Week 64: A320 Type Rating Week 3

First thing I faced this week was Progress Test 2 on Monday morning. After the crazy cramming of A320 systems during the weekend, I was still no where near confident enough to tackle the paper. And I was right; the paper was really tough with 44 questions testing my detailed understanding of minute little details of the different systems in the aircraft.

We went through the paper right after the test and I found that my marks were good enough for a pass but it was near borderline. I'll need to be better than this. Monday noon was more enjoyable as we got introduced to the Flight Management Guidance System(FMGS). The Flight Management Guidance Computer(FMGC) is a part of the FMGS and we learnt how to key in the flight plan as well as the other parameters of the flight into it through the Mulifunction Control Display Unit(MCDU).

I was overwhelmed at the amount of work needed, it was definitely way more complex than what I did with the G1000 system in the C172. In addition, our instructor went through the whole checklist from the gate all the way to the take-off, which took us close to an hour to complete. With such a complex aircraft in our hands, we have so many things to set, check and confirm. We were having trouble to find and identify the right switches and buttons, and that made the whole process very slow.

By the time the aircraft was ready to take-off from the runway, we were already exhausted. Our Monday ended quite late, and we continued with what we left off on Tuesday morning. After the two lessons on FMGS, I came to realise that the tough part of being an airline pilot isn't about the flying as most of the time the plane flies itself. What's tough is all the SOPs and checklists you have to go through, as well as understanding how the systems work. We're mostly managing the plane and making important decisions, rather than literally flying the plane like what we did in our flight training in Australia. This is indeed a big jump from what we were used to.

- Air-con & Pressurization
- Ventilation
- Powerplant
- Fuel Systems
- APU
- Navigation
- Doors/Lights
- Ice/Rain Protection

Above topics were covered in the next three days and we ended the week with another simulator familiarisation session on Friday. Further exercises were carried out on the FMGS and I'm glad to say I'm now more confident in keying in the parameters as well as going where to look for what I want. Slowly but surely, I'm getting the hang of it.

WSSS RWY02C

Night flying

More systems to learn

Quick Reference Handbook with all the checklists

A card with rules at the back to remind us on what to do

Ended the week with a dinner with ATC friend. Discussed about the radio comms at Changi tower and learnt some stuff from her.