Change of plans

Hey

Here I am again, but it won't be a long blog. Even with another week spent in Switzerland, I don't really have a lot to tell you, even though there's been some things happening.

The most drastic change is that we're already moving out of this apartment end of this week. We're not leaving for Luxembourg just yet, but we found out today that we are being relocated to a hotel room in Dübendorf. The reason behind that is a Maltese group of Ab Initio's starting their basic course here at Skyguide, and apparently, the Maltese ANSP insisted on having their trainees in an apartment right away instead of having to spend the first two weeks in a hotel. This means that Damien, Jennifer, Willem and I will have to move to the Sonnental-hotel in Dübendorf next Friday.

In fact, we were first asked if we could move on Thursday evening, but with the ACD-exam coming up (which we all expect to be quite hard, if it's not the hardest exam we'll have here) on Friday, we didn't really like the planning they had set up for us. But the move itself is still a coin on its side which could fall either way. So far, the new location looks good (who wouldn't want a 4-star-hotel to stay in for 2 weeks and have any expenses reimbursed) but I still have to figure out the shortest/fastest way to Skyguide. So far, it looks like we'll effectively start using our subscriptions to public transport just now.


Besides our relocation right now, we're also thinking about our move to Luxembourg already. Especially with Gregor, an instructor at the IANS who came to Switzerland for a few weeks, we got a lot of information on what life in Luxembourg is actually like, what to expect from the courses etc.
There's been some chatting going on about our stay in the Nittlerhof as well, like how we'll be able to get to the IANS if we all start at different times and such, but I'm sure it will point itself out in time.


To end with, achieved results and upcoming exams. Glad to say I passed LAW and the ACC Simulator-exam (examiner was Gregor, by the way). Of course, there are still some working points, but for this point in training, I'm doing pretty good.
This week, I have the MET and ACD-exam. We had MET today, and I don't think I failed it. Had some fears about specific things in the course, but the exam went very well. ACD could be another matter though. For some reason, I'm not able to get it inside my head and keep it there, even though I've been studying it for weeks already. I just hope the need to learn it now, will somehow help to cram it all in, but I guess we won't find out if it was sufficient until next Friday (or Monday, if we get the results then).

That's it again. Thanks for still reading. :-)

The trip back

Hey,

To give you all a chance to read my previous blog, I'm only writing about the trip back to Zurich now. The flight itself wasn't as eventful as the previous, but New Year's Eve was.

For the first time ever, I didn't celebrate NYE with family. Not my own, at least. As I was leaving from Schiphol the next day, I decided to have my girlfriend over for Christmas and then I would celebrate NYE with her and her family. One thing I feel obliged to say:

THE DUTCH ARE CRAZY WHEN IT COMES TO FIREWORKS !!

Apparently, it's a big tradition there to go outside at midnight and congratulate neighbours, friends etc. As an extra bonus, people all around start aiming their own fireworks to the skies. A tradition, I'm not really accustomed to, I must say. In our family, NYE is mostly indoors and at midnight we can hear some fireworks in the distance, but that's about it.
This time, I couldn't see more than 5 meters in the street at times, because of the smoke. There were fireworks EVERYWHERE !! I even had one accidentally thrown right at me, and I'm pretty convinced I broke Usain Bolt's record right there.

Not just small bangers. A lot of these big boys were going places that night.

I'm not sure anymore when I heard it exactly, as my mind was just blown, but the Dutch combined have bought fireworks with a total value of about 65 million euros. I thought we were still in economic crisis (emphasis on the past tense) but now, that just might be resolved by the Dutch.

The next morning, last night's mood was far gone when you looked outside, even though there were still small fireworks popping and (drunk) people celebrating here and there. The streets were as dirty as can be, filled with used fire-crackers, fireworks-boxes, even burnt Christmas trees. And it was also the day where I had to leave my girlfriend again, most probably for an entire month this time.

It was hard, after having spent about half my holidays with her, to leave her at the security check-in, but the show must go on, I suppose. And even though I nearly shed a tear saying goodbye, these 800-ish km don't mean we aren't connecting anymore.


The flight then. This time, no delays !! Not a single minute actually, which I noticed by coincidentally watching my watch during take-off. Even better, we landed about 15 minutes ahead of schedule.
But unfortunately, I didn't get the front-row seat this time, even though I did most just like last time. I did, however, make some pictures during flight and a video during landing.

Leaving behind a sunny Schiphol Airport.

 Being approached by a converging A320-like aircraft.

Small ice crystals appearing on the window during descent, rapidly increasing in size and number.

The descent through the clouds and landing on runway 14 at Zurich Airport (LSZH; ZRH)

Once arrived, I went to the apartment, installed myself and prepared for the coming days. I've been pretty nervous actually. Even though BRT 2 went pretty good, I was convinced I had done really bad on my AN2-exam. Fortunately though, I underestimated my capabilities BY FAR and apparently got a 90% pass-mark. I'm either a lucky guesser or I knew the subject better than I thought.

But somehow, it's becoming a habit with this teacher. Today, we had the LAW-exam, and I wasn't too sure about my result either, but then he said everyone would pass the exam, if they didn't change anything anymore. I, however, was just in the progress of changing things, so here's hoping it gets me a better instead of worse result.

Next exam to come up is Area Control in the simulator. After 8 exercises, we have to prove our skills next Friday. According to the lead instructor, it should be harder to fail than to pass, but there is a certain standard expected of course.

That's about it for now. Talk to you all in my next blog. :)

The trip home

Hey everyone,

I was planning to blog about my trip home as soon as I got there, but seeing my family, girlfriend and friends again just made me forget about that. Therefor, I'm putting it online right now, but first of all I hope everyone had a great Christmas and I wish you all a very happy new year.

So yeah, the first part is over. In the meantime, I'm back in Switzerland already, after having had 2 weeks of leave. But getting home didn't come without problems, unfortunately.

As you might have noticed, Europe suffered under the snow of the past few weeks and this, of course, had a huge impact on aviation. Throughout Europe, there were several airports that had to be closed because they just couldn't cope with it all. One of those airports was Amsterdam Schiphol which was, as Murphy's Law prescribes, my destination aerodrome. This lead to some fearful hours, checking the internet continuously to see if my flight would be or was already cancelled. At around 13h00, the EUROCONTROL-website said Schiphol was closing until 15h00 but as my flight was scheduled at 20h00, I still had my hopes up.

Unfortunately, about 10 minutes later, I read on the KLM-site that all flights were cancelled. Expecting a huge mass at the airport, I decided to leave earlier than I would have in normal conditions so I arrived there at around 17h00. There I got the final confirmation of my flight being cancelled, so I started queuing for a new ticket in a long line of other people waiting there. A girl and her mother, who were standing right behind me, were actually supposed to be leaving Zurich at 08h00 that morning, but at 17h30 they were still far away from leaving.
During our wait, we all had a lot of time to look around and this made me notice the big and at that time very ironic/sarcastic billboard hanging above the desk where we were hoping to rebook our flights

A huge billboard above the desk.
Translated, it says: When your trip around the world does take a bit longer.

After nearly 5 hours of waiting, I was approached by someone who said he might be able to help me get a new ticket right away. At that time, I was just 3rd in line anymore, but as each person seemed to take some 30 minutes to get another flight, I took the shot. Apparently though, he wasn't joking as not more than 10 minutes later, he gave me a new ticket for the first flight of the next day. This flight was leaving at 06h55, so in the end, my delay would only have been about 11 hours. The women behind me weren't so lucky, as they were still waiting for their new ticket about an hour later and in the end, they were only able to leave Zurich in the evening of the next day.

As it was already 22h30 when I got my new ticket, I decided to stay at the airport for the night and sleep in instead of going to the apartment again. Even though it took me some time to find a comfortable place to sleep, I woke up several times during the night and had to get up at 05h00, it was an experience I really cherish now.

After waking up, I joined a group of people, already trying to check in. The first thing we heard, however, was that this flight was also cancelled and we had to start from the beginning again. Luckily, the flight's cancellation was an auto-cancellation connected to another flight that was cancelled (bit hard to explain, if you don't understand, feel free to ask about it), so at 06h00 we were finally dropping off our luggage and checking in continuously.

As of then, almost everything went pretty smooth and by 06h30, I was sitting at the gate to board KLM1952 instead of the intended KLM1964. Due to the late check-in start, there was another delay of about an hour but it didn't really kill my mood as I was finally going home again. In fact, it wasn't until I got a ticked-off gate attendant (apparently, my hand luggage was too big, even though the check-in guy said it would be fine) that I felt as if I could take on the world. But still, I didn't let that take me down. I boarded happy and I immediately asked the flight attendants if it was allowed to take the cockpit seat, being an ATCo-student.

I wasn't allowed in during start-up, taxi, take-off and climb but when we reached the French-Luxembourg border, I was called in by the flight attendant and got to sit in and follow every move of the airplane until it came to a halt at the gate out a front row seat, right behind both pilots.

I don't know whether it's standard procedure or whether they did it to impress me, but despite an overcast at a mere 600 feet, the autopilot was disconnected well before having the runway in sight and the approach was flown entirely manual.

"KLM50G, cleared to land runway 18C, only vacate via W8 or W10"

The above was our landing clearance, as received by Schiphol Tower, and what a sight it was to see the runway appear out of the clouds and all but two taxiways covered with at least 30 cm of snow, all from the cockpit. Not a bad thing actually, for my first flight in 3 years time, don't you think?

After having taxied the Boeing 737-400 to gate D46, I wished the crew merry Christmas holidays and headed for the train station, to get to Zwolle, where I was finally able to join my girlfriend on a family weekend.

At first, I had expected my trip to take about 5 hours, from leaving my Swiss bedroom to seeing my girlfriend. In the end, it took me just a bit more than 19 hours, including a night at the airport, but to be honest, to me it didn't matter at all. I was finally with the person I love, I met some great people at the airport, had some new experiences and I finally had some leave.