A320 License Skills Test ☑️
- Connor Raven
- Jan 8, 2019
- 4 min read
Welcome back and Happy New Year...
It's a little hard to believe but this weekend I passed my MPL LST meaning I've now finished my training with L3. At times, it's been stressful, but the 20 months or so of training have flown by; it's been a great experience and to top it off I got to spend the last 5 months of it in a £10 million A320 sim!
easyJet MPL Advanced Phase (Type Rating)
The Advanced Phase of the easyJet MPL is our equivalent of the standard ATPL Type Rating, albeit we actually a get a few extra sims! The last phase of my training started in early December with a session reviewing the airbus landing technique along with the first of our sign off items, circling approaches and PBN. During each of the Advanced phase sessions, we had a number of items that needed to be signed off by our instructor, these ranged from the very basics such as the landing technique to pre-flight cockpit preparation to the rather more complex hydraulic systems, electrical systems and single engine operations, to name just as few.
As myself and my sim partner had roughly a month off between the Intermediate and Advanced phase it did take a couple of sessions to get back into the swing of it, however, before we knew it we were being exposed to, practising and being signed off on a number of extremely technical, and at times, difficult situations. It was a tough couple of weeks but at the same time a really enjoyable, interesting and more importantly valuable part of our training. A lot of the faults and failures we had to deal with during this phase I hope to never have to deal with in real life, however the fact we have at least seen and practised these scenarios puts us in a good position to deal with anything that may come up during our careers.
During the Advanced Phase we also had a short Christmas and New Years break which was nice as the training was intense, just to get away for a couple of days enabled us to refresh ready for the next sim. Also, having been on the other side of the planet for last years it was nice to be home and see all the family this time round.
The Advanced Phase ultimately had one key milestone right at the end, the LST or License Skills Test. Our test was a two day event just after New Years. In hindsight, it was just like a normal sim once we were in and underway, however, there were a number of subtle things that just added to the stress on the day. For instance, we had a full easyJet flight plan to take into account, something that we hadn't seen much of or used before. We managed to quickly get our heads around the subtle differences but it did add just a little more stress to an already intense day. But after a thorough brief, we quickly found ourselves in the sim and the test had begun.
The LST has a number of mandatory items that each cadet must complete to a competent standard to pass. So both my sim partner and I had to demonstrate competent handling of an engine failure immediately after takeoff (to which, on my turn, led to a severe fuel leak), a handful of different types of approaches, and a few minor technical faults or memory items as chosen by the examiner. We also had to demonstrate a rejected takeoff, an emergency evacuation while also showing a good understanding of the aircraft systems, easyJet's SOPs and CRM. So as much as the examiner was testing our manual flying skills, he was also examining our crew cooperation and teamwork so it was important to support one another and help each other out as much as possible. As there was a fair amount of content to cover for both myself and my partner, the test was split over two days. Once all the content was then complete, we moved onto the LVOs (Low Visibility Operations) part of the LST. This part was more of a lesson than an actual test as such as we had never covered the LVO operations before, however we still took it seriously and after completing a number of different autolands the two day test was over!
We then got the news that we'd both passed our LST first time and were officially qualified airline pilots! It was such a great feeling, but more of a relief at the time as it had been such a stressful couple of days making sure we were as good as we could be ready for the LST.
The following day we had our last ever sim with L3, detailed as an IOE. This session acted as a normal flight allowing us to get back into the normal operations of flying from A to B without having to deal with the rather complex and serious emergencies we'd been used to dealing with up until that point. I flew the second sector from Belfast to Manchester, so it was a very short flight, however, being an IOE, our instructor gave us real life examples and challenges we'll face on a day to day basis that we hadn't looked at before. For example, my sim partner flew us to Belfast, I then had a 25 minute turnaround time to get everything ready, briefed and pushed back ready to depart again. Then after takeoff, we had to deal with unruly passengers which eventually led us to cancelling our approach into Manchester as the cabin wasn't secure. It was a really enjoyable flight as it was great to finally do a normal A to B while also starting to be exposed to the challenges that I'll face on the line.
So that's it! Roughly 20 months worth of training has now come to an end. Now it's time to do it for real! I've got a couple of weeks off now before we start at Gatwick at the end of month. I absolutely cannot wait now and I'm also looking forward to getting my first roster in the coming weeks... It'll be great to see where my first flight will be to!
Until next time ✈️
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