Diversions

So today's flight was all about diversions!
We departed local north and went up to the town of Sharon, just north of the top of HWY 404.
My instructor helped me fly the airplane while I did my rough planning.
There are a few things you need to do in a diversion, and some should be in a certain order.
Draw your freehand trackline.
Estimate your heading using either the lines of longitude and latitude or a nearby VOR. This is critical you get this first because you want to be circling your landmark in a way that when you finish your planning you should already be around the heading you estimated.
Next is the distance to destination and time elapse. So the rule of thumb is 90kts = 1.5 NM/min and 120 kts = 2NM/min.
Next up is pick a halfway point and do the same things, distance and time. When you reach this halfway point, you will check if you arrive early or late, on track or drifted. This would give you your groundspeed and revised ETA and if necessary revised heading.

You should do all of these planning while flying the airplane, constantly looking out and in, out and in.
Then when your approximately over the landmark you started your trackline over. You should do these in order. (You also need to make sure your heading is set, because no point of doing any planning if you have the wrong heading)

TIME - write down the time you were over landmark
TURN - turn to your heading (use heading bug as well)
TRACK - see if you're actually on track using navigation (big picture -> small picture)
THROTTLE - adjust Throttle to cruise if you're not already in it.
ETA (to destination and halfway point)
TALK - contact london FSS or your company to let them know about the diversion

There were a couple of great tips my instructor gave me.
1. Always think ahead, always question yourself "whats next?"
It could be planning for arrival, checking the CFS, or completing a checklist

2. WATCH, MAP, OUTSIDE
a. Check time, see your ETA and what you should be looking for and where at certain times,
b. look at your map and look for Big picture-small picture of what you should be looking for outside.
c. Look outside and orient where you are from what you see.

Anyways my next flight is another diversion, but all by myself. So I have to fly the airplane while planning. I would probably be asked to divert to an uncontrolled airport and do uncontrolled procedures there.
The flight after that is a solo practice of diversion and uncontrolled procedures.

AND THEN! I should be doing my dual cross country after that.
I can't wait!

Take her for a spin...

"round and round she goes, where she lands nobody knows?"

well technically you should have recovered a spin at 2000' AGL, but for Seneca and a lot more others they make it 4000' AGL.

So today's flight was awesome, got to do spins and steep turns, was also going to do Spiral Dives but that would just push me to my limits.
I even had to have some straight and level flight in between spins so yeah.

Unfortunately, Seneca College doesn't allow photopgraphic devices in the airplane so I couldn't capture it, but here is a video that is similar, except that I wasn't in formation with anyone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX4lK-ud1fI

On another note:
Yesterday, a captain of a Boeing 747 that graduated from Seneca in 1980 randomly dropped by the hangar today just to visit and talk to students. He said he was lucky that he made it as far as he did and the key was to become a HUMBLE FIGHTER. Fight enough that you make it out alive and remain humble once you get out because we, pilots, never ever stop learning.

I think that was the greatest thing he said that day, anyways he also talked about the bad rep that Seneca pilots have because of past and/or present graduates.
I think it's more of the past graduates that come out thinking they know everything and that they're Multi-IFR rated with their CPLs. It's sad that I have to agree to that because I know SOME, not ALL, graduates come out with an attitude and unfortunately it has given the whole school and the whole program a bad reputation (for some at least)

I'd like to think that bad rep or not, what he said about being a humble fighter is key to being succesful in this industry, whatever school you are from.

Anyways just a few more lessons before my first solo. Still gotta cover: spiral dives, overshoots, runway changes, comm failures, engine failures in the cct. And I think I need more practice in normal circuits.

First year

So 211 days have come and gone, 17 days left until this year is officially finished!
There have been many ups and downs especially a lot of last minute cramming, but most have been good knowing that it's all going to be worth it in the end.

So what exactly have I done this year?
Just a quick recap on everything.

Mechanics Statics & Dynamics
Calculus
Fluid Mechanics
Electricity & Electronics
Communication
Psychology (gen. ed)
Aeronautics

So there's really nothing to talk about in those courses except for Aeronautics.
For Aeronautics we basically covered most of all the chapters in the book From The Ground Up:

Theory of Flight
Aero Engines
Air Law & Airspace
Intro to Human Factors
Aviation Weather - lots of weather!
Navigation
Flight Planning
Radio Procedures
Airmanship
Brief Intro to Radio Navigation

Thinking about it now, I learned a lot over the past year or 211 days (to be technical) but as most pilots would say, you never stop learning; and I am still learning a lot.

In a few weeks, my future will be decided if I get into the flying program, which I have a pretty good feeling that I will since I did pretty good overall.

For some people they know that we wear pilot shirt uniforms and everything, so the year was also filled with people thinking we're nerds, or mormans, or jehovahs witnesses or the best of all SECURITY guards. At first wearing the uniform felt weird and ucky but now everybody's gotten used to it.

So if you ask me if I'm excited for the summer to come, you'll just see a big smile on my face. I have also been listening to liveatc for buttonville. And sometimes at 8am I would hear Seneca students already in the air, which would mean they were up very early, but who wouldn't want to be up early to be UP in the SKY!

This blog has been really random/boring or whatever but yeah.

Just to put it out there...

I've heard a few things about instructors and all. I know having a good smile-on-a-face and having that hard working attitude is good, but other than those things does anyone have any suggestion or tips for new student pilots like me?
Don't get too complicated that I won't understand though : )