JETSTREAM RATING
Written: 20 JULI 2006

On 18 June, Kristian and I went over to Manchester to start the technical course for the Jetstream 31/32 type rating. The Jetstream was produced by British Aerospace (BAe) and is a 19 seater turboprop.

BAe has a training center in Woodford which is located south east of Manchester. The center is situated on an airfield where they still make the Nimrod (military surveillance aircraft based on the Comet). For that reason photos were unfortunately not allowed.

The technical course lasted for 2 weeks from 19 June and consisted of mainly systems, limitations and performance. The first week our instructor was Leigh, and the second week Steve who is the chief of ground training instructed us. Both are skilled mechanics and had excellent knowledge of all the systems on the airplane.

We had one exam on systems on Thursday the last week, and on Friday we had exams on performance, weight and balance and limitations.

After the technical course was done there was a bit of a waiting period, so we went back to Norway. 10 July we started the simulator training with a Swedish instructor called Gilbert Casselsjö. He has previously flown such planes as Tunnan, Draken and Hercules for the Swedish Air Force, so he had alot to teach us. The simulator was full motion which means that it stands on top of a hydraulic rig which simulates the actual movements when we fly it.

We flew a total of 6 sessions in the simulator, each of 4 hours. Kristian and I switched between flying as captain and first officer. The first couple of sessions we spent getting to know how to fly the plane, while we spent the remaining sessions practicing emergency procedures. We mostly flew out of Manchester Intl and the nearby airports.

Monday 17 July it ws time for the skill test. Two hours as first officer and two hours as captain each (only being evaluated as first officer). The examiner was Linton Chillcott which is the cheif pilot at Highland Airways in Scotland. He gave us a flight from East Midlands to Manchester and back. On the way he mixed in a variety of failures and emergencies, so we had enough to keep us busy.

The simulator had worked perfectly during the training, but during the skill test it broke down 3 times. The first two times the engineers fixed it fairly quick, but with 20 minutes left of the skill test we ended up having to go to dinner while we waited for them to fix it. Fortunately they sorted out the problem and we finished the 20 minutes before Linton signed the papers proving that we were worthy of a Jetstream rating.

 

 

While we went to the course in Woodford we stayed with Greg and Linda who runs a Bed and Breakfast ( Moss Deeping) in Bramhall which is situated 7 minutes from the school. When their children moved out they made the house into a BnB and they have 4 bedrooms on the second floor that they rent out. Greg made sure we got a good breakfast every morning and drove us back and forth to school when needed.

The suburbs around the school has a relatively high procentage of footballplayers and golddiggers. There is obviously alot of money in this area, something which the cars prove. I have never seen that many cool cars all in one place.

Saturday 15 July was the last day we had with Gilbert in the simulator. After the 4 hours with flying, the three of us went on a field trip to Manchester Airport Aviation Viewing Park.

In addition to having a marvelous view of the runways and all the planes that take off and land, the Concorde is on display here. G-BOAC was the second Concorde delivered to BA when it arrived in 1976, and it has the world speed record for commercial planes: 1292 kts (2395 km/h).

The fuel tanks amazingly holds 119 500 litres of fuel, and the four Rolls-Royce/Snecma Olympus engines burns almost 26 000 litres an hour!!!

The speed record from London to New York is 2:52:59!!!

Too bad that era is over...