The road to my wings
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| Date | 04-03-2009 |
| Location |  |
| Message | (Wednesday 1325) The weather outside is teriffic. Bright sunshine and even the snow is melting. There's alot of it though, so it's giong to be quite a while to get rid of it all. Other indications of mild temperatures are: 1. Canadians driving around with their windows completely open and their elbows sticking out of them. 2. When I enter my car, it's not frozen inside, so the seats once again smell like new leather. Brings back good memories. 3. People are in a better mood, which is great. We don't have theory lessons today but I did have an instrument flight sim this morning. It went good so there's not much to complain about. That's it for now. /GEA |
| Date | 03-03-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1530) I didn't have any sims today. All we had was the usual IFP and then I got a bunch of practical stuff done. Went downtown and paid my car insurance among other things. But before I could do that I had to dig my car out of the snow that it had buried itself in. I hadn't driven it for a week so it was quite a job getting access to it... When I got back in class, one of the Canadians came in and said: "So GEA, I hear you're the snake king of the class." Apparently I'm the only one left in class with a clean snake record. I gotta open a reptile pet store eventually if I continue on this track, which I hopefully will. On the other hand I'm 6th of the Danes with regards to theory subjects with an average of 97.74%. It's not exactly a walk in the park to slide into an F16 slot... /GEA |
| Date | 02-03-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Monday 0955) This month there's a moustache growing competition and we're all taking part. It's going to be fun to see what we all look like in a month's time when the competition is over. This Friday we're having a house warming at our new home so the whole class is invited over. Otherwise we just had a couple of lessons of IFP. I don't know if I've mentioned this already, but this IFP block is about all the rules of flying in instrument conditions. It's rather dry and after a couple of lessons you really feel like running away screaming. Today I have a clearhood sim at 1240 so I can't wait to get in there and do some overhead breaks, slow flight, stalls etc. I had a practise sim Saturday which started off with instrument flying and ended with clearhood. That's it for now. /GEA |
| Date | 26-02-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Thursday 0850) The weekend is approaching fast and I haven't had a single sim this week, so I'm on a low gear right now. The weather is beautiful outside...if you're a freakin' penguin! This morning it was -30C with a winchill of just under -40C. Tomorrow we're all invited to the Snowbirds lounge, which is basically a mess for the Snowbirds pilots team. I've been there once before and it's really nice. The Canadians are very proud of their aerobatic team and being stationed here at Moose Jaw, we get to see them quite often. We're almost in place in our new home, which we're very happy about. Next on today's programme is a couple of lessons in IFP. Later on I might go to the hangar and do some cockpit drills. I also have to do all the end-of-the-month paper work. /GEA |
| Date | 23-02-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Monday 1105) So we moved to our new house which is much better than the old one, closer to all the other guys we know and has a really big new kitchen. It was a hard weekend to pack, move and unpack but we're slowly settling down in our new home. This morning we started off at 0700 with a Physical training class. Afterwards we had a couple of lessons of IFP, mostly a bit of repetition about departures and new stuff about enroute flying. I have no sims today but hopefully it won't be too many days before I'm on the programme. The older students are approaching their final flights, which means that our flying isn't too far in the future, but let's wait and see. All the guys are talking about going on a ski hloiday at the mountains near Calgary in Easter. Calgary is about 8 hours drive from here. I don't think I'll join them but I haven't decided yet. /GEA |
| Date | 19-02-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Thursday 0905) Not much has happened since Monday. Yesterday I got a practise sim as one of the guys wasn't feeling well, so I got his slot. The weather is still bloody cold. The forecast keeps saying that it'll get milder but it just doesn't. This morning I was really expecting it to be nice but it was -20C with a wind-chill of -29C. Tomorrow we'll be moving to a newer house, also just outside the base. It's much nicer and somewhat warmer than the one we've been living in. I don't look forward to the actual moving part but I do look forward to settling down in our new house, which is also closer to school. Now I think I'll do some reading, later on go to the gym, get some lunch and do some cockpit drills in the hangar...the usual stuff. /GEA |
| Date | 16-02-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Monday 1235) I had IF2 sim this morning. It was good fun with the instructor who taught us Aerodynamics back when we started here. During briefing he mentioned that people have a tendency to move their hands in a linear manner when they have to move both hands simultaneously, meaning that they move them just as far. He was speaking from experience of course. He said "I can almost bet you a beer that if you're climbing at 180 and you're asked to level off at 180 you will exceed that speed because your left hand has to move from 100% to 45% thrust while your right hand only has to change the pitch by about 1 degree." So I extended my arm and shook hands on the bet. By the time we finished briefing and I strapped in the sim and got myself airborne I had almost forgotten about the bet. So passing through about 5400 feet he said "OK, I want you to level off at 6000 at 180." In all the sims I had done, I had always leveled off at well over 10,000 feet. "Hmmm, that was sudden, and strange," I thought. Oh yes, this is it! THIS is IT! To me this wasn't about a bet; hell it wasn't about a beer either. I didn't care if I failed the flight, as long as I won. This was experience against theory, Canada against Denmark, this was about bloody Hans Island! So I carefully levelled off monitoring my airspeed closely and he calmly said "Well, I guess I owe you a beer then..." Oh yeah, that felt good indeed! I would be happy just to hear some stories from his days flying the F101, really! /GEA |
| Date | 16-02-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Monday 1225) I was actually starting to think that Spring was on the way because of the mild weather we had lately but I was wrong. We had a rather cold weekend. RIS finished building his F16 model and asked me if I wanted to test fly it for him. So we tested everything on the ground and the radio wasn't functioning properly so we decided to use my radio equipment for this test flight. That would also make me more at ease, knowing that my radio system has worked flawlessly for so many years. So we got her all set up and went out. He hand launched it with me on the controls. The model accelerated nicely until it commenced a steep climb on its own. I had no authority whatsoever on the plane. So it stalled on the top and started acceletaring, still going full throttle. Then it started rolling slowly to the right. I was pushing the stick the right at this moment so I don't know if I did it or if it was a coincidence that it rolled to the right. It kept rolling and headed towards the ground at full power until it impacted. I couldn't believe my eyes. My radio had never ever let me down. Poor RIS looked like somebody had killed his dog. I'm really puzzled to what caused the crash and so is he. I almost don't dare to fly my models now, knowing that there might be something wrong with my equipment. The worst of it all is that we still don't know what caused it. It's annoying and I would have rather seen my own plane go down than someone else's when I'm in control. Grrrr... /GEA |
| Date | 12-02-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Thursday 1240) The sim went really well. I was ahead of the plane and the only thing that the instructor had to say ay debriefing was that I was five degrees off runway heading for a few seconds after departure. Other than that it was all nicely done. My confidence level is rising as I feel more acquainted with the simulator. Hopefully it won't be too different in the real deal. In an hour we have a couple of lessons of the third and last block of IFP. In this block we'll be mostly learning about enroute planning, the IFR rules and regulations and about how you fly SID's (Standard Instrument Departures). Otherwise RIS is almost ready building his F16 model, which is identical to mine, so we'll definitely have some fun flying them together before too long. On the bright side of things, the Hawks just got ungrounded a few minutes ago, which is great news. That's it for now. /GEA |
| Date | 11-02-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 2055) Almost done studying for tonight. I didn't have any sims today but I'm on tomorrow's programme. I feel prepared for it but you never know what happens when you're in there. It's like your IQ drops by about 50% as soon as you lower the helmet over your head and put the mask on. The word is that we'll start flying for real around April. On the bright side of things: I guess it's better to be down here wishing you were up there than being up there wishing you were down here... /GEA |
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