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.

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.

The only one scheduled

Winter weather yet again!
Today was all about low ceilings, pretty low visibility, ice pellets, snow pellets mixed with snow?, a little bit of rain, and gusty winds...it's quite a nasty mix even on the ground.


Just went through the usual routine of checking our schools scheduling system, weather, email..etc right after class. It was a very long day, but as a pilot I know I would have to get used to unusual day/night, work/rest patterns. I usually do this routine to check if I am scheduled for tomorrow, and if so, if the weather will actually be good enough. Or the opposite of checking if the weather is good enough to fly tomorrow to maybe go to the airport and get a flight in. Either way, it's some sort of uneventful, almost automatic series of actions that I take everyday.

Tomorrow I saw that I was on the schedule. Today's weather was bad, no doubt...tomorrow seems better but still not good enough (or so it forecasts). But the easiest way that I knew that I probably won't be flying the scheduled flight tomorrow is the fact that I am the only person on the schedule in the morning. There's a long ground briefing associated with the flight so it's probably the only reason why I am not taken off the schedule, otherwise I would have been in cheerful joy, filled with happiness that I would have been able to take a rest tonight (or do less than usual). But nope, I have to do a whole lot of planning, and I just can't wait to do that.

On that note, it's time for the second routine...upon which I double, sometimes triple check the weather in all possible charts, forecasts, and websites that offer them...looking for a possible way that I may end up actually flying, and so actually be prepared for it.

Crummy weather to fall down the stairs

For my class year, we don't have school on fridays, however there are some, lots, TONS of homework to do. So the weekend won't really be a weekend for anyone especially in the final stretch of the semester. As for today it was forecast to be raining, low ceilings, and strong winds the whole day. Usually the schedule would be cleared off the night before if the weather forecast is this bad, but today for some reason it wasn't. So people were actually "forced" to go wake up early in the morning just to cancel their flights. It is quite sad actually, and I know how it feels because it has happened to me plenty of times.

So with the rainy weather for the whole day, I figured to just stay home and try and get some work done. I was supposed to go on the simulator at the airport to practice but the laziness bug kicked in plus I didn't even want to travel (via Public Transportation) in this wet and windy weather (whoa alliteration). So instead it's me, my laptop, the internet, and lots and lots of typing for today.

I woke up feeling a little bit sick, with a bit of cold so I'm beside the tissue box once again. As I was on my way down the stairs for lunch, I figured I'd bring my laptop down to try and do some multi-tasking. So with me, tissue box, laptop, and wireless mouse. As I was about to take my second step down the stairs I was also trying to click on something with the wireless mouse...and I slip and fall on my back hard down the stairs. I think part of me inside was still trying to prevent damage to my laptop, talk about selflessness eh.

So as I reach the bottom of the stairs, I slowly put my laptop down and lie down in pain and agony of what just happened to me. I think for like a few seconds I couldn't even breathe, and for the next 5 minutes I couldn't move. My brother, who was in the basement heard my screaming and the loud noise of my epic fall (fail too), he comes up and tells me not to move and starts asking me where it hurts (he's gonna be a firefighter). After a while, I'm on my feet, but my neck and back up until now, still aches.

Lesson learned: don't click on anything while travelling down the stairs with laptop.
Back to Aerodynamic project about wingtip attachments/arrangements.

Storm system and Lake Effect Snow

So I got back from reading week hoping to have my preflight done by the first day or second day back. But both of those chances failed: Monday had rain and strong winds, and Tuesday had strong winds and low clouds. Both of these were caused by the storm over Eastern Ontario around Ottawa, Kingston Region.

The storm produced a very steep low pressure and so isobars were fairly close together around it, and that created strong gusty winds, around 20G38 kt winds from the northwest. The low over to the east created cloud formations over here because we were in the "tail-end" of the storm.

With the winds coming from the northwest, there was also an issue of Lake Effect Snow. Lake Huron was to the northwest and so any cold arctic air with strong winds create possibility of lake effect snow/precipitation.

Cold air gets blown over the lake and evaporation creates convective clouds over to the greater toronto area (GTA), it sucks because it is very short notice and as a result could be a reason for a lot of incomplete or cancelled flights in the winter.

So according to my instructor, instead of completing 0.3 hr of the preflight, he will just do a 1.5hr extra dual instruction to polish some of my weakness from the preflight:
Slow flight and Power On stall entries
Steep turns - to try and go back to entry altitude even within test limits.
Diversion - everything was perfect except I forgot to simulate a call to London
Soft-Field Landing- porpoising or not so soft landing

I won't be able to do this extra dual until next week because we will be away for a Search & Rescue Training weekend from Oct 31st - Nov 2nd. I am pretty stoked about this because we're going to Bankcroft area, and I can't wait how to really learn the things they will teach us (of course I'm not so excited because it's gonna be cold but I'm not complaining)

Anyway, I'll take my camera and post up some pictures of that here.