You may have seen a photo (or two!) of our students in the T67 Slingsby Firefly recently but do you know what our Advanced Upset Prevention and Recovery Training (AUPRT) entails? One of our students, who recently completed the course, has tried to keep you in the loop (no pun intended) with what went on during their course!
08:30 Wednesday morning: Ground school kicked off today!
Today I leave our accommodation (The Arc) to head into the academy for our ground school. I meet our AUPRT instructor and we discuss what we are going to cover today. The ground school course should take around 5 hours and we cover Aerodynamics, Stalling, Stall warning and protections, Spinning, Meteorology and Human Factors! With no time to waste we jump straight into it.
09:30 Thursday morning: Briefing my first AUPRT flight!
I am in the centre preparing for my first AUPRT flight. My course mates and I meet our instructor who briefs us on the lesson we are going to do today- an introduction to the aircraft, increasing our G tolerance and stalling. I am flying second today, so another cadet leaves to go flying while I make myself some breakfast and review the weather for our flight.
12:30 Thursday morning: Time to go flying!
My instructor is back with the cadet who is looking a bit pale! Turns out after one of the G tolerance exercises, he did not feel great, so they decided to return to the airport but unfortunately they didn’t make it in time. At least we have some great Go Pro footage of the sick bags in the Firefly being put to good use! It can be a natural response to the G forces to start to feel a bit sick, so we did expect at least one of us to feel a bit ill after one of the flights; but for now, it’s my turn to go flying!
We walk out to the aircraft and, while my instructor is checking the aircraft over, I put on my parachute. Having checked my parachute is on correctly we both get into the aircraft and taxi out to the runway. The instructor does todays take-off so that I can get used to controlling the throttle with my left hand and the control stick with my right (which is the reverse of what we do in the DA40/42!) We fly out towards Moreton-On-Marsh (an area near to Oxford Airport that is good for general handling) where I am then taught me how to complete a loop and a barrel roll in order for me to build up my G tolerance – this was amazing!! We then completed several exercises such as steep turns (this time at 60 degrees), spiral dives, abnormally slow flight with recovery and then a series of stalls. Before I know it my hour and a half lesson is up and we are returning back to Oxford to land (with one more loop to build up my G tolerance a bit more of course…)
08:00 Friday morning: Spinning time!
After spending the previous evening revising for today’s lesson, I am excited to experience my first spin. We brief and head out to the aircraft, don our parachutes and get going! Heading over towards Moreton again we recap yesterday’s stall exercises before recovering from an accelerated stall. We then run through a series of incipient spins where I learn how to recognise the onset of a spin and recover before it fully develops. We then go onto full spins! Today, we allow the aircraft to do two complete turns in the spin before recovering- it is a very strange experience!! After recovering from several spins (and with my head positively spinning) we had completed all of the exercise aims and sadly it was time to return to Oxford.
10:00 Saturday morning: Last lesson of AUPRT – Upsets!
I am back in the centre today for my last AUPRT lesson which is all about dealing with upset situations and using the skills we learnt in the previous two lessons to recover from any upset situation. Once again, we brief and head out to the aircraft with our parachutes. I get to take off today so we depart and I fly us out towards Moreton before my instructor puts the aircraft into various upsets and I recover from them. We cover nose high and nose low recoveries and my instructor also demonstrates the startle effect. Sadly, an hour and a half went by super quickly and it is time for us to return to base.
We land, debrief the flight and that’s it! After over 5 hours of ground school and around 4.5 hours in the air, I have completed my Advanced Upset Prevention and Recovery Training and now it’s time to move onto the APS MCC!
Are you interested in our Advanced Upset Prevention and Recovery Training? To find out more about the course click here.
If you would like more information on training at Leading Edge Aviation and the next suitable steps on your Flight Training journey contact one of our Training advisors today!
