Podcast Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Aaron Henriques: Hello everyone. And welcome to the British pilot podcast. I'm Aaron Henriques and I'm currently walking around Stapleford, aerodrome, and a nice Monday evening. If you if you happen to be watching my Instagram feed today, I apologize because I've been very bored should really be doing you know, should be studying from ATPL hours, you know, head in the books.
[00:00:26] But I have been a bit sort of off today, especially this evening. And I wanted to share a few things with you about what's been happening now with the ATPL's. About, you know, the flying training that's been going on, et cetera. And I've just got my 127 pounds bit of paper come through the post which I will tell you about afterwards.
[00:00:46] Yeah, so. This is going to be a really quick one. It's just a while I'm finishing off my walk. I was walking around thinking like I might as well since I've got no one here. I'm not doing anything. I might as well share a few of my thoughts that I was just thinking. And one of them was around the ATPL hours at the moment.
[00:01:06] I mean, For those of you that are currently booked for the next set of ACPO exams on the 6th of July we were told by the CIA that we'd be told last week, Friday, so a few days ago whether or not it was going to be going ahead, then we were told it would be, would be told on Monday. Well, if we're not, they'll be going ahead.
[00:01:28] And now they're saying probably by the end of the week, they'll let us know wherever or not. They going ahead. So we still haven't actually got, you know, those sort of deadlines, those sort of mental deadlines in your head to sort of encourage you to really glide down and actually get studying. As you know, certainly not as much as as much as one would like, and.
[00:01:51] Yeah, it's written, it's been a bit odd really, because it seems like an endless you know, forever and ever though, you know, we see, we all know about coronavirus and it's gone about that, but for over never, they just seem to be pulling back and back and back. And I know that the motivation among my classes really sort of changed in terms of being able to get their head down and study for stuff and people struggling with like really, really struggling with certain, certain topics.
[00:02:17] I'm no different to that. I actually decided, I can't remember if I said it on the last one. I've decided I was going to drop three of the subjects at, at the moment that I was studying on this module, which is obviously really disappointing, but I haven't got up to speed yet and I cannot risk. You know, this is really important for people.
[00:02:35] If you're doing your 80 pills, you cannot risk having poor or just scraping your passes, particularly now where there's going to be so few pilot jobs for the next few years. Your HBO result is going to matter more than ever. And most, you know, a lot of these airlines, they do look at the overall picture, but that's just one of the ways to cream, you know, to, to scoot people off the top who, who are probably the better candidates for the easy ones to get through the system.
[00:03:04] And particularly if there's way more places and there's way more people trying to get onto these type ratings, then there are places available. Of course the airlines are going to do things like that. So that was really what I wanted to share about the ACPR hours. There's not really that much of an update, you know, it's the same as before where we hadn't really been, you know progressing with them much in terms of being a, you know, being able to actually sit our exams.
[00:03:31] Now, a few things that have changed sort of thing was where. There, there is some flying going on, which is nice. You know, it's nice to hear that from my room sometimes where I'm hearing, you know, the engine starts up and then going, but unfortunately it's not my bum in the seats. There are some of the commercial students that are flying at the moment.
[00:03:49] So the people that have already done their ATPL's there's a few on integrated courses who are. Doing this or you know, like they're sort of like PPL type level training now. Well, I, I think so anyway from what I've seen, and then there are others who like me looking out the window at the planes going up thinking, oh, I wish I could be in there.
[00:04:12] Yeah, so that, but, but it is good news because they are, they are actually starting to fly now the. For my flight school, they're actually open you know, pretty much normal hours now, which is good. It's just, they're not as busy anywhere near as busy as normal which obviously must be taken an effect on them, but they are giving it a good crack.
[00:04:32] And today I got something in a post that I sent off the other day, and that was finally to pay for my night rating to get that plus onto my license because. Those of you who don't know once you've done the night rating training, even though you've done the training, you actually cannot fly at night until you have that on your license.
[00:04:57] Right. And the only people that can put it on your license, the CIA, and they charged you a fantastic as of today's date, today's rates, I mean 127 pounds to write one word. On your license, which says night, that's it. They don't even write note rating. They just write at night. So that's what the 127 pound was for.
[00:05:22] If you want to, you can, obviously you can use that courier service to get it back. If you want, it's like 20 quid or something like that to get your license back that way, or you could do what I do and say, no, I really think you're ripping me off. So I'm just going to let you send it by your second class post, which arrived a day and a bit.
[00:05:42] Well, yeah, it was about a day and a half after the lady called me up to say that she needs to take the payment over the phone. Cause they're not accepting checks at the minute. So that was the hundred 27 pounds. Now going forward. I'm feeling like I need a bit of a break. I'm currently looking on Airbnb and I wish Airbnb, please.
[00:06:03] If anyone knows the founders of Airbnb, go and tell them to turn the bloody platform back on because you literally cannot go on. At the moment it's mid July, I think is where they're opening up for four places in the UK. You have to be able to book which will be nice because I'd like to get away for a couple of weeks just to, just to get away.
[00:06:26] Really. I've been stuck here for far too long. Much as I like flying and stuff like that, I haven't actually been doing much flying. So, you know, it's been trying to study for these ATPL's and try and keep, you know, keep yourself motivated. And that's really tough, particularly in times where it was just, you know, me and one other here.
[00:06:46] And a majority of the time it was, you know, I didn't really see him day to day. So it was just. Yeah. I spent a lot of time on my own for out the two and a half, three months of lockdown here. Which I'm so glad to be out of now. I've actually seen some friends and, you know and, and yeah, just going for coffees and stuff like that, you know, little things you can do, which actually they're really nice.
[00:07:09] And they actually mean a lot more now than you would afford before, because before you just do that normally, and you know, sometimes when a friend would be like, oh, do you want to come for coffee? I'm like, Do you know what I mean? My boxes, I can't be bothered sort of thing. Although I wouldn't tell them that I would just be like, oh no, I'm busy, but yeah, obviously now, like just jumped at the chance.
[00:07:27] Yes. Let's go and see some actual people. Yeah. Yeah. So there for anyone that's interested, if you are around Stapleford, the Essex area, the clubhouse is open for takeaway meals only. But I'm sure they'll welcome you to buy some food and you can watch the planes that are taking off on and off. It's a pretty open place here.
[00:07:50] So you get very good views. You're not like miles away from the runway or anything like that. Yeah. And there's always people floating around. If you are one of those that are looking at your ATPL's yourself or even looking at doing your PPL or, you know, going on to commercial training, then one of the best ways to do it, perhaps not at the moment, but, you know, give it a few more weeks is to actually go to one of the flying schools and talk to the actual pilots.
[00:08:16] You know, the students that you see getting out, go and speak to them. You know, if you want real answers, real advice, go and speak to those students. Who've experienced it. That's not to say that the schools are going to lie to you, obviously it's in their interest to sell their services to you. The students are the ones that are going to tell you really what it's like.
[00:08:35] Under the hood sort of thing when, when being under their sort of instructions, so go and do that and you can always hit me up. And when Instagram it's @AaronHenray, go and give me a follow and send me a message and let me know where, what stage you're at in your flying career and where you're intending to get to.
[00:08:55] And of course, if you feel like commenting on my. Fall to you, many Instagram posts in Instagram stories, whatever they're called, then you know, say hello, whatever you want to do. Right. So I'm nearly back at the airfield. I'm just going to walk down the back of the effort. I'm nearly back at my room.
[00:09:13] I'm just going to walk down the rest of the runway and then I'm going to bed. Have a good week.
