500 Hours on Type

I flew to Ibiza, Alicante, Murcia, Treviso (Venice) and Palma this week.  I’ve not visited Alicante for a while – at least not during daylight, so it was great experiencing the gorgeous views again .  I love the views coming into the Canaries and Malaga also, they’re amongst my favourites.  Flying over the Alps and Pyrenees always give fantastic views on clear days as well.

It was my first time visiting Palma, which is an Island just off the coast of Spain, between Barcelona and Valencia.  It has a rather large airport with parallel runways and though it should be a busy time of the year with plentiful charter flights, the Captain remarked that it was unusually quiet.  Visiting Palma reminded me of my first few times in Dublin – feeling unfamiliar with the more complicated taxi routing and sifting through various arrivals and approaches to get to the relevant ones.  The Captain had visited Palma before, so he was able to save me time in the brief. I think it’s easy to overlook the notion that the Captain is also a resource and it’s good to ask for help when you need it – especially when you’re unfamiliar with a destination. Don’t be afraid to ask the Captain or any other part of the crew for help!  I learnt this lesson during line training when I spent a good deal of time wading through information and charts, all the while confusing myself, when I could have just asked the Captain for some guidance and saved time. We work in a team after all!

I love flying in the Summer – it does bring some amazing views due to the extended hours of daylight.  I haven’t seen a sunrise from the air recently, as it’s already light outside by the time I set off for work on the early shift (around 4am), if not then definitely by the time we’re pushing back from stand.  However, the sunsets are beautiful and whilst flying North, we can see that a part of the sky stays alight, and would do all night around this time of the year – almost as if the sun is clinging on just below the horizon.

I reached exactly 500 hours on type on 1st June. A year ago, I was packing my belongings, ready to move to the training centre to begin my type rating. The year before than in June 2008, I was busy preparing for my CPL & IR flight tests at FTE. In June 2007, I was getting ready to move to Spain for a 14 month, integrated flight training course without an idea that I would be flying a 737-800 for one of the largest airlines in Europe today.