The road to my wings
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| Date | 04-09-2009 |
| Location |  |
| Message | (Friday 1400) I landed and debriefed the test. All went good and it's another snake. I must admit that it's quite a relief after the last couple of flights which were both good apart from the couple of things that detracted them so badly that I only barely passed them. That's the important thing the way I see it. You can screw up and do all the mistakes in the world during your flights as long as you don't repeat them and you learn enough from them to be "clean" on the test and just "make it happen" when it matters the most. That's it for now. It's weekend time now! /GEA |
| Date | 04-09-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Friday 1045) My test got postponed from 1020 to 1420 and now it's been changed again to 1225. I hope they don't change it again. Every time they change the schedule I have to amend the map as the winds would have changed in the course of two hours. Now I'm pretty tired of amending my map so hopefully they stick to this plan. I was supposed to pick up one of the new Danes arriving here this afternoon but now that's changed too. Fortunately COM has to drive his sister and her husband to Regina airport at the same time so he'll take care of that for me. If you read this, happy birthday, dad. I've been at school since 0645 preparing for the test so I didn't have time to call. That's it for now. /GEA |
| Date | 03-09-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Thursday 2010) I've been really busy the last couple of days. Yesterday I flew Nav 6 and then I had a night flight. Nav 6 went well except for an antenna that I didn't see until very late which resulted in getting a "Marginal." It sucks to get a low grade but it happens. Then at 2030 I had the night flight which is really just to get you acquainted to what it's like flying at night. I must say that I was a bit intimidated before the flight with 15 planes on the programme, all flying around the airfield visually at night. The good thing about night flying is that the other planes are easy to spot because of all the flashing lights. The hard part is judging how far they are and which direction they're going. The important thing is that you know where you are and where you're going and it's not all that easy. Anyway, the instructor thought we should do some aerobatics, just because we can, so we did! I never did so many aerobatics in one flight before, not even at day time. Loops, Cuban-8's, Clovers, Immelmans and Split-S. It was all good fun. It's a strange feeling when you're going vertically down in, say, the loop and you cannot see the ground. You take an extra look at that altimiter, believe me! Today I had Nav7, which is my pre-test. The nav part of the flight went really well but on the way back the air traffic controller screwed me up and put me in an area with almost direct collision course with IFR traffic rejoining to land. We ended up having a near miss with another Harvard going in the opposite direction. What I should have done was asked for the runway I wanted and not just listened to his instructions. After all they're humans too and they too can make mistakes. The only problem is that it's the pilot that pays the price if ATC does a mistake. So I ended up getting a "Low-Standard" for the trip because of that. Tomorrow I have the Nav final test. Hopefully it'll be better than the last two nav flights. Now I'll do some more route preparation for tomorrow and then it's off to bed. Wish me luck! /GEA |
| Date | 01-09-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1900) Yesterday we had a nasty wind and the crosswind component was out of solo limits for students so I didn't do my Nav solo. However the weather was great today so I got my flight done. It was highly enjoyable if I may add. The target was a dam at the end of a small lake. I bombed the crap out of it, so if you hear about flodding in the area, you know why... After getting the target I started climbing out to the area to do some aerobatics but on the way up through about 9,000 feet there was a thick layer of haze so I decided not to go through it because I knew there were other planes in the area. So instead I went home for an overhead break and a closed pattern. I still think (and hope) that I'll get my nav test by the end of this week and then next week I'll hopefully start formation flying. /GEA |
| Date | 30-08-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Sunday 1900) I want to be a racing driver! Man that was so much fun. I have never been so excited while lining up on a runway before. Getting there was quite intimidating. There were alot of purpose built cars and they are true racing dragsters. The smell of nitro was unmistakable. It was almost like being at the airfield flying model airplanes twelve years back. The runway at Swift Current, which is normally "only" 4500 feet long seen from a pilot's perspective, seems huge when you drive your car on it. Anyway, I got there with Colin and an instructor, both of them on racing bikes. We got ourselves registered and our car inspected and then they wrote our car number on the windshield and we were ready for a couple of practise runs. My baby had number 167. There were alot of Mustangs. I met this family where the dad, the mum, the son and the daughter all owned a Mustang each, all 4th generation models and all pretty tuned up. I raced one of them in both the practise runs and won both times. Then it was time for the elemination round to begin! So the procedure is that you give them your dial-in time. Your dial-in time is normally your best time. But I had only had two trial laps so I didn't know how good my best can be. The dial-in time is very important. They use it to find the right match for you in a race. If your dial-in time is higher than the opponents, then he gets a handicap meaning that he starts after you, so in theory both should cross the finish line at the same time. So you may think: "Why don't you just give a high dial-in?" Well, the reason is a good one. If you beat your dial-in time you will automatically be disqualified! Therefore you have to find the right balance and you can only do so after many trials... So I just wanted to make sure not to beat my dial-in time so I gave them a rather conservative one, about 0.5 second faster than my best of the two practise runs. So they matched me up with a pickup truck. "Yes," I thought to myself! "He's going to eat dust." Then I noticed his huge slick tires and this metal box in the back with a pressurized container with all kind of pipes and wires coming out of it. I think it was one of those er-things... Anyway he got the green light about 0.5 seconds before me because of my handicap. I had an awesome start with a reaction time of 0.03 seconds. I was catching up quickly until I shifted into second gear and the wheels started spinning. They do that sometimes but this time it just got worse and worse. So I let go of the pedal for a split second but by the time I got traction again the race was practically lost. I opted not to use Traction control intentionally as I knew I could do a good launch without spinning and traction control will not only take power away from your engine, but it's also unhealthy for it. I also opted not to do a burn out before the race because I didn't want to buy new tires afterwards... After that I did a practise race against a 5L tuned Mustang and he ate my dust. He had automatic gears and his fat wife sitting next to him so I think that made quite a difference. So I won 3 of 4 attempts. My best time was 14.7 seconds for the quarter mile, crossing the line at just over 98mph. Awesome fun for just a $30 entry fee and the best of it is that it's all organised and all legal. What a day! I'm gonna miss my car the day I sell it... /GEA |
| Date | 29-08-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Saturday 2200) Not much has happened since Thursday. Friday I got Nav5 done but I didn't have the time to do the solo Nav5A as I had an appointment at the optician. So it'll be done on Monday. Today the base held a "family day" with lots of activities for the little ones. So I took the little boy there while the wife went shopping with a friend of hers in Regina. We had a great day together and ended it with some model airplane flying. Tomorrow I'll be going to Swift Current early in the morning. This time, however, I'll be driving there and not flying there. The airport will be closed for the day as there's a 1/4 mile drag racing event. So some of us from school have decided to take our cars there and take part. JOR will be there with his Corvette, I'll take my Mustang and Colin (one of the Canadians in our class) will be there with his racing bike. There will be a few others from the base and we'll probably get our asses kicked because there are alot of custom built cars out there, all running on slicks and nitro charged engines. But it's going to be fun no matter what. Now I think I'm off to bed and try to get some sleep so I'm as prepared as I can be for tomorrow. /GEA |
| Date | 27-08-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Thursday 0815) The weather is crappy this morning. It's very rarely foggy here in the praries but it's foggy today with an occasional light drizzle. I filed my flight plan anyway and the guy on the other end of the phone sounded surprized that somebody is so optimistic as to file a VFR flight plan. Anyway I finished the call by saying "I'll call you back in a couple of hours to cancel the flight plan..." Yesterday morning I was supposed to be in for the 0900 met brief so at eight I was still in bed. My little boy climbed up on our bed and crawled on top of me so his face was half an inch away from mine. Then he heard the planes from the first wave taking off at 0800 and he went "Plane flying, dada" as if he's thinking "what are you doing still in bed??" Then he looked around as if to make out where the noise was coming from and he looked back at me, with his eyes wide open, as big as tea cups and gave me a very serious look. And with a deep voice he said "It's a Hawk!" "Shut up and let me sleep!" I said. Afterwards I thought about the incident and laughed about it the rest of the day. The flying is great fun and the feeling after a good flight is indescribable. But nothing beats coming back home to my little boy and see him smile when I open the door. As they say: The best things in life come free of charge. /GEA |
| Date | 26-08-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 2125) Another day over and another mission flown. The weather's really nice at the moment and by the looks of it we should expect temepratures around the 30C mark the next week and a half or so. Knowing what the winters are like here, you gotta enjoy the warmth while it lasts... Tomorrow I'm scheduled for NAV5 and NAV5A, the latter being the last, and probably most fun, solo mission of Phase 2A. I look forward to it. The route takes me South close to the US border, so if you don't hear from me before the weekend and I update with a little US flag, it means I got lost along the way. Just kidding! With all those powerful tools that we have in the Harvard II it's almost impossible to get lost. You might miss a turn point or a target if you've screwed up in your planning or haven't flown accurately along your route, but no chance of getting lost. /GEA |
| Date | 25-08-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1120) It's nice to have a day without flying. I'm getting so much administrative stuff done. It's mostly small things but when you're busy flying or preparing to fly all the time they pile up and eventually you have to get them done. I re-checked my X count this morning and I actualy only have 14 X's to go. Yesterday's flight was with a new instructor. I was his first student ever. Apparently they made me fly with him because I'm pretty advanced in the course so I'm expected to do all the stuff without any assistance - which would make life easier for him on his first mission. So before the flight I went: "Ever heard them say that it's the good student who will get you killed?" He smiled and went: "Let's go have so fun, buddy!" Anyway, I didn't get him killed so I guess it was a succesful first instructor mission for him. I got to admit that I was SO nervous before the flight. I didn't know what to expect from him and I didn't know what he was expecting from me either. It was like losing my virginity all over again. I'm sure that he felt the same way... Now I'm off for lunch and then it's back to preparing a couple of nav maps. /GEA |
| Date | 24-08-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Monday 2045) Just got done preparing for my next nav trip. I almost did not find my target today. It was a gravel road intersection in the middle of freakin' nowhere. Now here in the praries they have gravel roads going North-South and the same going East-West for exactly every mile. So the whole landscape is made up of square fields, a mile long. I think they invented the system when the settelers arrived here and wanted a piece of land back in the days, and the easiest and fairest way to do so was to divide the whole area into squares. The only thing they didn't think about was how difficult it makes it to navigate when flying at 500 feet AGL and trying to navigate after those roads which all look the same from above. I mean how hard could it have been for them to think a hundred years ahead?? Most of the turnpoints and targets have been dead easy to find so far because there was always some features leading you in the right direction. Either a lake or a highway or a little village but when there aren't any of the kind, it becomes very hard indeed. The worst is that if you don't find your target or find the "wrong" target you will obviously fail your test. Like all other tests it takes very little to fail. Anyway I had a few more close encouters with birds today. The worst was probably when I saw a big flock of huge Canadian Geese. They were dead ahead and they looked as if they were just as big as my plane. The good thing about them was that I spotted them early because they're so big and it was a big flock. So there's always good and bad things about everything... I just looked at the schedule and I'm actually not on for tomorrow. It's going to be wierd to not fly for a whole day. Otherwise, unless they take me off priority or the weather craps out, I should be done with the course in 2-3 weeks at most. I have 16 X's left now so the end is approaching indeed! And then it's hopefully on to Phase 2B on the Harvard, which will take 2-3 months and after that it'll be the long awaited Hawk. Stay tuned! /GEA |
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