Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - 09:37:19 ET

Working Limitations

We discussed shift length and working rules in our human factors class last night. These rules are dictated by Transport Canada for the safety of everyone involved.

Let's start it off easy (From CAR Section 720).

- Max 8 hours of flight time in a single 24 hour period (single pilot IFR)
- Max 14 hours of flight time in 24 consecutive hours
- 60 Hours in 7 consecutive days
- 150 Hours in 30 consecutive days
- 210 Hours in 42 consecutive days
- 450 Hours in 90 consecutive days
- 900 Hours in 120 consecutive days
- 1200 Hours in 365 consecutive days

If you work for 7 days straight, the most you can work per day is approx 8.5 hours. If you work for 30 days straight the most you can work per day is 5 hours. There are, of course, exceptions to these rules.

- You can extend your allowable hours by taking rest periods. The extension is one half the length of the rest period to a maximum of three hours. (ie, fly for 11 hours, rest for 6 (half of 6 is 3), then fly for another 3, total is 14 hours).
- 24 hours off must be given if you've worked 3 shifts that exceed 12 consecutive hours of work unless you've been given 24 hours rest between shifts.
- Depending on the type of flight, these limitations are different.

*phew*

Most of the larger air carriers have scheduling software that takes care of all of these rules for you. However, some of the smaller ones do not. It's your responsibility to keep track of such things. The carriers operating handbook will outline all of the work/duty rules to you.

Transport Canada does have the ability to audit your log books (years down the road) and mark any violations you have on your license. This could pose problems with future employers.

Comments (2) | Permalink | Category: Training

Saturday, January 28, 2006 - 00:22:30 ET

My Computer Systems Assignment

So for my Computer Systems class I have to program a "aviation related" application in Visual Basic 6. This is what I have so far:

I've dubbed it "Decoder Ring" as it will eventually decode METAR, TAF, and FD. The teacher tossed in the FD requirement in there. I have no idea what FDs are. Eventually I plan on having the ability for you to fetch the latest data from the net. Right now, you just have to copy and paste the data into the special field and hit the "decode" button.

The idea being that I will turn this:

METAR CYKZ 280200Z 23007KT 15SM BKN160 02/M05 A3022 RMK AC5 SLP246=

Into this:

Weather for Buttonville at Janurary 28 02:00 UTC. Wind: 230 at 7 Knots. Visibility: 15 Miles. Sky: Broken at 16000. Temp: 2C. Dewpoint -5C. Altimiter: 30.22 inches. Remarks: Alto Cumulus 5/8, Sea Level Pressure: 1024.6mb.

The airport names are stored in a access database that the application uses to do aerodrome code to real name look ups.

Comments (1) | Permalink | Category: Training

Friday, January 27, 2006 - 10:35:52 ET

Should Flight Attendants Get Paid The Same As Pilots?

The CBC is reporting that the supreme court is investigating whether Air Canda flight attendants should get paid as much as pilots.

The paragraph that stood out for me was:

"The section [of the human rights act] says it is discriminatory for an employer to pay different wages to male and female employees in the same "establishment" who are performing work of equal value."

That may be true. However, since when is a flight attendants duities and a pilots duities of equal value? Who has more responsibility?

Im curious to hear your comments. You can also take a look at what Aviatrix (a female pilot) had to say on the issue.

Comments (5) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - 23:12:37 ET

Meterology Test Results

My attempt to get a perfect mark on my first Meterology test failed. I ended up with 89%, two questions out of eighteen incorrect. They were:

If an aircraft is flying from an airport that is very cold to an airport that is very warm,
a) It will be lower than its indicated altitude.
b) It will be higher than its indicated altitude.
c) It will be at the indicated altitude
d) it's altitude won't change.

Correct answer is B, I picked A.

How is the earth heated?
a) Short wave radiation from the sun
b) Long wave radiation from the sun
c) Terrestrial radiation
d) Conduction

Correct answer is A, I picked B.

Comments (1) | Permalink | Category: Training

Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - 13:10:10 ET

Flight Scrubbed

The planned lesson didn't happen today because of the weather. No biggie, do a ground briefing instead! Took care of Slow flight, Stalls, Spins, and Spirals.

I cant wait to get to these excercises, since they will be a little more "fun" (read: g-forces).

I probably wont be flying again until February. I'm going to do as much reviewing and "armchair" flying as I can in the mean time.

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Training

Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - 10:58:14 ET

Mumble, Stumble, Fumble

Remember when you were a kid (for the guys out there) trying to undo your girlfriends bra for the first time in the heat of the moment? Remember how awkward and uncoordinated you felt? That was me, today, on the radio.

I was able to get in two flights in the past two days. Weather was great.. sunny and warm. Visibility, however, was not as good as we'd like it to be. Two big milestones were passed:

1. First time making radio calls
2. First time taking off.
3. Walkarounds all by my self!

This was also the first time I actually felt prepared! Had my own headset, fuel cup, maps, and kneeboard!

The short of it is that I'm confident about my progress so far. I try to do some studying at home after the lesson (while things are still fresh in my head) and go over what we did. I think that helps quite a bit. I'd write down a list of questions I have for the FI (which havnen't been much lately) and make sure I ask her before we start the next lesson.

I'm noticing that every time I go up, I'm able to do more and more at the same time. Things are starting to come automatically for me. However, I still can't seem to be able to spot the airport at a reasonable distance from it! It's not until I'm usually right on top of it before I realize where it is.

Take offs are fun! It's at this time I wish it was just like in flight sim. Hit F4 (for full throttle) and let 'er rip! Not so in real life. That damn rudder! When you open that throttle wide open you have to offset that torque by using right rudder. Otherwise you'll start veering left and eventually fly off the runway.

I have a flight booked for today. The weather is looking not so good. Hopefully I can get up though.

I'm also going to listen to some tower/ground chatter at liveatc.net. The sad thing is, they used to have Buttonville tower/ground available - not so anymore.

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Training

Monday, January 16, 2006 - 22:05:54 ET

Time of Useful Consciousness

Tonights Human Factors class was particularly interesting. Especially the discussion we had on high altitude and decompression.

When talking about decompression and the effects on the human body an item called "time of useful consciousness" (TUC) gets mentioned all the time. You wont pass out at this magic number but instead start feeling the effects of hypoxia and just end up getting so messed up that your pretty much useless. Below are some TUCs for different altitudes:

20,000' : 5-12 Minutes
30,000' : 45-75 Seconds
40,000' : 10-30 Seconds

So lets say your aircraft has a rapid decompression at 40,000'. You have at least 10 seconds to realize what happened and put on your oxygen mask. What happens to your body at 40,000' if you don't put on your mask?

A condition known as negative aspiration occurs. At that high altitude the partial pressure of oxygen is much, much lower than the partial pressure of oxygen in your blood. We all remember from physics (or was it chemistry) that gases move from an area of high pressure to low pressure. So the oxygen in your body is literally sucked out of your blood as it moves to the lower pressure area in your lungs...

Hypoxia then kicks in, your pass out, and a few minutes later: die.

So the moral of the story is? Put your mask on no matter what. Don't waste precious seconds trying to figure out the cause of the problem. Do that after your mask is on.

Now of course this is an extreme example.. but there are some situations where people didn't put their masks on in a timely fashion. Of course, there are those that were able to survive the exact problem I described above.

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Training

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 15:47:24 ET

Yay! Rudder

Today was a perfect day for flying. The temperature was a little on the chilly side (-10°C or so). I was afraid that the wind would be too strong, but it didn't play a factor.

Today was a lot of first for me:

- First time I did the walk around my self (with FI observing)
- First time doing the run up and pre-take off checklists my self (with FI observing)
- First time I actually flew in the circuit (well, I sorta did it in my intro flight).
- First time trying to figure out where the hell we are using my map

I made a mock radio call to ground. Got most of it right:

FI: "Ok, we're ready to taxi, what do you say to ground"
Me: "uhmm.. 'Buttonville Ground this is Cessna foxtrot alpha kilo echo requesting taxi clearance'".
FI: "good, except just drop off the Requesting taxi clearance bit and add which ATIS ident we have"

I need to memorize the frequencies. I remember ATIS, but not Ground or Tower :(

I taxied to runway 33. I stopped my self short of reaching for the yoke to try to steer the plane... gotta get those feet moving.

The FI took off and we headed to the north. We have to stay below 2500' feet until we are cleared of Buttonville's zone. We started our work when we got to the practice area.

Today was about descents and climbs again, but this time... doing them properly. Combining power, attitude, and trim in their proper order. This is where I was a little unprepared. I forgot to memorize the V speeds! These are important to know so that you can put the plane in a best angle or best rate attitude. For climbs:

Attitude
Pitch the airplane into the attitude you want for the type of climb. Match up the "picture" you see outside with what you should expect would be right angle for the type of climb.

Power
Once the air speed has dropped to Vy (78KIAS) or Vx(64KIAS) apply power to maintain air speed. In most cases, this will be full power in the 172.

Trim
Trim to reduce control pressure

When you are coming out of the climb. Adjust to attitude back to cruise and reduce power as the engine RPMS come up to maintain ~2200rpm.

With descending for best glide the order is a little different:

Power
Reduce power so that our airspeed is around 65KIAS. Make sure you keep that nose up until the speed is bled off!

Attitude
Pitch the nose down. Unlike with a climb where you use power to maintain the airspeed, in a descent you use attitude to maintain speed.

Trim
Trim to eliminate yoke pressure.

Returning from a descent the order is the same. Apply power to bring speed up to cruising speed, then adjust attitude to match.

Things to remember when descending: Since RPMs are going to be low, carb heat should be on. Don't forget to turn it back off when you return to cruise!

We did some navigation today as well. I have to get used to the fact that we are traveling at 200km/s. I attempted to point out some landmarks on my map and match it with what we saw outside. Little success. On the way back I attempted to point out a suitable place to land for a forced landing.

FI: "So which do you think is a good place to land."
Me: (pointing) "That field!"

I realized what I did after I said that. There are literally hundreds of different farmers fields out there. D'oh. We turned to the south where there were more landmarks to use as a reference to whatever field I pick. The one I ended up picking wasn't too bad.

FI: "We miiiiight, be able to make it there."

So we're heading back to the airport and I call out some important landmarks to use when requesting clearance into the zone. We are in the circuit, but I still haven't spotted the airport :( It wasn't until the downwind leg did I see the runway to the right of us). The FI pointed out landmarks I can use for when it was time to turn to the base leg. I lined us up for the runway, then she landed.

Parking the plane was an adventure... I did better than I thought I would have.

Another 1.4 hours under the belt.

Comments (1) | Permalink | Category: Training

Saturday, January 14, 2006 - 13:21:18 ET

Carb Icing Video

This video was on a cd that I got with one of my textbooks. It was produced by Transport Canada. It talks about carb icing. The reason why I'm posting it is because it actually shows you what carb icing is. They put a camera in one of the engine cylinders.

You can order the cd roms from Transport Canada

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 10:48:18 ET

More about Turns, Climbs, and Descents

Yesterday's ground briefing covered in more detail turns:

- When/how to enter and exit a turn so that you roll-out on the heading you want
- How to perform steep turns (with banks greater than 30°) and what the hell load factors are
- Climbs and what they are used for (Best Rate, Best Angle)
- Descents and what they are used for (Power on, Power off)
- When/how to enter and exit a descent/climb so that you arrive at the altitude you want.

So, how do you know when to stop turning if you want to turn to a heading of 180°? Lets assume you are making a 30° bank turn. So you would start rolling out of the turn at 165° on the HI. How did I know that? Just take half of the bank angle and use that number as in indication of when to start rolling out:

half of 30° is 15°, 180° - 15° = 165°

The same sort of trick applies to your altitude. So, you are at 4000' and you want to climb at 5000'. When should you stop climbing? Well, take a look at your VSI.. it shows that you are climbing at 400fpm:

10% of 400 is 40. So start leveling off at 4960'.

Take 10% of the VSI and subtract it from your target altitude for climbs or add it to your target altitude for descents.

Hopefully, if the weather is nice, I will be able to practice this on Sunday. I'm still a little rusty on the rudder, especially with taxiing. So I hope to get that polished on Sunday too. The forecast for the weekend looks good: Sunny. Low minus 11. High minus 5.

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Training

Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - 10:47:22 ET

Tagging Employee Baggage

I came across this image of how the ramp guys at Jetsgo used to tag other employees baggage. This particular group of people were on their way down to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Click for larger photo

Someone in the group commented: "U.S. customs took a photo of the 10 of us with our bags. they never saw anything to that extent. you should have seen the looks on peoples face when we were walking through the airport like that."

I think the guy that attached his stuff to the pylon is hilarious!!

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - 10:28:56 ET

Flying Schedule

If the weather is nice, I hope to have 25 hours of flying done by the end of February. I'm not 100% sure (i'm going to ask my FI tonight) but I think I can start flying Solo at around 25 hours.

Days I plan on flying:
1/15/2006 12:00 - 14:00
1/22/2006 12:00 - 14:00
1/24/2006 14:00 - 16:00
2/4/2006 15:00 - 17:00
2/5/2006 09:00 - 11:00
2/6/2006 10:00 - 12:00
2/11/2006 12:00 - 14:00
2/12/2006 12:00 - 14:00
2/13/2006 09:00 - 11:00
2/18/2006 14:00 - 16:00
2/19/2006 10:00 - 12:00
2/20/2006 10:00 - 12:00
2/26/2006 12:00 - 14:00
2/27/2006 09:00 - 11:00

My Meterology teacher used to work for JetsGo and now works for Jazz. I know someone who's a flight attendant that also used to work for JetsGo and now works for Jazz. I'm going to ask her if she knows him. Another conincidence I discovered yesterday was that same teacher also taught my FI when she was in school.

I have a ground briefing tonight with the FI. I did my homework! I"ve also been starting to commit some of the emergency checklists to memory, as well as the walk-around procedure.

Comments (3) | Permalink | Category: Training

Sunday, January 8, 2006 - 23:09:54 ET

Busy First Time Out

I spent a few hours on Tuesday booking flight time with the on line scheduling software. I decided to take a peek again on Thursday and noticed that there was an opening for today. I booked it and prayed that the weather would be nice.

I got up this morning to a blue sky! The first one in probably 2 weeks. Called dispatch and the lesson was still on - awesome!

Today was going to be the same stuff we did in the sim, but in real life. I did the walk around with the FI. The important item to note about the walk around is that you do it the same time, each time. This way you wont forget anything. The FI had a good suggestion: start with the oil and fuel levels. This way, if you need any, you can call flight services now and continue your walk around while they come and top up your plane. I'm going to buy a fuel tester cup, so that I don't have to borrow the CFIs all the time... They're only $4.

As part of the walk around, you have to test the fuel at strategic points. You are looking for anything thats not right, water, sediment, etc.. One of the locations is the fuel strainer. The "testing port" (I cant remember what the real name is) is located under the engine at the front of the plane. You have to stick your hand on the top to pull the valve, then reach all the way under and hold the cup under the cowling (it's what covers the engine). I've been assured that this is possible. Today the FI pulled the valve while I had the cup ready.

Dont worry, we dump all the fuel we test into a jerry can.. I don't know what happens to it when its full.

Note to self: Take off your jacket before entering the aircraft. It was almost impossible to do so once I was sitting in the left side. You should have seen me squirming to get my coat off.

Today was particularly busy there were about 4 planes in front of us. While we were holding short, three airplanes landed. We were critiquing their landings. I have a better idea of what's "too high" and "too low". Someone on the radio asked for the tower to use light signals. I'm amazed the tower agreed because it was such a busy day.

We took off on runway 15 and turned to head to the practice area. We took this opportunity to get "the picture" of what cruise flight looks like. We then did some turns and climbs/descends. It was true when she said things would be easier in an actual aircraft.

The next exercise involved the throttle and the rudder. When you increase the throttle, the airplane climbs and veers left. When you decrease the throttle the airplane descends and veers to the right. The idea is to compensate for the veering by using your rudder. I was able to complete it without any issues.

One the way back, we did some trim work. This involved the FI turning the trim wheel a few times so that you feel pressure on the yoke. I had to trim the plane back. The trim allows you to fly the plane without having to worry about always pulling back, or pushing forward on the yoke to maintain level flight.

One thing I need to work on is not rushing any corrective movements. The plane takes a little while to do what you expect it to do. Reducing the throttle doesn't make the plane pitch and yaw immediately. So keep that in mind when you need to apply rudder.

So for my next lesson I hope to have my own headset (ordered it a few days ago) and a fuel tester. The FI also mentioned that we are going to be using my charts this time too, so bring them along!

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Training

Thursday, January 5, 2006 - 11:46:14 ET

First Lesson

I was a little nervous before arriving at the airport but had some time to relax as I arrived early.

The lesson was structured in two parts, first was the ground briefing where we went over some of the basics. Talking about the instruments, parts of the plane, and how to detect and fix carb icing. Other items we covered were:

- How to find that "picture" for a specific attitude in the plane. Whether it be straight and level or a banked turn. All of your references are "visual" (during VFR flight). So using tricks like counting the number of fingers of space you have between the dash and the horizon helps.
- The different types of turns. Small, medium, and steep. Why we have to make co-ordinated turns (why using the rudder is essential).
- The different types of climbs and descents. All the while only using visual clues to determine the rate of climb or descent.

The ground briefing was about two hours, all the while I was taking notes.

Now it was time to put what I learned to the test, in the simulator! This thing was pretty cool. You could attach different controls to it, depending on the type of plane you were flying. All of the inputs had feedback, so you could tell if you needed to trim the aircraft or not. The control panel was just a screen which allows it to be reconfigured depending on the aircraft as well.

So we did some turns, climbs, descends all at the direction of the FI. "Make a 10 degree left turn now" or "make a 30 degree climbing turn here". I was able to get the hang of it pretty quickly. I was told that the sim was pretty sensitive and It would be slightly easier in an actual aircraft.

When it came time to wrap up, we headed back to the airport. This time, with the sim time sped up, so that we'd get there faster. I made a decent landing (at least it was on the runway). The approach was a little low the entire time but no big deal since we cant crash in the sim like you can in real life.

When it comes to landing there is a few things to remember:

- Keep the location of where you want to touchdown in the same location in your vision. This is a good trick to hitting your target.
- Once you are close to the runway, its harder to judge distances, so look at the end of it.
- Don't be afraid to pull back on the yoke to flair!

Chalk up 0.6hrs of sim time!

The next step is to practice this in an actual plane. I had booked a 172 for yesterday and today - no dice due to the weather. I've been introduced to the on line booking system and have already booked some more time. I have a feeling this winter is going to full of cancellations.

There are two additional items that I want to get before the next lesson. A POH for the Cessna 172 and the "Flight Training Manual" book. I plan on getting those today. I also plan on trying on a few headsets.

Comments (2) | Permalink | Category: Training