|
|
|
As I grew up I always wanted to be a pilot, so when I turned 17 I applied at the Dutch Royal Airforce and was dismissed because I was too young, the said come back in 2 years. A year later I applied at the RLS (now known as the KLM Flight Academy) where I was invited to participate in the acceptance-tests (which take about a year to complete). After the 3rd test I was dismissed because I f*cked it up. As I turned 19 I applied at the Royal Dutch Airforce again, made it through the first day of testing (of 12 people only a 18 year old girl and I were left), but was dismissed the next day, because I was too tall (Damn). As it was also time to start thinking about what to do with my life (work or study) I decided that if I wasn't allowed to fly them, I'll build them. I applied and was accepted by the Haarlem Polytechnic where I studied Aeronautical Engineering for 5 years. At the end of my 4th year I thought, why not try the KLM Flight Academy, you know just for fun. And what the hell, I passed all the tests and even got accepted as an AOV-student (this means that when you complete the 2-year course, you get to fly the big planes like the B747-400 for the KLM). So after 2 more years of studying I had my CPL (Commercial Pilot License) and was ready for the "real work". But by now KLM wasn't doing so well, so they told us that they wouldn't be hiring pilots for a while and we were all placed on a waiting list. I started out as number 74 on the list and now, 13 months later, I moved up to 61. During these 13 months I worked as a Development Engineer at Fokker Special Products in Hoogeveen, The Netherlands. There we designed and build parts for airplanes, helicopters and rockets (e.g. Airbus, Apache and Ariane 5) out of FRP (Fiber Reinforced Plastics), e.g. carbon, glass and aramid. Then Lufthansa came to us and asked us if we would be interested to fly for them for a while, because they needed pilots desperately. 50 people of the waiting list accepted and went to the acceptance tests. Unfortunately only 20 survived, of which I am one. Currently I am in the Type Rating for the Airbus A320-200, which I will start flying as First Officer starting approximately begin March. During my studies as Aeronautical Engineer I bought my first computer, the fastest I could buy at the time. It was infinitely faster then my roommate's 386 DX40, namely a (dare I say it) Intel (sorry AMD) DX2-66 with the fastest graphics-card available, a Diamond Stealth with the enormous amount of 2Mb of video memory. Shortly after I bought it I started overclocking and have done so with every piece of computer hardware I have had (if possible). |
