Here's what happened; to start the night plenty of wine was drunk during the course of dinner followed by a fair amount of whisky. Armed with our new statuses we took a £30 taxi ride into town which was followed by some live music and more alcohol. From this point on a few of us switched to a more refined drink; Gin & Tonic..
We soon found out that the phrase "Don't worry, I'm a pilot!" seemed to work very well in a number of situations.
We bar hopped for some time whilst gauging the general feel of the youthful population of Oxford and where was the best place to go out on a Friday night.
Some clubbing later, after we had expended our money and energy, we decided to head back to the middle of nowhere. As advised by the Skipper during the day's presentation, we got what he called "...getting that obligatory Kebab from the van before making your ways back to hall tonight..."; it would have been rude to not have obliged the first instructions of the Skipper..!
Another £30 taxi ride saw our return to the Army Base.
Now to this morning, a very early phone call awoke me from my unconsciousness. The kicking pain in my head was unbearable. I struggled to think how pilots can live this kind of lifestyle and happily fly the next day..
A number of cups of tea saw my slow recovery. With this being the general feeling amongst the few we decided that the best thing to do would be to spend the day recovering in time for a productive Sunday.
Whilst reading on the handouts we had received, I came across an article which was on particular interest; it was entitled "When is a student not a student? When they're a student pilot" it was written by Lembit Opik MP in the Flight Training News Magazine.
When is a student not a student?
It stirred some very strong feeling regarding the way in which the UK Governement deals with Aviation training and how for the Government categorises Flight Training as both an Educational Course and a Non Educational course to meet their fancies; such that they can charge VAT on training whilst claiming the Cadets should be dealt with in the same way as University Students.
There was also a section within the article relating to the lack of "widening participation" in aviation training. Some very poignant issues were raised and there was also a petition to Number 10 with this regard.
http://www.fairplane.org.uk/
Well, given the lack of sleep and non-stop hectic lifestyle that I have recently adopted with this career; today has been the first of, what the industry calls, "A rest day"..
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