It’s been thirty-three (or tirty-tree as some of us say) days since CP 16 arrived in the lovely New Zealand hamlet of Papakura. After a marathon session of twenty-two hours in flight courtesy of Singapore Airlines we had reached our home for the next few months.
Our first few days of settling in and acclimatising were accomplished with the help of CP 15 and 13 who, very obligingly, took us on our first trip to Auckland City to sample the exciting nightlife. So with the important task of getting inebriated out of the way we were all set for our first day at work. A week of long briefs and familiarisation with Ardmore Airfield, the DA20-C1 Katana and Calum's Pie Shop followed as we settled in. Unfortunately due to weather and maintenance CP 16 did not get much early flying done. Luckily, we had come prepared with a guitar and several talented singers/songwriters who were quickly put to work composing CP 16’s anthem. Also, to practise for our first lessons the high-fidelity simulation IL-2 Sturmovik was installed on all the laptops and we quickly became experts at either running away very quickly or stalling into the ground. Not pointing any fingers but Mr. Noel Leeming is being held accountable for some very serious crashes that “would never have happened in real-life….” CP 13 organised a Karting competition in the first few days of our arrival and due to the different way the water goes down the taps down here, CP 16 managed to come in last. The moral victory was ours.
As soon as we moved from our temporary accommodation in Delta into our real home, Echo, the culinary class of our fellow cadets rapidly surfaced: Phil’s ‘Chicken Yassa’, Andrew’s ‘Pasta Special’, Nikhil’s 'Chicken Curry', John and Tony’s ‘Chilli Con Carne’ and last but not least Morgan’s ‘Burgers.’ All the local supermarkets were quickly scoured for the finest ingredients and we made good inroads into sampling the local beers – and we were misled! The beer out here is just fine! And so is the vodka, tequila, wine, sambucca, gin, paint stripper and water.
In the next few weeks CP 16’s cadets all managed to get into the air with their new instructors and make their first impressions. We all know how important those are so we really took it easy on those first few flights and let the instructors ‘think’ we didn’t have a clue. We have sorted that out by now and are ‘keen as’ to get more flying done and onto the A380’s… Theory exams for the Private Pilots License are progressing well also, with the Long Course Legends having to do three times more work than the short course. Not to mention twice as much flying to ‘catch up’ on the Short Course Scots. Only two more left for the Legends and then onto the ATPL’s.
At this stage Papakura has become like a second home except for the electric gates guarding the paddock like Jurassic Park, smashed glass outside our compound, a burnt out car or two and the house next door actually burning down. In fact when the braver souls ventured into town for haircuts we discovered that the friendly hairdresser (an Olympian hairdresser, no less) actually knew more about our progress on the course than we did ourselves. And she cut a decent hair cut too.
The sporting mad amongst CP 16 also managed to get out and about for a game of indoor soccer. Three of the long course turned up for five-a-side and quickly realised exactly how unfit we are becoming. We lost out 3-1 but the stunning defeat has left CTC Serious with an appetite for vengeance and the intense training schedule begins… sometime soon…
All in all, an exciting and successful first month of training.
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