FRA to HAM and back - Lufthansa A300

[Hergi]

Hello everyone,

On February 27th I flew up to Hamburg because I was invited to the first stage of Lufthansa's pilot test.

I got into a traffic jam somewhere in Hessen but fortunately managed to get off the autobahn and change to another one, so I arrived at around 5PM in Frankfurt. I went to the quick check in machine, inserted my Miles and More card and received my boarding pass.



I proceeded to the security check in Terminal 1A and found myself in huge queue. Finally, at 17:30 I managed to get out of there and walk to my gate A19. But before, they confiscated by shampoo due to those new regulations I prefer travelling with hand luggage but didn't think before packing my suitcase

After boarding the huge Airbus A300 D-AIAT (love that airplane) I asked a F/A whether it is possible to visit the flightdeck. This was no problem and so I talked to the cockpit crew for a while. I told them that I was enroute to Lufthansa's pilot test and they offered me the jumpseat - very nice ! Prior to pushback a famous person entered the flightdeck, Mr Mayrhuber who is the Lufthansa CEO. He was enroute to Hamburg and probably was interested in what his employees are doing He even shook my hand and wished me good look for my test !



At 17:51 local we pushed back from A19 and I hardly managed to repress my big grin
We were supposed to taxi to runway 25R. While taxiing we received a message on the ECAM saying "SLAT SYS 2 FAULT" and therefore the aircraft was stopped on an unused taxiway, so the crew could check some buttons of the fuse. The message finally disappeared and we continued taxi.





A company A300 lined up on another taxiway some 200 metres right of us. So we could line up but still needed to wait two or three minutes. We stood on the runway and watched the other aircraft taking off. All this happened during sunset and was a truely great moment.



Finally take off thrust was set and we left Frankfurt.

Nightfall came somewhere over Germany.



We landed on runway 23 in Hamburg and finally arrived around 7PM at Gate C15



The following two days were a bit exhausting but also interesting. Now I am waiting for the letter with the result and I hope to be invited to the 2nd stage sometime in summer 2008. For those who speak German: Check out this link in order to read a report of my test.

When the examination was over on friday I went to the airport with some other guys. My flight back home to Frankfurt left in the evening. There is nothing special about this flight although I could already feel the first turbulences caused by the storm called "Emma" which made an A320 almost crash in Hamburg one day later.

Thanks for your attention

[TAP-A343]

That was for sure a good experience seating in the cockpit during the whole flight.

But it would have been even more interesting for us if you had flown on the A320 that almost crashed and written a report afterwards.

By the way, nice shots.

[MaxPower]

Nice FD pictures. I like the first-person view from the Jumpseat.

I don't quite understand german that much, so if you can describe how your pilot-test went with 5 words (in english) that would be great.

Thanks for sharing, mein freund.

[Hergi]

Thank you !

@MaxPower: I applied for the test in September 2007 and as said I was invited in February. You have to do different things there, like English, Maths (pretty easy level, just to test the basic knowledges), Physics (one test is about your technical comprehension and another one about physical knowledge) and some other tests, for instance to test your concentration. An example for one test: you have 9 different clocks on the screen. Before they show up you are told which one to read, those will be 4 of them. Then the clocks display for two seconds and in this time you will need to find the requested ones and afterwards enter the values they've shown. This might sound difficult but after two months of training it was quite easy to do.

By the way, the result came in today: I passed

Greetings

[flyboy2548m]

By the way, the result came in today: I passed

What's the next step?

[Hergi]

In the 2nd stage I will have to fly in a simulator, discuss things in a group and talk to representatives of the company. This will happen sometime in summer.

Greetings