Despite the recent volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupting in Iceland, AERO ALLIANCE is still flying at 100% capacity, remaining constantly extremely busy. While the large airlines across the majority of Europe were grounded AERO ALLIANCE took the strain and helped deliver these passengers out to important meetings and back again, or simply safely home after a holiday.

This flight to Bern, Switzerland was to be my second flight as AERO ALLIANCE's Trainee Pilot, under my Pilot Scholarship Scheme.  What an amazing trip for my second flight, racking up just short of 5 hours flight time in the capable Piper PA31 Chieftain.  The beauty of this flight was it would be similar to my pilot training up till now, as I would be navigating, using a map in VFR (Visual Flight Rules) conditions, therefore being the longest navigation exercise I have ever done!

Fig 1.0 Mike Parsons Standing In Front of G-OJIL's wing. Alps In Background

The day started at 08:30 Local, where Andy Bland (the Captain for this flight) and I had an in depth briefing regarding the flight.  There are many areas which are unseen to the passenger where the Commanding Pilot, or his First Officer must gather and print off the relevant paperwork to conduct the flight.  Paper work would include: Planning a route and filing this route as an official flight plan, Printing off weather charts for the day, NOTAMS (Notice To Air Men), Weight and Balance calculations then performing numerous calculations for winds aloft and the planned route to combat wind drift depending on the speed and direction.

Once the brief was complete we checked out the aircraft and loaded on all of the maps and aerodrome plates for the relevant places in western Europe.  I then made sure the on board drinks facilities were topped up and ready to go.  The passengers can enjoy beer, wine, tea, coffee or water in executive class seating.

At 10:40 our passengers arrived, boarded the aircraft and we were taxing to the active runway within minutes.  We took off at 10:45 and made a gentle right hand turn of 180 degrees to head toward France, from here my work levels would increase.  For part of the flight Andy gave me the important job of navigating by map while crosschecking our position with the GPS.  Even though we had 3 working state of the art GPS systems we still use a map, why? In case the satellite reception was lost, the electrics failed or the GPS failed.  An unlikely position, however we cover that base on every flight.

As part of my training I would cross check the view below to a map at the half way point to my check point and approaching to compare distinguishable features to the ground below, i.e. Hailsham town is easily identifyable due to the shape looking like a roughly drawn United Kingdom with a road running to the east.  Over most of mainland France this became quite difficult because the settlements were more spread out with more fields! However roads, rivers and train lines still gave me some strong clues at pointing an accurate position on the map.  Andy would occasionally ask me to confirm where we were - This is good practise as it shows I am aware of our position and can follow a map (at 195MPH).

Above is an embedded video of the flight - If you have a quick internet connection you can increase the quality to HD.

Once we landed at Bern our VIP passengers desembarked the aircraft and boarded the VIP vehicle which is standard with part of the handling which enables a swift transfer to the airport where passports are checked and the passengers make their way onto their meeting.  While the passengers we in the taxi Andy and I checked the aircraft, refuelled (we took on 323 litres of fuel!) with AVGAS (Aviation Gasoline) and topped up the engines with oil (Aeronautical Engines are designed to burn oil at a specific rate defined in the Pilots Handbook).  The aircraft was now ready to fly back to Shoreham, when needed.

Fig 1.1 Landed at Burn after refuelling

Fig 1.2 Capt Bland making his way back to commence checks

Talking to UK Air Traffic Controllers requires a straight to the point, concise moment of speech along with ears ready for the reply, or commands.  I am now enjoying the radio part of flying and feel comfortable communicating with UK Controllers.  I was very excited about learning how Andy would deal with the French and Swiss controllers en route, looking for tips to pick up in listening and transmitting speech to 'foreign' controllers.  Firstly I was very impressed with the standard of english spoken across the board.  Once the accent has been understood it's very easy to understand controllers.  This has given me a great confidence in flying and talking overseas, which I will be doing as commander at some point.  I have illustrated at 08:22 in the video a sample of the transmissions.

Fig 1.3 Andy speaking to Paris Information Air Traffic Control 

The return flight took us on the same routing back to Shoreham.  This routing is effectively direct back to base via a few VOR's (Radio Navigation Beacons).  All airlines use VOR's as a means of navigation, as again is very unlikely to fail or be turned 'off' in comparison to GPS.  GPS is extremely reliable, however the American Military have the capability to turn off satellites at any time so we still use 'old' navigation technology as backups.  VOR beacons are marked clearly on maps.

Despite tracking on the same routing we were passed to different air traffic controllers, Reims was a place that we had to speak to on the return flight that we didn't speak to going out.  Every flight is different.

Fig 1.4 First Officer Thoroughly Enjoying Flying With AERO ALLIANCE

Conclusion

From this flight I learnt how to navigate using 3 different VFR maps across three different countries to our destination.  I have become more comfortable and would be more confident about speaking to ATC units overseas as their quality of English is perfect.  The only issue would be trying to work out some of the French communications.  Andy could understand these as he is fluent in French.  Maybe this is something for me to learn alongside the Commercial Theory ATPL books.  As this was my second flight in the Piper Chieftain I was reading off the checklists myself, checking off items which are cleared to be complete (which they were) and also feel more comfortable with the engine management side of this aircraft.

Next flight my aim would be for me to take more work load off the Captain to make his workload slightly less, as flying single pilot in these conditions takes an extremely skilled and professional pilot of which the AERO ALLIANCE pilots are.  Still lots to learn but, again I cannot wait for the next flight.

Mike Parsons AERO ALLIANCE Log Book.xls (29.00 kb)