Week 1: What this course is for
The opening lecture — what we are and are not teaching, and why the first practical period of the course is about leaving the aircraft
22 February 2027
The hour that states the course’s position, before any of the material has to argue for it.
Most people arrive at a fighter aircraft through its combat record and expect a course about it to cover combat. This course does not: over twelve weeks it teaches taking a single-seat jet off the ground, flying a circuit, and landing it, and no more than that.
The lecture makes the case for that scope in three parts:
- what the aircraft actually is
- why it cannot be flown without a computer
- why a narrower promise than expected is the harder one to keep
It also explains the order of the syllabus. The first practical period teaches egress — how to get out — not because students are expected to need it, but because it is the skill with the shortest deadline.
Reading#
The aircraft description chapters of the flight manual, in full. You are not expected to retain them; you are expected to have seen how much there is.
Teaching team
- Wren Oyelaran — convenor