The final thing I needed to get the rating on my
licence after the course in England was 6 landings
in the actual plane. After the skill test we had
6 months to complete these, so we figured we would
wait until we got a job.
August was a rather slow month in regards to the
search for a job, mainly because all the companies
were in the middle of their summer vacation. And
when the vacation finally was over, pilot recruitment
did not seem to be their main priority.
In September the first job offer came. Helitrans
which is based at Værnes (Trondheim) started
a Jetstream operation earlier this year and they
were looking for freelance pilots who could help
out every now and then. Freelance contracs are obviously
not optimal, as it does not provide a steady income
or any form of schedule. But none the less, it's
a gateway to full time employment.
When you start working for a new company there
are a list of courses you have to go through. 15.
September we went up to Værnes to complete
CRM, JAR-OPS, SOP, First Aid and Wet Drill (swim
around in a pool and play with life vests). The
course lasted 3 days.
Next step was to get the 6 landings and an operator
proficiency check (OPC) done. A couple of days prior
to 6 October they called us up and wanted us to
get to Værnes. Gilbert who was our instructor
in Woodford was on his way to Helitrans to do the
OPC with some of the other pilots and had the time
to finish us as well.
It was a great feeling the first time Gilbert and
I started the turbine engines. There are more things
to keep your eye on when starting a turbine engine,
but it's so much easier than starting a piston engine.
One "Select" button and a "Start"
button, and the engine does the rest for you (just
need to be ready to abort).
The circuits in the pattern were awesome. The plane
was much better to fly than I had anticipated, and
the landings were actually much better than I had
imagined. I got a feeling of dejavu from NAIA and
Naples flying around in the pattern and practicing
landings (been a couple of thousand rounds in the
pattern in Conway and Naples). With the Jetstream
however, things went a tad faster, because it doesn't
take much to get the plane up to 180-200 knots on
downwind leg. I had a great time flying around at
TRD between SAS Braathens, Norwegian, an AWACS and
a fellow Jetstream from Coast Air.
The OPC has to be done with a TRE (Type Rating
Examiner), and not all companies has one of these
in stock. The purpose of the check is to see that
we are flying according to the companys procedures
and that we are able to fly the plane. We started
with a couple of simulated engine failures before
we climbed out to a practice area north of Værnes
where we did maneuvers like stalls and steep turns
(just like the good old days at NAIA). After that
we did some approaches, some with both engines and
some single engine, and a signle engine missed approach.
Then came the biggest challenge of them all: to
get the licence issued by the NCAA. Normally there
is a 14 day processing time, but I had hoped that
with a little kindness and goodwill, they would
be able to do it in a week. I was scheduled to fly
a flight on 15. October from Vigra to Sola and Værnes,
but this assumed that I had the papers in order.
The NCAA would not issue a temporary certificate,
so I had to wait. Unfortunately the NCAA did not
impress me this time either, so I did not get to
fly on the 15th...
