It has been a long week, however the first week of Ground School is complete!

Before starting a COAA anyone I have spoken to, both professional pilots and other cadets, have said that 6 months of ground school will be the most intense and difficult time of my entire career. After only a week I can see what they mean! We are currently in school for  6 lessons a day (each lesson is 1 hour) with an hour for lunch. The day usually ends with a period 7 which is an hour of CBT (Computer Based Training). Many airlines rely on CBT when pilots do type rating so it is good practice to start self teaching at this stage.
Monday started quiet easily with a brief introduction from Chief Ground instructor, Mike Steer, and our mentor for the next 6 months, Graham Wood. This was followed by an introduction to CBT, which coincidentally has been upgraded and AP358 is the first course to use it. The day then continued with lessons in Airframes, Flight Instruments, Piston Engines, Meteorology and a CBT on Principles of Flight.
As the week progressed we continued studying the subjects we had started on Monday and also started DC Electric and Human Performance. After only a week I can already see the subject(s) that I am going to be putting the most effort into and the subjects that come to me the easiest – although a lot can change within the next few weeks!

This week I have tried to not spend all of my free time studying. As the course progresses I am going to need to put more hours in to studying so I didn’t want to give it 100% in the first week – As our instructors keep pointing out; the course is not a sprint, it is a marathon! You wouldn’t start a marathon running as fast as you can otherwise you would burn out after a few miles.
As a group we went to the pub on Tuesday night to watch the Liverpool v Everton match and have 2-4-1 pizza! On Wednesday I met Fred for a quick drink in Kidlington and then went for a nice home cooked dinner with Fred and Kat on Thursday night – after a few hours study of course!

This weekend I am hoping to have a relaxing Saturday with Amy and get stuck into the books on Sunday ready for week 2!