Woke up at the crack of dawn this morning to give Buttonville dispatch a call to make sure the intro flight was still a go. Everything is good, so I head down to be at the airport at 815.

I took care of all the paperwork and only had to wait less than five minutes for the instructor to meet me. Introduced each other and headed to the airfield. At first she really didn’t seem into it, but as soon as I started asking questions she seemed more interested.

We did the …

So apparantly there was this pilot that ran out of fuel while trying to get to his destination. He was able to land safely on a 4 lane highway.

The cops decided that it would be fine for him to take off again from the highway, so they closed the road and let him take off.

It didn’t go as planned as this video shows.

The news article can be found here.

I just got off the phone with Buttonville dispatch. I booked an intro flight for Saturday at 8am. This will be chance to take a good look at the airport, the facilities, and the instructors.

I have to give them a call at 7am to make sure that everything is still on the go (weather wise). I was surprised to find that the FI thats taking me up is a female.

I’m going to bring my camera along.

I had my final portion of the medical exam done yesterday – the audiogram. I passed, but not with the results I had in mind. The results showed that I had some hearing loss in the higher frequencies. “loss” is an extreme word in this case. The graph dips down just a little bit for those frequencies (I think 5-10 db).

There were two main tests: Pure Tone and Speech. The pure tone test just sends a tone into your headphones (you’re placed in a soundproof booth) and you have to …

This made it into my inbox today.

After every flight, Quantas pilots fill out a form, called a “gripe sheet,” which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics correct the problems; document their repairs on the form and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight.

Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humor.

Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by Quantas’ pilots (marked with a P) and the solutions recorded by the maintenance engineers (marked with an M).

P: Left inside main …

I just got a copy of “Visualized Flight Maneuvers Handbook” (for high wing aircraft) today and had a chance to take a look at it.

You can consider this book to be a cheat sheet for all the maneuvers you will need to do to get your license. They cover everything from pre-flight to some crazy things you will have to do if you want to become an instructor (like spins, cross control stalls and chandelles).

A Sample Page

(Click for a larger image)

This book does have an American …

Welcome everyone. This website is now officially live! I just sent out an email to all my friends letting them know.

Feel free to read any of the previous posts!

There are still a few bugs with the site that I will be working on in the next few days.

I encourage everyone to sign up for site updates (on the left hand side of the page). Don’t worry, I promise you wont get any spam!

Just discovered another difference between American and Canadian airspace rules. In the states you do not need to file a VFR flight plan regardless of where you are going. In Canada, you must file a VFR flight plan if your destination will be further than 25NM away from your aerodrome of departure.

I also noticed that Americans dont use the term aerodrome.

If you are flying under VFR you can pretty much do what you want. Climb, descend, turn, at will. You don’t need to let anyone know (unless you are in uncontrolled airspace… where you have to announce your new heading/altitude on the UNICOM frequency to let others know in case there is a conflict).

What would be the purpose of “flight following” then? What this means is that ATC will keep an eye on you and (I’m assuming) will advise you if there are any conflicts. However, since you are flying …

So I had my medical exam today. I opted to get tested for a Category 1 Medical Certificate (which is the one with the most restrictions). The event was pretty painless:

- Answered questions about my family history, if I am taking any medication, and how much alcohol I drink each week (I said “maybe two beers a week”).

- Checked weight, height, hair colour, and eye colour

- Checked breath sounds

- Examined my eyes, ears, and throat (say ahhh!)

- Did a neat test to check my peripheral vision. The doctor just wiggled …