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

- …

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” …

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 …

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 …

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.

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 …

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 …

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 …

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

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 …