Checked out and licence in

So today I finally finished my Bonanza Checkout and so I'm good to go for circuits and then cross countries. The adrenaline that goes with flying with an engine that you don't fully trust due to the engine failures in the past is amazing. It's good in a way that, now I am more watchful and careful with engine management than before...and keep me on my toes with those forced approach practices.
In a way, the past engine failures has helped SOME people become better pilots.

Anyways yesterday I finally received the long awaited blue "aviation document" from Transport Canada after waiting for almost two months when I first submitted it. I like it because the medical and licence/ratings are all in one package. Plus it's harder to lose it because the blue just stands out very easily.

I also have fallen into the temptation of getting a BlackBerry. But it was a good move on my part because my old phone is like a C150 while this BlackBerry is like a PC-12....relative comparison of course...I've got nothing against 150s ..but absolutely loves PC-12s!

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.

Canadians have gone plane crazy!

Gather 'round kids I've got some awesome news!

I'm good to fly for another year! woohoo! Thanks to all the flying gods for making this possible: Chuck Yeager, Alan Sheppard, John Glenn, Ernest Gann, HAM (first ape in space) and all the others I can't think of right now...again Thank you!

Anyways that was just a sidenote...the real story is "Have Canadians gone mad?"

So up to this day in 2009 there have been many incidents, accidents, funny, weird, strange and sometimes unbelievably insane stories related with Aviation and well Canada.

Now that I've been flying for just under a year now, it seems that I notice more things in News about Aviation...or 2009 is just a crazy year and it's not just me that notices these crazy things happening lately.
Just to name ones that I know of:

US Airways 1549
Continental "Colgan" 3407
Turkish Airlines 1951
Montana PC-12 Crash
FedEx MD-11 Crash
Stolen C172 from Confederation College
Man jumping out of King Air 200 at FL230
King Air pilot dies
Our very own Bonanza having engine failure...

That's all the ones I can remember from memory, it's only almost May and it seems quite a lot already.
And some of these accidents have some sort of Canadian content to it, maybe the news people are trying to tell us something; we Canadians have gone haywire.

Maybe the media is trying to portray that Canadians are in some kind of northern drug that you can only get in Canada and it's available for everyone...even geese.

Cactus 1549 puts blame on CANADA GEESE
Colgan 3407 was a Bombardier Dash Q-400 (Canadian eh?)
Canadian man stealing an airplane possibly trying to get shot down by F-16s
Canadian man opening the door of a King Air 200 at FL230 (23 000ft) and jumping out.

Maybe we are a bunch of whackos, but I still don't think we're the biggest maniacs out there. But that's that, I don't really know how else to put it. Maybe we'll see some more Canadian Content in the future of Aviation...hopefully not so much in accidents and crazy mischief of suicidal people.

But as for me, I can safely say that I'm still sane to fly according to my recently renewed CAT I Medical at least.