to actually visit Auckland as well.  I am rostered to go with ML, which is also good as I know him and will be able to practise beforehand.  It does however mean that we will have to switch seats throughout the training, as we are both FOs over here, but we'll spend lots of time going through the procedures from both seats before we get there, and I'd say he'll be willing to put in plenty of effort!

My first day of line training is on the 8th of July, and I'm very excited about that too.  It will be 2.5 months since I have flown, and given the fact that I can't go a week without missing flying, it is none too soon!  Unfortunately a few of the guys seem to have big delays for their training.  The two I have spoken to have looked at their new roster and seen that they are not down for the simulator at all in the next roster, and it goes until the 15th of July, yet one of the two finished their exams just days after myself.

This morning I dropped the remainder of our group into their Induction day at Aviation Australia, mostly because I wanted another opportunity to drive my car rather than any particular wish to be helpful.  Now I am about to head into town to do some shopping!  The weather is a lot brighter today which is great, and then tomorrow is back to class.

TTFN!!!

My new pad

Apparently the landlord has accepted our application, and we are now officially moving to Northgate!  Of course, we haven't sent off the final paperwork or paid a deposit yet so there is the possibility that it falls through - but hopefully that won't be in the case.  In the meantime, I'll post a few pictures of the new gaff!

The front (below there is a large garage/storage area, and probably lots of snakes and spiders)

the garden at the back:

two views of the main living area:

the second upstairs living area (I don't have a picture of the living area downstairs): 

my bedroom (won't have that bedding):

the main bathroom:

Sorry, I don't have pictures of the other 3 bedrooms, bathrooms or kitchen!  Suffice it to say, I'm really excited that we're going to be moving there!

TTFN!

Yesterday

Yesterday we went to look at a couple of properties.  One was in Manly, a 3 (possibly 4) bedroomed furnished house.  It was really nice, awesomely modern, clean, you could tell that the landlord had OCD, but unfortunately the room that was advertised as convertible into a 4th bedroom was entirely unsuitable. Downstairs there was the 3rd bedroom with a TV room beside it, but you had to walk through that room from the 3rd bedroom to get to the rest of the house, or to use the bathroom.  Not exactly a room that someone is going to want to live in!  Another downside was that it was about a 30 minute drive to the airport.

The second place we viewed was in Northgate, just north-west of the airport, maybe about 8km away, another fully furnished house, not quite as modern but it was really nice and suitable for 4 people.  We've made an application for it... so now we have to wait to see whether they accept the application.  The whole Australian system of trying to rent a place and be 'accepted' is really strange to me!  It took an incredibly long time to fill out all of the application forms, and to scan and process passport details and proof of employment, etc. so if they refuse the application now I think everyone will be just a small bit peeved, to put it nicely.

The best part of the day was driving around in this:

Gotta say, I'm in luuurve!  Just wish I could afford a car like this - but at least I have it for the 30 day rental period.  The awesome is that everyone else has been given pathetic little cars and I didn't even ask for anything specific, but was just handed the keys!

Today I'm beginning to study for the course next week on operating procedures, etc. and as I really am not enjoying getting back in the books I figured I would post a blog instead!  Now that I have done this, I must get back to work!

TTFN!!!