Hello everyone. As you will read from last night’s post I didn’t get back until late and was flying at 8.30 this morning. I set the alarm for 7 and I rolled out of the bed with one eye open. I missed the 7.45 bus so it meant getting the 8 o’clock bus and walking a little bit quicker at the other end.
After rushing the whole way, Arturo the instructor told me that the examiner was using the plane and wouldn’t be back for 2 hours. I was going mad – 2 hours more sleep I could have gotten!
Eventually at noon we got in the aircraft. Full of fuel and ready to go, we call Clearance Delivery for our flight plan clearance and start up. Once ready, we call Ground Control. Ground control was like Heathrow on a quiet day. Couldnt get a word in edgeways for about 5 minutes.
It didnt help the fact that my callsign was “Delta November Charlie one eight November Charlie”, which is so long that I can hear the laugh in the controllers voice when I call. You need a deep breath before you reply!
We prepared for our 3 km taxi to the active runway, and ATC gave us an intersection to hold at, so he could get the 10+ aircraft out behind us while we did our power checks.
Just about ready! I gave the takeoff brief for the Standard Instrument Departure called Vibas 1A from Runway 31.
In the air, we continued to climb to Flight Level 90 (9000 ft). ATC soon realised how slow we were and gave us a vector away from the departures. We were cleared from “MGA” radio aid to the “GDA” radio aid and given a frequency change to Granada Tower.
It was great, I changed frequency and there was no traffic. When I made the initial call, he told me there was an airbus A320 due in 20 minutes.
We got two ILS approaches into Granada and went back to Malaga where ATC vectored us for a high speed (145 knots) ILS approach into runway 31. The airport is very well designed and you can run off the high speed exits from either direction onto the taxiway.
I have noticed the odd temptation from the Spanish controllers to speak Spanish, but they soon realise when they are ignored that they are not getting a reply in Spanish. Well, the approach controller did anyway at 3 miles on the ILS when she told me to contact tower in Spanish.
That’s all for today!
See you tomorrow,
Andrew
