AABI conference

AABI stands for Aviation Accreditation Board International
They have a conference from July 14 -17, 2009 here in Toronto/Markham and Seneca College is helping to host it.

I haven't really read much about them but I know that they have this conference twice a year and there are representatives around the world.

Part of their agenda today was a visit at Seneca College's campus at Buttonville Airport. I helped with the tour of the hangars and simulators around and I got to meet some people. They probably won't remember me but it's a good thing to volunteer for these kinds of things...networking is key!
The very few people in my group that I toured around came from Boston, Missouri, Seoul Korea, umm someone from FRASCA...and so on. Most of them are representatives of other aviation colleges/universities around the world.

I didn't get to take any pictures but it was a good experience overall. A lot of them were amazed at how many hours we get for our four year degree program for the tuition we pay...and that our airplanes are highly maintained, and our simulators are state of the art and available for use 24/7.

I was actually looking through the website of an aviation university in the states and they offer a Masters degree there in which I am currently interested in pursuing after (but maybe not right after) Seneca. However I am also thinking something along the lines of studying Meteorology further, because the weather is just an exciting thing to study.

Just this past weekend, the weather forecast was thunderstorms the whole morning. However, the thunderstorm (which was a good one) passed and was gone in about an hour or so..and after that it was blue skies (with some clouds of course). Which actually allowed our trip to Wasaga Beach near Collingwood with my family to continue and actually enjoy the sun...and just as we were leaving the cold front was approaching and more thunderstorm headed our way.

One thing I learned..weather can either:

get better
get worse
or stay the same--but not for long.

Eventful June

It's been a good month since the last post so there's bound to be something to write about and its about to start now.

The month of June was filled with events and flying for the most part. I have gone to a conference, camping, and an "art and film festival" by my youth group that donated all profits to a charity. It was pretty good, I wish I had printed and brought some of my photos to just showcase like everyone else.

I have also been flying quite a lot for the past few weeks. I was at the airport everyday and each day lasting almost as least 8-12 hours each for the past couple of weeks. It was good because I had finished all my flights and instrument simulator lessons before the Bonanza checkout. Had cross countries to Goderich, almost North Bay, and St. Catharines...some parts of it were uneventful but i'd rather call it relaxing but there were few times where it build some experience and taught me some lessons that for sure I'd carry on with me.

This past Monday was my first flight in the Beechcraft Bonanza airplanes that we have. We currently have 3 out of the 5 on line and it's being fairly shuffled between 2nd, 3rd and some 4th years. One that's in maintenance already has a new engine strapped on and should come online very soon. And they are currently working on another engine to be put in the second one in maintenance.

The Bonanza is quite a beast compare to a C172. It flies faster, I thought it was easier to control because it was a little bit more heavy. It has a constant speed prop and a retractable landing gear and so it is a little bit more complex than the Cessna.
First flight was almost like re-learning how to fly all over again; attitudes and movements, climbs and descents, turns and steep turns. We spent the last 30 minutes in the circuit...trying to get accustomed to new circuit configurations and speeds and how the landing is a little bit different.
I actually liked the landings I made on the first flight because again the controls felt heavier and so when its time to flare..its a good pull of the controls and there's less chance of ballooning because I can feel how much pull I need more than the Cessna.

My next flight should be tomorrow since all of Ontario has been under a Quasistationary Low the whole week which created pop-up and isolated to scattered thunderstorm cells...sometimes low ceilings as well.
The flight is all about the airwork and getting used to flying a constant speed prop plane with a landing gear...during the airwork. After that a couple of more checkout flights to go before I can be fully checked out on the airplane and start flying mutual circuits and then on to the cross countries.

Titanic of the sky

Emirates A380...we were on the move so its not a great shot

June 1st marks the beginning of the month, for obvious reasons, but it also marks another beginning in Toronto in the form of a 13 hours and some minutes long flight from Dubai to Toronto in one of the biggest, well THE biggest, commercial airliner right now...The Airbus 380.

My friends and I were only a few out of the many, at least a couple hundred spectators of the long awaited first arrival of the A380 to YYZ, Pearson International. Emirates sure have a lot of money buying Airbus' vision of world travel in the A380. I heard somewhere that the Emirates A380 only serviced 4 international cities in the world. One of which was New York City in JFK before but now switched it to Toronto's YYZ...one of the best in the world.

The travel to YYZ was hectic, and taking the 401 wasn't the best idea we made that day...if you know Toronto, you would know how the 401 is even early afternoon it's still one of the busiest commute out there. However, after the almost constant 40-60 kph (25-35 mph) on the 401, we end up missing the appropriate exit and it actually rewarded us because it was almost bumper to bumper at that exit. We took a detour to another intersecting freeway, a U-turn and on to another exit which was probably the only reason we got a glimpse of the giant that was about to smack Pearsons recently reinforced tarmac.

There was also the chase and suspense of not knowing which of three parallel runways (06R, 06L or 05) it was going to land on. The winds that day were pretty much a direct crosswind for these three runways but for some reason Tower decided to switch runways from the more usual 24s and 23. A lot of people were upset about that move, but the chase continues. After stopping near the approach path for 06L, a few onlookers with receivers cursed, and yelled, some even wept (maybe not) that Emirates Flight 240 was cleared to land 06R.
So on to my friends car we went, and drove down the street, immediately stopping at a nearby Burger King as we see the SHIP slowly sailing down the approach path of 06R. It was huge, and surprisingly quiet. And I can safely say that the bigger the airplane on approach, the more it seems to be floating in mid-air stationary in its position as it goes short final for the runway.

Air Transat A310

After the whole ordeal, we took pictures and plane spotted a few other airplanes...but none had the same impression as the first A380 in YYZ. Then we met up with another friend who had airside of the whole event because he was part of Airport Watch, a bunch of aviation enthusiasts and pilots alike who volunteer to keep an eye out for Pearson whenever they pass by, and report anything that seem suspicious. To their undivided efforts, they get rewarded to witness the whole spectacle of the A380 landing and water salute from Pearsons finest as it taxi to the gate.

An hour after Tower decided to go back to using runway 24s and 23. They sure had fun teasing those people that waited near the approach path for these runways. O well, we then spotted more airplanes, looking for good spots to SPOT and take some pictures.
After all of it, it was time to go home, and the drive home was well...we drove back on the 401 at evening rush hour...

And so our journey and the whole day's worth of events came to an end. The long awaited ship has come and gone, and even though it may be compared to as the Titanic of the sky, I hope to never hear about an iceberg making it sink to the depths of the Atlantic...which was the unfortunate fate of an A330 in the form of Air France 447.

Shotgun

It's been far too long shuffling around these two lesson flights of pre-flight and flight test...around 6 months actually. The reason is too complex or too long to even mention here about the unfortunate unforeseen events that led to the delay of my licencing.

However I am now a private pilot. I can carry passengers which means take some of my friends up. And it means that I can ride shotgun or in mutual flights for school.
Yesterday, I did just that. Riding shotgun with one of my classmates that finished their PPL early and is now close to Commercial Flight Test.
It is quite a different feeling, view, perspective sitting in the right seat when all this time I've been left seat. I sure did not fly the airplane, I was there only to "fly" really, helping out with radios, lookouts and keeping with the lesson plan.

However, yesterdays flight had to be cut short due to TCU's and CB's building up pretty fast at Buttonville and so we had to return earlier than expected. On the way back, monitoring TOWER first, it didn't seem busy at all. And so after calling at the reporting point, we were cleared direct the threshold. It made me think that tower is trying to get us in first before the other guy who called in from the east...we were coming from the north. And so he kept the speed up, direct numbers doing 120kts in C172. Until about 1/2 mile final where we dropped flaps, and started to slow down quickly. It felt like we were going reverse doing 65 after coming in at 120 kts. Runway was wet and winds were picking up and so we had to make sure that we had no drift and properly and assertively compensated for the crosswind.
Touchdown was a miniscule bounce to maybe just a foot and then consequently making a nice full stop landing.

We even got to practice giving PIREPs to other company airplane who were in the practice area or thinking of flying still.

A few hours later, I looked at the radar and saw a pretty good line of thunderstorm due to the Cold Front passing. As my friends and I were driving to a party due east, we were getting chased by the clearing after the thunderstorms. And so it gave us an extravagant view of not ONE but TWO COMPLETE rainbows ahead of us the entire trip.

Unrelated: I'm also in a struggle but like to call it process of making my own electronic logbook using VBAs and Excels...

It's finally summer!

One of the many things I remember having from last summer are thunderstorms. Summer is often known for its wicked thunderstorms making flying that much more challenging and fun for pilots. I’ve always been fascinated on how such a simple thing as water can bring the wildest of the west and the hospitality of the south mix ‘em all together and bring weather to the northeast, most of the time.

Today I was probably asleep for only three to four hours so far when something triggers my senses and I wake up, and to my demise a thunderstorm cell is just passing by overhead. Oh it was a quick one, I had probably captured its worst stage even though it wasn’t that crazy of a thunderstorm, I was at the heart of it for a few minutes.

As you can see from this radar, just above Toronto (where I live) is a tiny spec of red indicating severe thunderstorm in that particular location at that particular time. Can you say lucky? I actually took a video of it and started to see sheet lightning which is lightning cloud to cloud or in cloud and that it reflects off the whiteness of the cloud making a huge part or “sheet” of the cloud above us glow momentarily. Then I started to see some ice pellets or snow pellets, I can’t really tell them apart visually but I know that snow pellets is GS in the METAR which means Graupel Small and Graupel stands for hail, and hail as we all know can be existent in strong thunderstorms such as this one.

I then proceeded to check if the weather observers observed what I had witnessed and checked the latest Meteorological Aviation Routine weather report (METAR) and got this...

Then I thought I wonder how the big time airline pilots are coordinating with ATC to go around this thunderstorm cell and proceeded to listen to Toronto Centre at liveatc.net. At one point, tower even mentioned, “we went from RWY 06 to RWY 33 to RWY 24 in the span of 8 minutes”. I was glad to hear the pilots not being forced to go a certain route and just use their own judgement about which way to deviate for weather as they manage to depart or arrive from/to Pearson.

As the radar picture dictated, the really bad weather wasn’t going to last long because it was moving fairly fast. And so after a maximum of 8-10 minutes, I took a picture outside and it was very bright, still quite low clouds but no rain and light winds.

I could go into more detail about thunderstorms and all of their effects and so on, at least as much as I have learned over the past 2 years, but I’d leave that to another post. I just wanted to note that, SUMMER IS BACK, and one of the many signs is the brewing of wicked, illustrious, lustrous, VERY EVENTFUL thunderstorms.

Finally done exams!

YES! It is true, the good news must be preached, I am finished second year exams. And now I'm left with the sad truth that I still don't have a coop position and the time is rapidly running out!
If I don't get a job and fail to go on my knees and beg to be on the flightline, I may have to stay an extra summer and not graduate with the rest of my class! Now that is sad...however I'm done exams and all I can think of is enjoying every minute of it!

Books to read, parties to go to, and all other shenanigans are all lined up for me...

Speaking of lines, yesterday weirdly enough while studying for Meteorology Exam, I happen to randomly look up in the sky outside my bedroom window and see contrails. There were two at the moment, one seemingly chasing the other.

A few minutes later I happen to look up again (we always look up don't we?) and see four contrails even though the first two were almost unnoticeable, it was still pretty cool as they were all parallel lines which were probably from the same airway/air route.

I learned that contrails are one of the many things that could help you understand how the weather is like aloft, even though it seems clear blue skies, it could help you understand on the ground how the weather will unfold in the next few days or so.

Contrails of the same route, meaning they are parallel to each other can give a good indication of winds aloft. If they break off easily, it means there are some pretty strong winds aloft...if they slowly shift to one side, it could be fairly light (light for that altitude) winds. And the way they move can give you an indication of where it's coming from or if there's some change in wind direction/speed along that route.

Another is when the contrails are long and seem to stay for a long time, that means that it's fairly moist in that atmosphere even though there are no clouds to be seen around. It could tell you that weather should be coming in soon or in a few days.
If the contrails are short and seem to stay just behind the aircraft, it could mean that it's fairly dry and probably very cold in that altitude of the atmosphere.

I think there may be more things that contrails can tell a pilot about weather coming up but I can't think of it or haven't learned it at the moment.

Goneometers, engines failure, and 5 babies!

So I had two exams this week and well one was quite interesting and the other saddening.
Tuesday a bunch of us went to this fairly new library which I always pass through but never noticed before. It was a pretty cool library, it looked so new and high class but I'm sure there are way better ones out there. I was never a library goer before but I'm definitely becoming more interested in them, besides they are free so why not!

Tuesday we studied from 1pm to almost 9pm talking all about Avionics. We had the exam the next day and I thought it was going to be okay. I turned the cover page and read the first question...what the ADF is a Goneometer!?!? Well most of the exam I knew what the question was asking but I don't know if I answered each question fully. Goneometer question...I took a wild swing at it and we'll see what happens in a few days.

From one exam to another, I had my Flight Propulsion or "engines" exam today. We learned all about gas turbine engines and we also had a pretty big project to do throughout the semester. It was a really interesting course and I'm feeling confident about the exam and nervous at the same time seeing as it is an ORAL EXAM. Basically, we go to see our professor (who happens to be a very smart person btw) and we discuss our project and pick one question out of a hat about anything we learned over the course. So I guess luck had something to do with it seeing as my lack of luck resulted in a question in which I did not study fully. I have studied every other topic except for this one. It was about fuel metering with plungers, I had the idea, except I had switched two variables. One variable was the result of the other instead of the other way around which I thought was correct and it wasn't. I also didn't do well on the project as I totally mistaken the whole point of the project and it wasn't specific and detailed enough for my engine.

With that, I'm here stuck with my very first engine failure...safely on the ground.
But hey at least I don't have swine flu ...err H1N1 influenza.

I wonder if raccoons produce a similar effect, because today 5 baby raccoons were extracted from my closed attic that is probably a couple of weeks old. The "exterminator" or "wild animal person" took the babies from the attic and placed them in a box near my backyard so that when MAMA raccoon won't go hiatus when she comes back with her babies gone. Hopefully she finds them in the backyard, relocates them and they become a happy family only to go through our trash in the future.

I love the wild animal guy's facial expression.