Ground school complete

Firstly congratulations to all the lucky candidates that have been accepted on the second round of the Future Pilot Programme! I look forward to meeting you all. More selfishly, I have to say it is a great comfort for those in the first round to know that British Airways expect to have openings not only for us lot, but shortly after for another 76 cadets as well.

This week marks a major milestone - the end of ground school. Six months of hard graft have come to an end, and all that remains is to pass the final exams.

Having just done a 'dry run' in the form of the school finals, there should be no gremlins lurking. We just need to keep up with the revision and not forget anything in the next week and a half.

Tradition dictates fancy dress on the last day, and our class did not disappoint, with a full complement of revealing, embarrassing yet thankfully anonymous morph suits.

And a full dance routine to match, to the tune of "Call on me" and inflicted on several innocent unsuspecting classes. The instructors seemed impressed, but one commented that it was not as good as the real video (I'll let you Google that yourselves).

Anyway here is the boring official photo of the class (on a very windy day):

And here is the unofficial but much more fun version.

Various problems have caused a delay to the start of our fair weather flight training in the USA, but on the bright side I do have a month of English summer to enjoy post-exams (no irony intended) and I will be taking the opportunity to brush up on my flying in my aged but charismatic glider as well as saving some pennies for the USA.

Photo: Steve Thomson

 Until next time!