After two months of flying and a fair share of standby, I have flown the 14 days of instruction required and have now started flying with supervisory captains. I´ve mostly flown out from Bodø to Lofoten and southwards along the coast to Trondheim.
During the period with instruction the main focus is on handling the airplane and getting to know the routes that we fly, while during supervision the focus shifts over to getting all the procedures and callouts correct. During these periods we can only fly with training captains, of which there are no abundance. So far I´ve had two days of supervision and need a total of 10 before I get my final release.
The last two work weeks I have also gotten a taste of our northernmost routes in Finnmark and flown the 300 version of the plane for the first time. It is a bit longer and takes 50 passengers compared to the 39 we get into the 100 version. These are not used on the routes into short fields, but flies to longer runways like Alta, Lakselv (North Cape Airport) and Kirkenes (on the Russian border).
A couple of weeks ago we got stuck in Namsos with a technical problem with. Namsos is very far from the center of the universe, so when they decided that a mechanic from Bodø had to come a inspect the plane, we were sent in a taxi to Mosjøen. 3 1/2 hours and 4 557,- (just under $900) later we arrived Mosjøen with an increased understanding of why Widerøe flies all the short routes that we do.
I flew the entire last week in Finnmark and I got to experience short fields like Hammerfest, Honningsvåg and Hasvik. Honningsvåg is probably one of the most challenging airfields we fly to because of its location. It is just around the corner from the North Cape in a narrow bay surrounded by mountains. No pictures this time around, as it was a bit cloudy and I had enough to do flying the airplane.
I now have the next week off, and I´m heading over to Bergen to see Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age. My next work week starts on Tuesday and will be mostly flying out of Gardermoen to the West Coast.
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Approaching Tromsø from the South
Approaching Tromsø from the North East
Base turn runway 01 over the city of Tromsø
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