The road to my wings
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| Date | 14-10-2010 |
| Location |  |
| Message | (Thursday 1820) I gotta admit that I'm really happy that I got this temporary instructor this week. For a while I felt I had stagnated and sometimes I almost felt that I was getting worse instead of better but the last few days I've felt a huge improvement. Mostly because this IP just lets me fly and doesn't touch the controls so much. That's by far the way I learn best. Tomorrow's the last day with this guy and then Monday it's back to my normal IP. I'll try to make a subtle comment if he's too much on the controls as it just gets me frustrated - but experience tells me that it's a very touchy subject and some IP's may take it the wrong way and even get offended, so I'll try be very careful to say in the right way and at the right time. That's it for now. /GEA |
| Date | 13-10-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 1510) I guess it's about time to write a little update about what's going on. Last Friday we had our written test and it went well. All Danes and one of the Americans got 100% so it was a good way to start the weekend. Then I drove to Atlanta to pick up my wife and kid. It was a long 3½ hour drive but well worth it! We had a nice weekend and Monday was also part of the weekend so it was great to have an extra day off. Our IP is on leave this week so we got a temporary replacement who we're pretty happy about. He's of Mexican origin and he's a natural. You can tell that he's got good hands and feet because he's very accurate and makes it all look easy. Tuesday we started Meteorology and it will go on for the rest of this week and the whole next week and then we have the test in the subject on the following Monday. I don't think it's going to be too hard as most of it is the same, or very similar to what we've done in both Denmark and Canada. Flying is getting really boring to be honest. I can't wait to get this next checkride done so that we can move on and start a new phase. This primary phase was really meant for people who haven't flown before. Now it's time to take my little boy to the park so that he can use some of his endless supply of energy. /GEA |
| Date | 06-10-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 1955) Today was a rather un-standard day for me. Apparently once every while the flights swap flight commander and evaluate eachothers flights to see if they all live up to standard. So today we got the flight commander from Ranger flight in order to evaluate our flight and find out if the instructors are teaching properly and up to standards. The way they do that is to fly with a couple of students and that way see if the students are learning what they should be learning as that would reflect the instructor's work and the standard of the whole flight. Guess who drew the short straw. That's right, they put me and my stick buddy on to fly with this guy. Dang! How do you get so lucky?! Anyway, the flight with him wasn't much of a training flight. It felt more like a check ride and he did behave more like a check pilot than an instructor. To cut the story short, I did well and he approved of our instructor and Stingray flight in general. After I had done flying with him it was my stick buddy's turn so that meant that we "swapped" aircraft/instructor. So I had another session, this time with our regular instructor, which meant that we both flew for three hours in a row. At least we're getting a bunch of flying time logged... /GEA |
| Date | 05-10-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1830) The past two days have been pretty standard with regards to flying and ground school. This Friday my wife and kid will be coming over and staying here for a while so I can't wait. I haven't seen them for over three months and it's been really hard to say the least. Friday morning we have our exam in VFR regulations and procedures and I have a feeling that it's going to be a hard one. Then in the afternoon we have the family day but my family doesn't arrive until late afternoon so I asked to get the afternoon off so that I can drive to Atlanta to pick them up. The drive over there takes about four hours and there's a one hour difference due to time zones so I have to leave here at around 1100, meaning that after the exam I'll go home, change, have a quick bite and drive away happily. This coming weekend is a long one as we have Monday off but I'm not sure which public holiday it is. Then Tuesday we'll be going on our "cross country." It's not exactly cross country as we know it from our time in Canada where you take an aircraft and fly to a bunch of places and return five days later. Here we fly to some crappy airport a couple of hundred km away, refuel and fly back right away - and if we have time we'll have some lunch at the destination. That's it for now. I'll keep you updated as things happen. /GEA |
| Date | 03-10-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Sunday 1925) Last night I invited our class to my place for some beer and snacks as it was my birthday. Most of them made it over and we had a great time indeed! I didn't have to drive home afterwards as usual so I drank like a madman until somebody got this "great" idea of going to a bar at around midnight. So I got a ride with one of my friends and we ended up in this real red-neck bar. I would never have set my feet in such a place and if I had gone into one by mistake I would have been out of there after a realising what kind of place it was. But I was too drunk to notice anything. I did, however, notice the Confederate flag hanging on some of the walls and some guys giving me nasty looks but I didn't really care. It was a karaoke bar so my "friends" quickly convinced me to sing a song, so I did! To be honest I'm happy I got to experience a bar like that because as I said, it's not something I would have done on my own accord. After that we went to one of the guys and partied until 0600 or so, including swimming in his pool in the middle of the night. I wonder what the neighbours thought about all the noise... I got up at around 1030 on a couch and since my clothes were still pretty wet I was freezing, so I went outside and lay on the concrete by the pool in the (very) bright Lower Alabama sun and got some warmth. It was just wonderful in the sun. I must have looked like a dead person out there though. At one point I opened my eyes and to my surprise I saw a friggin' vulture circling over me! No bullshit! My buddy gave me a ride home and I slept until 1630 or so, so now my circadian rhythm is really messed up. I got up and cleaned the house. It wasn't such a big deal actually. Just messy with lots of snacks, beer cans, glasses etc. everywhere, but to my surprise no drinks had been spilled during the night, or maybe people were just good at cleaning up after themselves. Either way, it only took me half an hour to clean up the whole mess. Tomorrow's back to business so I better study for an hour or so as everything is always veeery far away after a weekend like this one. /GEA |
| Date | 30-09-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Thursday 1510) Another week getting closer to an end and I don't have any big plans for the weekend except that Saturday night I'll be going out for some dinner with my stick-buddy (yeah, I know it sounds kind of gay...) His girlfriend will be working Saturday night and it's my birthday so we'll go out and eat and he'll be the designated driver so that I can get wasted and then waste half of my Sunday recovering. The last few guys in our flight had their checkride today and they all passed as far as I know. So now we're working towards the "end of stage" check ride which really isn't that far away in the future. By the looks of it we (us four Danes) will have to fly back to Denmark around the beginning of November for a day or two in order to get our Visa extended. Since we came directly from Canada and the paperwork was done in a rushed manner, our Visa was only valid for three months, meaning that it runs out November 6th and that we have to extend it before that date - and it cannot be extended from here. It has to be done from our home country. No wonder the USA has so much deficit with all the bureaucracy involved in everything. I must admit that I do look forward to getting over this basic flying and get on with some of the real stuff, be part of a squadron and have a "real job." You get tired of being a student. Especially when you just finished your training and have to start all over again with a completely new one. /GEA |
| Date | 28-09-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1830) Sunday evening we had quite a storm and the temperature has dropped somewhat since then so it's nice that it's not so unbearably hot anymore. Monday morning we had very low cloud cover so after we pre-flighted the aircraft the IP cancelled our flight. Very frustrating indeed! We could have practised a bit of hover at least - but later I found out that he hasn't had an instrument rating since the mid 80's! Since he only teaches primary phase students, he only flies VFR and therefore doesn't really need an IF rating. This morning also started off badly. The weather had cleared up and was really beatutiful. However our helicopter's front right door wouldn't close, so we gave the technicians a call and a guy came over and did a temporary fix. So we fired it up, only to find out that our UHF radio wasn't working. So we called another tech who told us that he couldn't fix it there and then so we shut down and took a spare. By then all the other helicopters had left the field so we were really late and actually cut the flight short in order to land at somewhat the same time as everyone else. My flying wasn't particularly good. I had to learn a couple of new things. One of them was a steep approach where you come down at 15-20 degrees and the other was the maximum performance takeoff where you use more of the available engine power and simulate clearing a 100 foot obstacle in front of you. I will practise some more of those tomorrow. In about 20 days I have my next check ride, which is the end of stage check ride, also known as P2. After that we move into IFR stuff, where most of the time will be spent in the simulator. /GEA |
| Date | 25-09-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Saturday 0950) Both tests went well yesterday. First the aerodynamics test which the whole class passed. I had a couple wrong, one of them because I rushed and didn't read all the answers properly (multiple choice). Anyway, then in the afternoon some of us flew the first check ride, also known as the P1. All of us who flew it passed it. "Unfortunately" I was the only who got the top grade, which is 95%. So that means that I'm top dog in class and that's not something I'm too happy about to be honest, as that brings some unwanted attention my way. Now everyone will have higher expectations for me, not to mention our flight commander. My goal with this course had always been just to make it through and I really haven't put in as much effort into it as some of the other guys. Anyway, now it's time to enjoy the weekend. Yesterday night they had Oktoberfest at the base with real German beer, polka music and all the guys were there, so of course we ended up talking about flying. Today I'm off to the beach once again. My simple philosophy is that you gotta enjoy the weather and the sea while it's still (very!) warm. Then once it starts cooling down I'll probably start playing some soccer with some of the other guys on Saturdays and maybe even do some indoor lane swimming with my Norwegian friend. That's it for now. /GEA |
| Date | 21-09-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 2100) My P1 flight test has been scheduled for Friday. It shouldn't be too hard but it's always a test so I'll do my share to "make it happen." This week is one of the "late shift" ones which means that we don't have to get up at 0300, but you pay the price in another way. Doing the pre-flight in that scorching sun is real torture. It's somewhat different than doing it at sunrise when the temperature is still relatively cool. And the helicopter obviously also performs much worse when it's so hot. You're hovering right at the limits of what the helicopter is capable of. My IP is also a bit "husky" so our take off weight is always just below the max allowable take off weight for this helciopter, so that doesn't help with the performance in any way either. Then as you burn fuel up the performance gets a bit better but the center of gravity (CG) moves forward as the fuel tank is behind the CG and also because of the big weight in the front seats; and you start having probelms controlling the helicopter, so we always hot refuel a couple of times during a flight. The Jet ranger can actually fly for about three hours but we refuel simply to move the CG backwards and thereby having better flight controls. So as you can see, it's a fine balance and compromise between heavy weight and poor CG position. Hopefully things get better as the temperature starts to cool off. The thermometer was reading 40C just prior to engine start and 62C in the cockpit. Thank God for those airconditioners! Hot refuel, by the way, means that you refuel with your engine running. That way you don't have to go through the whole shutdown and startup procedure and "waste" a bunch of time. I have a feeling that Thursday night is going to be a busy one. It's the day before the checkride but also the day before the aerodynamics exam so I'll be studying for a few hours more than usual. And what the heck am I doing here on the internet?! I should be studying. Later! /GEA |
| Date | 19-09-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Sunday 0840) Well, first of all thanks to those who wrote and suggested different wake up techniques. I wasn't expecting any feedback there but I did get a few emails. Yesterday was my weekly day off. Myself and a couple of American friends went to Panama city beach in Florida for the day. It's only about a two hour drive and it was well worth it. The temperatures here are still in the mid-high 30's and the forecast isn't showing any change for the next week or so. According to the meteorologists here, the sea is warmest around mid September and then it slowly starts to cool down as the air temperature starts to drop. No wonder Fall is the hurricane season with so hot water and humidity. So I just had to go to the beach when it's still good. One of the Americans suggested we take his jeep. It's an old-school jeep with no roof or doors - a real beach wagon! They both wanted to drink so I got to drive back home with the sky full of stars above my head. I had a hard time keeping my eyes on the road... The water was just fantastic. We also knew that there were sharks around but didn't really care. We just stayed where we could reach the bottom and just enjoyed the Gulf of Mexico. I was expecting to see some residual oil from the BP oil rig explosion but apparently it never reached the shores of Panama city beach which is great. At dinner time we went to this steak house called Angelo's. We had heard about it from several people and just had to try it. It was pricy but well worth the money. The food was just amazing. On the way home I finally saw and Armadillo for the first time (outside a zoo). It's a really nice animal and very different to anything we're used to seeing in Europe. Unfortunately I lny saw it for about 0.04 of a second until it crunched under the wheels of the jeep. Apparently the wheel base was wider than I thought is was. I bet the vultures will be happy about that! Most of the birds here are vultures, which as you know, are scavengers, and scavengers love road kills, which we have alot of! Today's a study as there's a bunch of new stuff to learn for tomorrow and yesterday I didn't do anything work related but experience tells me that a day like that is to my benefit. I feel rested and in a better mood - and ready for another week of flying. /GEA |
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