At the end of October three of us sat the PNG air law exam. The last exam required to get your first PNG license. The original plan went back several weeks, where I had planned to sit my last airframe exam in Port Moresby. Then sitting air law the following week, allowing me to submit for my airframe licenses to the CAA as soon as possible, rather than waiting for another exam sitting. I knew it was not impossible, but knew it would involve a lot of effort.
1. Daniel, myself, Laz, Maipson & Auda
I had five weeks to study for my airframe exam, which I studied consistently for the last three weeks leading up to the exam. I had struggled balancing work and study with all my other responsibilities. The thing was being so tired and working overtime prevented me from studying at times or made it quite hard. So I was studying each weeknight and on Saturday. The airframe exam I would sit in Port Moresby, which meant flying there and overnight there. So this added a little more pressure on passing.
After sitting the exam in Port Moresby I returned to Mt Hagen and started to prepare for the CAA air law exam. I only had a week to prepare and seemed too much. But since we had been able to finish the C check on the Twin Otter on time, the three of us were given four hours a day to study at work leading up to the exam. One of our senior Engineers ran through air law with two of us throughout the week. It is an open book exam, the first I have ever done for Engineering, but you still need to know your stuff. and there is a lot. The Friday before the exam, I received my airframe result that I had passed.
So on the Saturday, the three of us sat the air law exam at the special sitting in Mt Hagen. We had two hours to answer fifty questions almost half the questions of the last exam I did. But in the end I had a few questions that I was trying to answer and was a rush for time. As I didn’t get to go through my answers like I normally do, I wasn’t too sure how I went. The following Wednesday morning we received our results and all three of us had passed. It really was a big burden lifted, all this time trying to get licensed under different systems of maintenance and doing exams on subjects that I have covered before during my training.
That night we went out for dinner at a hotel restaurant buffet. Two other Engineers who had previously passed the air law exam at the special sittings joined us, along with others. It was a special night, especially as it has been many years since a national Engineer had applied for his initial license, now there was four of them and myself.
So the next day four of us went to have out medicals done, which was an easy going medical compared to ones I have experienced in the past. Spent the rest of the day completing paper work and everything that was required for the license application. We were able to get the applications done to CAA’s Port Moresby office by lunch time on Friday. So the waiting game has begun as we await applications to be processed. So it is an exciting time to finally reach this point on applying for my initial licenses, but especially seeing four national Engineers applying for their initial license.
December 9th, 2009 at 6:23 am
Great work! Glad you were able to pass.
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December 9th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Ha - I just left this comment under the wrong heading
Congratulations, Matt. Pass this on to the other guys too!
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December 26th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Hi Matt, Wonderful to read your Blog. Can you please send me the Australian address you had where we can contribute to Rose’s kids. God bless you and love to PNG. Jacob
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January 2nd, 2010 at 12:24 am
Hi Jacob, you can contribute via the address given under the contact page. Thanks Matt
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