Base check.

Been a busy and pretty hectic past few weeks of September and what do you know, its already October! Its eye opening, its brain popping, its turbulence packed and my all time favorite- MIND BLASTING!

I had my base check about 3 weeks ago and there is a lot to say on that but I prefer to tone it down a little, right, the BASE CHECK.

BASE CHECK.



Its simply an exam us commercial pilots take once every 6 months to revalidate our license and to re-hone our skills in the airplane. Only, we don’t do it ina real airplane, we do it in a simulator. A ‘box’ which houses an actual aircraft cockpit and its mounted on hydraulic jacks which move about all the axis a drunk man can imagine. It has air conditioning like the actual aircraft, it has sound, it has images projected infront of the windscreen and it tilts left right up and down.



Its pretty similar to how I first started my career at Airasia, but only this time it was with higher expectations and a slightly modified programme. It was split into 2 days, the LOFT(Line orientated flight training) and CofT(Certificate of test). LOFT is slightly different than that lovely club down at Heritage row, we don’t go there to sip on cocktails and look at good looking men, but instead we practice an actual passenger flight with a few failures thrown to us. Oh, and we simulate these conditions at foreign airspace, in Taipei. THE OBJECTIVE?-To see how we, the crew perform these procedures. So here it is. THE LOFT.

1- Practise actual take off, aircrafts rolling down the runway, we take off and we encounter windshear(Dangerous wind blowing down, up, right, left everywhere) after take off. Our job, put maximum power on the engines and maneuver out of the storm into ‘stable’ air.
2- We then climb to our cruising altitude n are told to maintain a lower altitude simulating busy air traffic control with dense traffic and practice avoiding a mid-air collision with another aircraft.
3- We lose a few vital systems on the aircraft and are expected to carry out procedures
4- We solve that problem and then another one comes in, 1 of the engines are about to fail. Procedural event, decision making and eventually diverting to land at the nearest airport
5- It is found that the aircraft is above our max landing weight and we cant dump fuel so therefore having to perform an overweight landing and the alternate airport, Kaohshiung.
6- We land in Kaohshiung and after landing the main landing gear fails and aircraft collapses on the runway drifting towards the bushes next to the airport. The objective is to see how we initiate a passenger evacuation.

C OF T.

Pretty similar to the LOFT but with more failure and with more raw flying into play. As the autopilot and autothrust fails. Basically flying a modern commercial aircraft based on those backup gauges you see and with engine failures. Landing with one engine inoperative and aborted landing with 1 engine. The objective is to check the skill of the pilot in handling and flying an aircraft in all conditions as well as getting it back on ground safely.



The most important thing to take out of this is making it SAFER for the passengers whose lives we strive to carry and protect.

I can tell you none of those 2 sessions were EASY, but it went well. Going into it was a sense of nervousness and anxiety. Plus it was my first base check. Got positive feedback and learnt even more about flying. The captain told me ‘’a pilots job is a never ending learning curve, its huge responsibility and way different from any other job, its one that commands respect and peoples lives are in your hands’’ And that flying is the safest mode of transport.

Its more than a dream come true, its a responsibility and its gotten spiritual now(dont laugh). Making your lives safer in the skies.