I was planning to head to London for Pilot Careers Live again anyway tomorrow, so as I already had a hotel booked for that, it seemed like a sensible option to get it done at the same time. I opted to go with HeathrowMedical for mine, for two reasons, firstly they were the cheapest (by £25…) and secondly, had good reviews.

You pay in full online before attending, (£957), and then have to log into the CAA portal to complete the MED160 form at least 10 days before the appointment. This form, and the CAA portal, are an absolute nightmare to use and fill out, the design looks like something from the 90’s and the associated guidance makes very little sense - however HeathrowMedical do provide some guidance too, and it’s checked/modified by the AME (areomedical examiner) on the day too before they send it off, so if you don’t get it spot on, it can be corrected.

They have 8 dedicated parking spaces, and today it seemed like it was incredibly busy (but that might be normal!), and despite arriving nearly 45 minutes early, all of them were taken - there were other spaces in the car park too, so I parked in one of those, and was told that was fine. You put your registration into a system once you’re inside, so presumably it’s just based on ANPR cameras at the entrance, rather than specific spaces. I’m writing about the parking here because there was very little information about it online, other than that they had some on a first come first served bases (there’s also very little google streetview coverage of Bath road for some reason) so, going in I wasn’t sure what it’d be like until I was there.

Once inside, before I’d even sat down they asked for my passport and all of the various documents, & medical records that had been requested. I was then given a couple of consent forms and questionnaires to sign, and a cotton swab which you have to place in you mouth and leave it there for around ten minutes (this is a drug test). Once that was all done, I was shown to the bathroom to provide a urine sample, then returned to the reception area.

After a bit of waiting, but not too long, I was taken upstairs, given a hearing test (sat in a soundproof booth, with a clicker, pressing it whenever I heard a tone), breathalyser, bloods were taken (via a pinprick), an EGC, and finally a spirometry test (lung function), before being returned to the reception area again for some more waiting.

There were people coming and going constantly, I’d read online before that there would be long periods of waiting, so had brought a book with me, but there was so much constantly going on, as well as a TV with the volume up fairly loud, and you never know when you’d be called on for the next bach of tests, so I don’t think I’d have been able to focus on it if i tried. I ended up mostly just watching the daytime TV and occasionally chatting to the other people going through the same ordeal.

After a slightly longer wait, I then met the AME who’d be doing my examination, we went upstairs again, and it started off with a general chat about how I was feeling and life in general (this was actually the mental health assessment part) followed by what my plans were (in terms of flying) - turned out we had some things in common as he’d done his medical training in Exeter! After that I was taken through the various results of all the tests that had been done so far. There were no issues at all for me, so this was pretty brief, essentially a skim over, with comments like “so that’s good”, “that’s all normal” etc.

Next up was a physical exam, so had to strip down to my underwear, and was then prodded and poked a bit, and had my lungs and heart listened to, again, all normal. Then it was time for blood pressure, pretty standard with an inflatable band - mine was initially high - it was quite warm in the centre and and there’s also a bit pf anxiety with this kind of thing given it has potential to prevent you being able to fly, so he put it down to that, put on some jazz music and told me to close my eyes, and clear my mind - I’m not sure how long I laid there like that, but it felt like forever, eventually though he repeated the test, and this time, like everything else, all completely normal. (He joked he might have to write a paper on jazz reducing blood pressure as it always worked!)

Next up after getting dressed, was a bit of exercise, (testing range of motion/mobility) I had to swing my arms a bit and do a few different moves, including things like a squat, then stand on a spot with my eyes shut (testing balance), then walking up and down (to check gait) - again all fine & easy stuff.

And that was it! All tests passed with no problem.

If you’ve ready my story, you’ll know I had an operation last year, so we then talked about that and what it meant - surprisingly to me (as that’s essentially now all in the past as far as i’m concerned!) this was the only stumbling block. As I’m still in the period where I only have a couple more followups scheduled with the hospital, just to verify everything is still ok, it wasn’t possible to issue the Class 1 today, as it’ll have to go to the CAA for them to decide, along with a letter from my consultant, stating that he thinks there’s no risk of recurrence, or further problems. The AME said that this was highly unlikely to be a problem at all, and he would contest it himself if there were any issues, as with a totally clean bill of health otherwise, he was happy to issue me a certificate, but as it’s in my history, the required boxes have to be ticked, and processes followed.

You may be wondering, no eyesight check? I was surprised not to have had this test before seeing the AME too, however, I suspect this is because of two reasons; firstly I’d provided my up to date sight prescription, and secondly I already have a historic Class 2 medical, and the initial examination for that already covers the show stopping things for a class 1, like colour blindness. So I suspect based on those things, it was expected the eye exam wouldn’t reveal anything new. Some of the others who were there, did go and have the eye exam before seeing the AME.

I did get taken for a very thorough eye test after seeing him though. It was essentially all the same kinds of tests you’d get in specsavers, if you’re a contact lens wearer, and also pay for their additional extras (like getting a 3D scan of your eye), but also a few additional ones as well, such as a more comprehensive peripheral vision test, which is done in a machine, where one eye is covered in turn, and then white lights appear at random, both in position and timing, and you have a clicker which you press whenever you see one, while staring straight ahead. The worst of these tests was the one for eye pressure, which is puffs of air being blown into your eye, but I had no concerns about the results of any of these tests, as I have regular eye examinations anyway & so knew my eyes were in good shape.

Finally I was returned to reception again, while a few bits of paperwork were completed before I was let go. All in all it was about 4-5 hours, but it went fairly quickly, the worst part was that lunch time was in the middle of it, and you’re not allowed to eat, so was pretty hungry for about half of it!

Although I’ve had to come away without the certificate actually in my hand, I expect it’ll likely come through in the next month or two, all being well (though I have experienced how slow the CAA ca be with these kind of admin things before!). It’s a huge relief to know now that i’ve been very thoroughly checked to be in good health, and that there’s now no barriers to getting my licence, other than me!

I was particularly interested in the fast-track, as I think having some structure to the training will be better, and looked upon more favourably by the airlines later, but I had quite a few questions about how it’d work doing it part time, and was also just generally interested to see the school, and what their training facilities were like.

I arranged a time to visit via e-mail with their super responsive team (replies were usually always within a matter of hours of me sending mine) & they also offered to provide a personalised quote for me, taking into account the hours I’d already done, as by going modular, it’d all count, unlike with the integrated schools - quite a refreshing change!

I arrived and was greeted by the reception team, and then the training advisor. We sat in the crew room, (which was nice and comfy with everything you’d need to do your flight planning) and had a bit of chat, getting a few of my questions answered about how the ground school and distance learning worked. I was then taken on a tour, shown all the classrooms and briefing rooms, social areas etc - It was similar in a way to Skyborne’s new modern building, just a little smaller in scale and obviously a slightly older building, but perfectly adequate.

We then went out to have a look at the aircraft. Aeros have a really modern and extensive fleet for you to train on, they have a number of Tecnam P-mentors, DA40s and DA42s (for the multi-engine flying) - all them equipped with very similar, full glass cockpits, and are fully kitted with modern avionics too, as well as some C150/152;s and PA28’s that I’m more sued to! I got to jump in one of the Tecnam’s as i’d never even seen one before and was suitably impressed. All of the aircraft I saw looked well maintained and looked after, not surprising, given Aeros also have their own maintenance area, (where they also take on apprentice aviation mechanics)

They also have a fixed based sim which is bookable too and 1-1 of the real aircraft.

I was highly impressed with what I saw and the answers to my questions as we were going round, I just got a very good vibe off the place and it felt ‘right’, possibly because it was a lot more similar to the school that I originally learnt to fly with, and I was really quite sold on it. Doing the ATPLs at home, at my own pace, but with guidance and help when needed, and then once in the flying phase, again being able to do that at my own pace, potentially flying every day if wanted to, just seemed like a much better fit for me than anything I’d seen before.

The thing that really stood out to me was the way that one of the students I spoke to, praised it so highly, and this wasn’t someone who was primed/picked for an open day - because when I asked if there were any current students around I could chat to, he had actually just begun and was in the middle of a briefing with his instructor, and that was the only reason he was in that day - to have an actual lesson. The training advisor knocked on the door and asked if he’d be willing to step out of his lesson to have a quick chat with me - and he was more than happy to do so - that just speaks volumes about the place I think, and he was also someone nearing the end of his training, having just got his CPL, so was able to talk about the high quality of the flight instruction too. This was something that was severely lacking at the integrated schools open days, very few students if any, who were actually flying.

I drove home from this one feeling incredibly enthused about it being a viable option to do my training.

As expected, it was a bit of a sales pitch, highly polished presentation at the beginning, selling the integrated course and an option to additionally complete a degree alongside it (for an additional cost of course). There was then the chance to essentially wonder around the building and chat to the students who where there on the day supporting the event. They were giving 1-1 tours to those who asked for it, which didn’t seem that organised, as i’m sure they would have had had to do it multiple times, it probably would have been better for them to have arranged groups at set times instead.

They also had a couple of the DA42’s in the hangar as a backdrop during the presentations, and one of them was then opened up for people to jump in and have a seat in the cockpit, there was quite a queue for that though so I wasn’t too worried and opted to skip it and chat to as many students as I could to find out a bit more about the actual flying.

However, the students were almost exclusively all still in the ground school phase, & only a couple of months in. There were a handful who’d been out to the fair weather location out in Florida, and done their basic flight training, but none who were more advanced than that, so it was difficult to get a good gauge of what the flight instruction was actually like. They did all highly praise the ground school instruction though & I did get the impression that that would be done to a high standard, and it’d probably be a great place to do it, with views out onto the airfield from the classrooms.

It was certainly an interesting day, but I didn’t leave sold on the school, partly because the presentation had put so much emphasis on how much ‘fun’ it was to be out in Florida, not because of the flying you’d be doing, but because of how much down time you’d have there, and the other interesting activities you can do while you’re out there. It just really felt like the whole day was pitched for people who were going to flight school in place of university, and sold like an uni alternative, offering a similar ‘student life’, rather than also catering for people like me who are now coming into it a little bit later in life.

For me the idea of burning money on rent and going to places like disneyland etc out in Florida, while only getting a couple of flights in a week, isn’t something which is very appealing any more - if I had to be away from home like that for flight training, i’d want to be flying as much as possible while I was there.

So, not for me this one I don’t think, will keep looking!

I just managed to squeeze this one in at the end of the day which was very very lucky as the forecast couldn’t have been more perfect CAVOK and only light winds the only problem was that the flying slot I had the plane for was 5PM to 8PM which meant that when we would be coming back, the sun would be right in my face but never mind, we took off climbed to 3000ft and flew down to Ivybridge no probs at all arrived about a min early (which was fine) then we headed to Crediton which took ages as we only had a ground speed of 75kts, ah well plenty of time for freda checks and getting ready for calling up Exeter, which we were told to as we got to Ashburton.

I called them up no probs at all and then we arrived at the midpoint 30seconds early, this meant (of course) that we would be a minute early when we got there and I adjusted the ETA accordingly, but even with that we were still a minute early (still well within acceptable range). We then headed to a little town called wiviliscombe its about 20 miles NNE of Exeter, we arrived about 1 min and 30secs early there after another revised ETA and lots of freda checks. The wind was clearly a little different than forecast today!

Once we got there I flew over it and then turned right and came back around to be overhead it and facing the right direction for the next leg which was down to Roadford lake, after flying for about 16miles down the track I had to find my position by estimating the distance flown after flying for a certain amount of time I think it was flying at a ground speed 100 Kts for 10 mins, I found that my position was approx just south of a small town, and there it was out the right hand window.

I was told then to divert to Bovey Tracy, it was approximately south of where we were so I turned onto HDG 180 and then calculated how long it would take to get there and the actual hdg taking into account the wind which was about 170 and about 10 mins. We were about a minute early at Bovey Tracy but again, that was ok.

Next up was some general handling, the examiner took over the RT and we did 3 stalls, one clean from 70kts, one in the approach config (i.e. 20degrees of flap and turning base leg) and then another in the final approach config (i.e. full flap and descending slowly) all of these went quite well apart from the fact that I forgot the HASELL check to start, and then the HELL check before the last stall, this was just about acceptable because I only had to have one prompt from the examiner for each.

Then he took control and put the a/c into a spiral dive (how nice) then gave me back control, I recovered from that, we then climbed back to 3500ft and I had to put the a/c into the glide config and then demonstrate a 30’ 40’ & 50’ gliding turn, all of which were fine.

I was then simulated being put into cloud and I was told to put the a/c into straight and level flight on instruments only, and then turn through 180 degrees to get us out of cloud which all went fine. Then I had to fix my position using the Berry Head VOR which again was no problem either (I like RNAV its so accurate) then I had to track a radial to the VOR which I did with no issue at all.

Next up was my least favorite bit the PFL (practiced forced landing), it didn’t turn out too badly in the end, we were a bit too high for the field I picked so I decided to go for the next one which was equally as good. Surprise surprise, seconds after going around from that - simulated engine failure after takeoff, lucky for me there was yet another nice field straight ahead and I remembered all the checks, we then climbed away and headed back to Plymouth.

We were told to join right base for rwy 31, which was slightly odd as we were south of Plymouth by that point, anyway, as we were positioning for a right base I spotted an aircraft dead ahead before the examiner, which must have been good because I got a “oooh yes well spotted” I think it was a microlight as Plymouth didn’t seem to know anything about it.

We came back into the circuit and the first (normal) landing was good enough, perhaps let the nose down a little too quick after the wheels touched but it was ok.

Went round again for a flapless approach & when we were downwind, another a/c was cleared to backtrack rwy 31 and we were to expect an orbit at the end of downwind, the examiner called up the tower and explained that we were on a skills test and we only had 1 more circuit to do (circuits are not allowed after 8 o’clock and it was getting on for nearly 5 to) the tower asked the other a/c to 180 backtrack even though he was already halfway down the runway! We were then allowed to continue, the approach worked perfectly (all those flight sim hours paying off there) nice landing much better before, then went around yet again for a glide approach to land.

This one too worked out ok, I started very high so I had to sideslip a little, this put us back in the right place and I held off the landing until the wheels touched Very smoothly which must have been a good thing! I asked to taxi back in via B as this allowed me to park the a/c with the nose wheel straight, ready for tie down. I shut down the engine and then the examiner said…

“well, well done that was a pass, you’re now a pilot!”

YES!! Now I’m just waiting for all the paperwork to be processed and my licence to arrive in the post.

It ended up taking nearly 3 weeks to arrive, but when it did, it was back dated to my birthday, so technically I had a pilots licence, from the day I turned 17 - many months before I even took my driving test!

I went out and gave the plane a quick check over, the only major problem was that the landing light wasn’t working, but that doesn’t stop us flying, the a/c needed some fuel so I took it over to the pumps, a really strange thing happened while there, the guy filling up for me found a black piece of foam floating in the fuel tank, I took it back to the flying school and, my instructor said the plane was still ok, so she was now a passenger and I taxied to the 24 turning circle for the preflight checks.

After those, we took off on rwy 31 climbed straight ahead to the strange bend in the Tamar and then routed direct to Bodmin, arrived 26 seconds early (not too bad!) then routed to Holsworthy and arrived a min early. I started to route to Crediton as planned, but after about 4NM my instructor simulated us going into cloud so I turned 180 degrees on instruments to get out of “the cloud” & once we were out again, I had to find my position using RNAV.

I got a radial from the berry head VOR and a true bearing from Plymouth, that put me just north of Holsworthy, looked out the window, and there was Holsworthy! We then diverted down to Roadford lake and did a steep turn to the left, one to the right, another to the left then climbed to 3500ft and did 3 stalls, clean, base leg config, and final approach config, then we did a PFL, which didn’t work to well so we did 2 more and they were ok so we flew back to Plymouth via Tavistock and joined overhead for rwy 31.

Went back into the circuit and did a normal landing, flapless landing, and a glide approach (which we landed on) all were ok, kept messing up the flare, but they were not too bad, taxied in and shut down. Only 10 days to go to my birthday now and I just have my actual skills test to go.

It involved sitting in a different room to the examiner, connected via a headset, and a transmit button, and I was also given a map with route drawn on it ans some details about the imaginary aircraft (like callsign, type etc). I then had to make the radio calls as if I was flying the route for real, with the examiner acting the part of ATC.

The route (from memory) involved departing a towered airport, getting a flight following service from a radar service, transiting through a military air traffic zone (MATZ) and then arriving at a grass srip with just an air/ground radio.

Took off planning to do two circuits, once I got to 300ft a air southwest plane came onto the approach, causing me to have to orbit at the midpoint of the downwind leg, for nearly five mins so that he could land so I decided to land instead of doing a touch and go, the flight lasted about 10mins

This meant I had to work out the headings, distances, the amount of drift, and an ETA for the next point on the fly, we went up to Holsworthy from Liskeard and then headed back down to Plymouth again, I got the headings spot on and the ETA’s were only about a minute out. The approach back into Plymouth wasn’t my best, but the landing was still smooth as always, and it was a really good flight.

I started up again taxied to holding point Alpha & was then cleared to holding point Charlie where I did my pre takeoff checks, I waited for one of the navy planes to takeoff and then was cleared takeoff from runway 13.

The first circuit was very good, and so was the landing, similar to the ones I did with my instructor but the second one, I really can’t describe how smooth it was, it was a slightly high approach but dead on the right speed at 65KTS I flared at about 15-20 ft floated it down the runway then the next thing I knew I was on the ground, I didn’t even feel it or hear it, I wasn’t sure whether to actually start braking because I thought I was still in the air, until the nose wheel touched and I could see that I was on the ground, this was ‘the’ best landing I’ve ever done!