Summer is over
After a loooong summer in Belgium… we are officially in Autumn and back in school. I was thrilled to go back to my pilot classes but I couldn’t make it to the first three lessons. In between life, art and education; summer laziness and lack of agenda can be brutal to get rid of.
As you may remember my last practice was a little dramatic…. Taking off for the first time with a full belly of a big breakfast wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Anyways now I had to face one of my instructors after such episode 😌
Anyway, I was happy to see some of my old classmates and some new ones. I feel happy to share this passion for aviation with people. As I said repeatedly many times, this lessons have changed my life and have given me real reasons to enjoy the math behind, not to mention that it makes me fall in love with the aerodynamics and other related subjects. 😍
So, this week’s class was about AERODROME RULES. We got to learn some of the airport rules, runway, craft, take offs, landing, etc. Now, before you fall asleep with so many rules, let’s remember that in aviation EVERYTHING is important. All signalization, procedures, lining up, structures, grass, pavement, lines, squares, and so on…😲
Some things seem to be obvious to the eye; but that’s the fun part of learning in groups and you get to see everyone’s blind spot. Usually the class is very convivial, meaning that whenever we have a question, people can simply ask and the instructor will answer. Although, some questions come out from an impulse or lack of attention… and there’s how we see the pedagogical approach in between sarcasm and instruction. One of my classmates asked a very odd question, let’s say “random” question and our instructor said “well, you have two things to solve this problem; one is common sense and second you have these rules, stick to them and you’ll be fine”. (I had to mention that, because I like to acknowledge educational manners in people 🤓
These rules kind of gave us a hint of the order we should keep as pilots. Improvising is necessary once there’s an emergency BUT EVERYTHING in this practice has to be set up long before every flight. Learning the right direction in which you have to go out and come in the airport is indeed so crucial… and also the right way to get in line for takeoff and so on.
Also we learned about flight levels… here, there, everywhere. Now we know that there are different types of measuring the levels, depending of the region or country. Some places, they can decide how to do so (following standards of course). And remember, we have to calculate this all beforehand.
By the way, something that got everyone’s attention was the fact that some airports might be simply closed or the people in the control tower might be in their lunch hour… so, remember to call in advance just in case you can’t land there 🙄🤗
LIDIA AVILES 