Almost there...

So my internet has been down for a few days and I felt so helpless because nowadays it's so vital in most of the things we do. But now I have it back and all is well again.

Today was my second last lesson that I have to do before going for my first solo (which is the lesson before the solo and then the instructor steps out and all of that). The other is the emergency procedures lesson in the simulator. That shouldn't be a problem because I've got most of the main emergencies down.

The only thing holding me off, are the hold offs (round outs) and flares... mostly the stronger crosswind types.

My approach is getting better: crabbing to eliminate drift and getting set up early (just the minor adjustments there) and then sideslipping when short final.

Sideslip is when rudder is used to align the nose to flight path which should be the centreline for landings and ailerons into the wind to eliminate the drift. All of these are pretty straight forward and again just minor adjustments and improvements needed for those.

As soon as I start to level out for the round out - looking for the cruise attitude and at the end of the runway - my nose starts to go all over the place, mostly go left when I had left rudder input in the sideslip. So then I guess I'd have to put in more right rudder. I don't know why I didn't think of this before but I guess it's because I've slowed down and I'd have to put less rudder input?

Anyways, the other thing is I would either flare too early/too high or too late/too low. So then I would sometimes balloon (so i add a bit of power) but still land hard, or I land flat.

These things I need to work on a little bit more and I'm not pressured by other people solo-ing before me because I'd rather feel comfortable to do these things all by myself before solo-ing than just getting it over with.

In other news, about 7 people from my class have already gotten their PPL, and 6+ more are waiting to get flight tested. Contrast this to a few people who are still in the simulator phase of the training. That seems like a big spread but it's actually better than some years in the past.

My friend was showing me his logbook and I saw that his first two flights were almost back to back and all of the sudden, his third flight was 3 months later. That's pretty long for in between flights. The reason was they grouped his class into 2 groups and they wanted everyone from the first group to solo first before they started the second group, which is pretty weird but I guess now they've improved it quite a bit.

Also, the first airplane (and the 2nd and 3rd) C-GSEQ just finished getting it's new engine. Now I'm not sure why they had to put a new engine on the airplane but I shall find out soon. It took them about three weeks and today it had its first run-up. So that's pretty exciting.

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.

With the traffic...

So ever since my first flight, I haven't gone up as much as I wanted, but that's okay I guess. My last flight I believe was my best one so far, I felt mostly in control of the aircraft and the situation. I think this is my situational awareness building :)

This flight was all about stalls and steep turns and man, you could really feel the G's in those steep turns. My instructor said I did it as well as he did and it was good enough because we had limited horizon.

What I was really proud of though, was spotting traffic. On all my previous flights, it took me forever to find traffic around me. This time I even spotted them before my instructor did, without any assistance from ATC. hehe.

On the way back to buttonville, I was calling up from the area of Preston Lake, and with just my initial call, tower told me to report over Victoria Square right away, I guess it wasn't busy yet! I love mornings.

So after that I was told to join the right base for RWY 21 and to follow a C150 just turning left base. I thought, okay traffic spotted and it shouldn't be hard to follow, but once I was close to my final, it was still mid left base, so my instructor asked tower if S turns were allowed. So we planned to extend our base and somewhat make a 180 to rejoin the left base behind the 150. I thought okay, things are good, focusing on the traffic to follow, then BAM! Instructor said, uh AIRSPEED. And I was like oh shoot, I was at 48 kts, and I had full flaps down. So close to the stall. I was focusing TOO much on the traffic that I forgot to maintain management inside the airplane. So I corrected that, and went to final and landed, it wasn't great because I tried to round out and flare to early but in time I will learn to hold off the flare.

And that has been my most interesting flight so far, other than the one before that in which I spotted a hangglider to my right which was pretty cool.

First Flight Finally

YES!


I finally went up for my first flight ever in a small airplane. It was awesome. Believe me, I'm still kind of in shock up to now that I have been UP there. And to just sum up, it was a completely different experience. More bumpy than the sim, hahaha!

I handled the aircraft pretty much most of the time. From engine start, taxiing, take off, enroute to practice area. We then proceeded with straight and level flight, climbs, descents and turns. My flight instructor also demonstrated steep turns which made me feel really gooey inside, but it was all good. He also showed the visual landmarks going in and out and around buttonville which was good because you don't really see anything on the sim. Couldn't do the landing though because the crosswind was too much, but it was good.

Even though we were in the air for around an hour, it felt like it went by so quickly. And also, I wasn't as situationally aware, and often times getting behind the airplane maybe because it WAS my first flight and I was kinda still like "wow" inside my head.

But yes, I enjoyed it very much, can't wait to go up again.

I didn't get to take a picture of me with the airplane but i did manage to take a picture of the airplane I flew in right after.

C-GSEQ

Logged first flight 1.0 hrs.

Waiting...

So I finished the monotonous phase zero of cessna 172 simulator training. I have been validated and is ready to start flying. Unfortunately, some of the people in my group have had cancelled sim lessons and so are a lesson or two behind and according to my FI, I have to wait for at least half of the group to actually start flying.

I've been bumming around my house for the past 3 days with nothing to do, patiently (actually impatiently) waiting to get started on flying. I know someone in the same class but in Group A, is almost close to his Private Flight Test. He is ahead of everyone, and is moving pretty quickly too.

Hopefully, I'll move on the flight line pretty fast as well, probably be at the airport for extra hours try to get an extra flight in or something. But for now, I'm here sitting at home, watching videos and doing some extra reading, ready to go, and waiting.

I have written my PSTAR and radio exam. I got 13/15 on the radio exam on the first try so I had to rewrite it. Second time I got 15/15 so great.

Also got 49/50 on my PSTAR. I forget which one I got wrong I think it's the one with the taxi clearance to a runway and to get there you have to cross another runway. I put taxiing there but needs a clearance to cross the other runway (because that's what I saw in the study guides) but actually, you're allowed to taxi all the way without holding short of anything.

I guess it's the same thing as taxiing down Bravo, crossing RWY 21 to get to RWY 33. Sometimes they say "cross 21", sometimes they just say taxi "Bravo all the way down". Other than that I'm good. Got my Student Pilot Permit and Radio Operators certificate so see, I'm good to go!

In the meantime, I'm reading up on emergency procedures for C172. Trying to commit most of them to memory, because eventually we're gonna have to anyways. Hopefully I'll start flying by this weekend. As for now, here's a clip of a jet departing buttonville I captured a week ago.

C-GSCX

Here's the long awaited picture of Seneca's new Cessna 172s

C-GSCX



I love it most especially because it's XRAY! :D

It's flights are kept local for now since there's a few minor tweaks that must be done and stuff.

I've heard from people whom have flown her, saying that she has a starting problem lol, but is very light compare to the other ones. Now I don't know how you can really compare the weights just by the feel of it but yeah.



Here she is:

New stuff

Seneca have started a new dispatch system and scheduling system beginning May 5th.
The new dispatch system includes:

a Duty Instructor
a receptionist - junior student
ramp attendant - junior student
flight follower - senior student
and a dispatcher - senior student

Flight crewmembers are suppose to sign in with the dispatcher and be briefed by the dispatcher first with their flights to see if they are ready and prepared for it. Then they are briefed again by the duty instructor and authorized (signed their trip slip) for the flight. This is for solo and mutual flights. I'm not sure about dual flights since they have their own instructor there to brief them.

The receptionist - in charge of who's in and who's not in the hangar, and answering phone calls. Also they are in charge of calling people on the reserve, standby or volunteer list. More on that later.

The ramp attendant - in charge of ground duties such as cleaning the windshield after each flight, monitoring refuelling and listening to Buttonville ground to see if the aircraft has in fact landed or in the area. Verifying the actual times with the ETA.

The flight follower - in charge of monitoring Seneca ground frequency and recording off, up, down, and in times. In charge of calling for fuel 30 minutes before arrival of aircraft so they don't have to actually wait when they arrive.

The dispatcher - dispatches the flights and makes sure everyone does their duties and coordinates with the duty instructor so that they can maximize time management. When an aircraft is not in use, they can contact and arrange flights for people in the reserve, standby and volunteer list.

Reserve - people on reserves must report within 60 mins of being called in and must be prepared for their flight.

Standby - are people who arrive at the hangar at the same time as others and wait for available aircraft for their lesson. I'm not really sure on who gets called in first.

Volunteer - when worse comes to worst and they need those airplanes in the air, they can call people on the volunteer list and they must report within 90 mins of being called out.

So everyday there is a reserve and standby list but volunteer is obviously voluntary.

Crew resource management is definitely the biggest reasons for this, so that we don't get left behind on scheduled flights.
They have also extended operating hours from 0600 to 2300 on weekdays during the summer.

Another new things Seneca has deployed/used is a new scheduling system. Flight schedule Pro, they said it's much better than the old one. I guess it's true because instead of having 2 shifts, the shifts are really divided to when the airplanes come down.

Some people though are complaining because as much as it is better for flights, it's asking more of the students and instructors. Not everyone can make it there at 6am.

Fortunately I can, so hopefully when I get on the real flight line, I'll be able to have more flights than normal. Because right now I'm still on simulators. (Phase Zero we call it, and that is also new this year)

A few of my classmates who started Phase Zero during second semester have already gone solo, so it must have been a great choice to have phase zero! I just started this week so, it's going to be a while before I actually start flying.