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A week after paying the deposit, a parcel arrived in the post. It was the WCA trip kit. It contained an itinerary, Qs&As on the trip, a TR182 checklist, some questions for discussion when the induction started, and one of the best books on instrument flight training “Instrument Flight Training Manual” by Peter Dogan. The final thing was a 10 lesson training outline. The aim was to ensure that you could do the basic things such as holds and approaches before starting the WCA programme.
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It’s mid March and I had to work out how I was going to get myself ready for September. The first thing was to get the IMC renewed. I needed to redo the exam ( the rating had been lapsed for so long), and the flight test so I got on with a bit of studying and fixed up to do some training. Western Air at Thruxton came highly recommended and off I went.
Getting the instrument flying skill back was not too difficult (3.5 hrs) and by mid April I felt ready to do the flight test. However the first hurdle was the IMC exam. I needed the full time allowed as it proved to be quite tough. When the examiner marked the paper, he told me the CAA had got some of the wrong answers down. I must have done the flight plan 4 different ways and spent an hour on it trying to find why my answers were miles different from the 4 the CAA had. Anyway, I passed the exam and it was a case of getting the flight test in. As is the case with these things the weather intervened and made it all very difficult. I had a business trip to Australia coming up and I wanted to have the IMC out of the way. I also wanted to get on with the studying for the FAA IR too.At last fortune shone on me and three days before flying off to Australia I passed the flight test.
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It was about the same time, mid May that I discovered that the FAA written test centres in the UK had had their permits pulled by the FAA. I needed to have had my test passed before going to the States. Looking at the list of FAA test centres showed only two in Europe, one in Germany the other at Le Bourget, Paris although the Norwich center has since been reinstated and another one has now been set up at Flight Safety at Farnborough (2006). That was no help to me at the time.
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I took my IR books with me to Australia but never managed to read a word. If I was not out doing business or eating I was sleeping. There was no time for anything else. Jet lag really wiped me out and just as I got over the trip out, it was time to come home.
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Immediately I got back, I got the exam sign off done and booked my test in Paris and the flight etc. Three days before flying to Paris I get a call saying that the test has to be cancelled because of computer maintenance. I began to swear. I felt that there was a conspiracy against me. So we rebooked I lost my money on my original flight but went to Paris two weeks later and passed the test scoring 58 out of 60. The test was scheduled for two and a half hours. I finished in 40 minutes. Within an hour of starting the test I was enjoying the Aerospace museum at Le Bourget with my pass certificate safe in my pocket.
Out of the two tests, the IMC test is by far the harder and most useless.
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July passes and still no final confirmation as to who my partner would be. At one stage I thought the trip would be cancelled. I was reluctant to spend any more in preparation until there was some certainty. Mid August came with confirmation that Sharon, Rich’s wife and Instrument student was going on the trip. For me then, it was a trip back to Thruxton to do a few of the exercises in the training outline. Two hours was enough. The IMC rating provides a really good basis for the WCA.
September crawled in and there was not much time to think of the trip as I was busy at work clearing the decks until it was time to go. Just one last trip in the Tripacer to Coventry and back before getting aquainted with the TR182. Like chalk and cheese.
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I had arranged all the other vital stuff in good time. The tickets were sorted and I flew with United Airlines. They have an ATC channel along with the movie channels and it was good to listen to the ATC on the way over. The hotel was sorted through Morey but I fixed up the car hire myself. It turned out cheaper to have a car for two weeks booking from the UK than having a car for 8 days split into two lumps of 4 days. Morey do car hire with Avis but Avis are not that competitive coming from the UK as Alamo who I eventually went with. Even using the AOPA so called special rate was more expensive.
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