Thursday, June 29, 2006 - 09:29:34 ET

Holy E6B Batman!

I'm quickly becoming a wiz on the E6B thanks to my Navigation classes.

Yesterday's class was fun, dry, but fun. We spent the past two classes planning a cross country trip:

CYKZ->YEE->CYQA->CNF4->CYKZ

Without going into too much detail, we planned one leg (YKZ->YEE) in class. Worked out how much fuel we'd need, headings to fly, ETAs and such.

By the time this semester is done, my map is going to be a mess of tracks ;)

Click To Enlarge

At the end of the class last night I was thinking of a whole bunch of places i'd like to do a cross country to. I think it would be awesome to fly to my cottage one day... The closest airport would be Sherbrooke, QC (CYSC) or Bromont, QC (CZBM) both are 54 miles away, according to Google Maps. However, I think I'm going to stick to "local" destinations... One of them being Stanhope, ON (CND4).

I have a flight booked today at 6pm, cross your fingers that the weather holds up.

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Tuesday, June 27, 2006 - 16:31:31 ET

Solo Local

Everything went good with my lesson yesterday. I'm now cleared to practice on my own in the local training areas. My FI says im going to need about 5 hours of solo practice.

My steep turns are horrible, atrocious in fact. So on Thursday (if the weather holds up) I"m going to dedicate most of the lesson to getting that in order. I'm also going to refine some of my short/soft field take-offs and landings.

We did a "mini diversion" again, this time from Keswick to Goodwood.

FI: Which heading do we need to fly?
Me: 110 degrees
FI: Does that take into account the winds?
Me: no.

Must not forget to adjust heading for winds when doing a diversion.

Yesterday was the first time that I actually felt like I was "flying" and not just practicing or doing exercises. We did some upper air work over Keswick, then headed down to Claremont (via Goodwood) then back to Buttonville. The idea being that I can demonstrate to my FI that I know how to get where I need to go as well as use the proper frequencies. With that proved, I've been given the go ahead to go solo in the practice area.

If I have some time, I'm going to whip up a quick map that outlines all the necessary frequencies I need to use in the local training areas.

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Monday, June 26, 2006 - 15:04:08 ET

World Airspace Via Google Earth

Now this is cool.

I've been looking for a tool to display Canadian airspace in real time. Some of the google earth kml files that users have produced have been of poor quality.

Not anymore.

Using a free database of aeronautical information, Global Imaging have created a kml file that accesses this DB in real time (as you turn individual items on and off).

I was able to turn on only select control zones and terminal control areas for the toronto area that I fly in.

You can download the kmz file for Google Earth here.

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Tuesday, June 20, 2006 - 21:11:05 ET

All About Diversions

My lesson on Sunday went well. Except for the take off.

Me: What kind of take off today?
FI: Lets to a short field take off
*taxi into position, start the take off roll and rotate*
FI: what happened to the ground effect part
Me: whoops! I forgot

Yeah, so I did a "short field takeoff" without using ground effect. My FI was not impressed!

In any case, we continued and I practiced a precautionary landing and did a "mini diversion". This is a preview of what the "real" diversion lesson is all about.

Lets take this scenario: You're heading back to your airport when a freak storm with lighting and rain and tornados is right over top of the airport. You need to head over to another airport about 30 miles away, but thats not in your flight plan! You bust out the map and figure out how to get there. That's a diversion.

There are some tricks to figuring this out while in flight. Draw a line from your present position to your diversion point. It's easier to do this if your line is drawn from the outside in (towards your body). Keep in mind not to keep your head down for too long! Every couple of seconds peer back up to make sure everything is dandy.

One of the hardest issues I've had is using pilotage to figure out where the hell we are. In some cases I *know* where we are but you have to prove it to the FI.

Me: Thats Mount Albert
FI: How do you know that?
Me: I just do
FI: Prove it
Me: uhmm.. uhhh.. *looks at map*.. Its east of highway 48
FI: and...
Me: err... hmmm.. it's a small city on the map and it physically looks small
FI: sure.. but there could be a lot of small cities on the map.. what else
Me: uhhhmm.
FI: What about the railroad.
Me: ohh yeah, and there are railroad tracks going to the north of the city

When you are diverting you need to know which heading to use. After you draw your line on the map, take your pencil and line it up with the line. Find the nearest compass rose on the map (the Simcoe VOR works nicely) and figure out what heading you need to go to.

Pick a halfway point on the map (for me it was Goodwood - i'm diverting from Claremont to Mount Albert) and make sure that you fly over that point. All the while you are checking other landmarks to your track on the map to make sure that you aren't drifting off course and explaining to your FI what you see and how you know you're on course.

It's hard juggling flying the plane and looking at your map at the same time.

My landing was the worst ever. My FI warned me that there might be wind shear when we land. Not sure if that was the cause but I was totally not set up properly. Speed was all over the place. I didn't take into account the gust factor and I was bouncing all over the place (too high, then too low!). I was at my limit and was almost about to overshoot when I got things somewhat under control. Worst landing ever.

In order for me to go Solo local (right now I can only go Solo in the circuit) I need to have a review flight with my FI. This includes reviewing steep turns, stalls, spins, spirals, slow flight, climbing (best rate, best angle, en route), descending, flying for range and endurance, and slipping. My flight is booked for Saturday and the weather forecast looks good. I'm going to spend the next few days reviewing all of the above items and armchair flying a few of them. I want to go into the lesson feeling prepared. I want to nail this lesson down pat so that I can start going solo in the practice area and bring these exercises into flight test tolerances. I'll leave the flight test details to another post.

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Sunday, June 18, 2006 - 09:08:35 ET

X-Wind Soft Field Landing!

Yesterday's lesson went well. I was more prepared with the forced landings. Armchair flying really does help!

Today we are going to be doing precautionary landings. Right now (at 9am) the visibility is already at 9SM. The TAF is forecasting 5SM by the time I'm supposed to fly. If my flight is canceled, this will be the first time due to visibility.

There was a pretty strong cross wind yesterday (290° 10KT gusting 15KT). Quick calculation for runway 33 (which was the active) puts the x-wind component at 11.5KTs. My FI wanted me to do a soft field landing with obstacle. My approach in regards to remaining on the center line was excellent (I almost had full right rudder in). My height, however, was not so. My FI called out 50' (the height of the obstacle) just before the point were the "imaginary trees" are. A few seconds later she said "We just went through the top of the trees". The touchdown was alright except that I was a little too nose low and I forgot to let go of the rudder so we started veering right as soon as the nose wheel hit.

I was impressed with my first x-wind soft field landing.

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Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 11:04:47 ET

Forced Approaches

The past two lessons have all been about forced approaches. I'm starting to feel challenged again!

To answer my own question in my previous post, we don't learn the 360° landing forced approach until the CPL phase of training.

The hardest thing I've found is judging your touchdown point on a grass field. There really isn't anything to use as a reference point. My FI then pointed out the idea of using objects in your peripheral (ie, trees on the side of the field) to use as your reference point.

In a nutshell, this is how a forced approach (ie, emergency landing) is supposed to go:

1. Your engine dies.
2. Immediately put your plane into best glide configuration (for me, its 65KIAS). A quick and easy way to do that is to turn your trim wheel 5 times. Don't forget about the flaps and carb heat!
3. Pick your field and key points. Do your COWLS (civilization, obstacle, wind, length, surface) check.
4. Do a cause check (see if you can determine why the engine died and restart it)
5. Do your mayday call
6. Perform engine shutdown checklist
7. Land airplane

I'm going to do some armchair flying before my next lesson in order to get all of these items done as quickly and efficiently as possible. One thing that I'm going to be constantly keeping an eye out for (as suggested by my FI) is fields I can use to land. Every 5 minutes or so peer around you and say "if my engine died right now, which field would I use".

Its nice getting out of the circuit and into the practice area. This time, however, we're using the one over Claremont (instead of Keswick).

On the way back we did a simulated DF steer in order to demonstrate it to me. This is a way for the tower to steer you into the right direction to get back to the airport in case you are lost. You ask for a DF steer and the tower will come back with instructions with what you need to do. Make sure your gyros are synced (ie, the heading indicator matches with your compass) and (in this particular case, as instructed by the tower controller) say your call name three times with a 1 second pause in between... keeping the mike keyed the entire time. This allows the controller to get a "fix" on your radio/position. He will then come back with a heading to turn. You can cancel the DF steer once you have the field in sight.

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Sunday, June 11, 2006 - 10:57:33 ET

Down Come the Four Stacks

I read in the paper the other day that a popular landmark for both nautical and aeronautical navigation will be no more on Monday.

"The Four Sisters" is an old electricity generating plant that has four big smoke stacks. The Toronto VTA shows the "four stacks" as a valid VFR reporting point. It's been used for the past 40 years as such.

Here is the NOTAM restricting the airspace above the four stacks during the blasting period:

060427 CZYZ TORONTO FIR CZYZ PURSUANT TO SECTION 5.1 OF THE AERONAUTICS ACT, AIRSPACE WITHIN 1 NM RADIUS CENTERED ON 433414N 793301W (FOUR STACKS) IS RESTRICTED SFC TO 4000 FT MSL. EXC FOR EMERG MEDICAL/RESCUE ACFT, NO PERSON SHALL OPR AN ACFT WITHIN THE AREA DESCRIBED UNLESS AUTH BY AUTHORIZING AGENCY AT 416-891-2771 0606120930 TIL 0606121800

I wonder... Will they keep the same reporting point (and change the name?) or just remove it?

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Thursday, June 8, 2006 - 23:34:49 ET

Question About Forced Landings

I found out today that a fellow co-worker (well a Manager) at work got his private pilot license 20 years ago - he hasn't flown in quite a while though.

I reviewed precautionary landings and forced landings tonight for my lesson on Saturday. For a forced landing the Flight Training Manual suggests two ways of landing the aircraft.

1. Using a modified circuit pattern
2. Using a 360° landing pattern

One thing that isn't clear to me is when you should use each method. I'm assuming I will learn how to do both. I'm going to make sure that I have both forced and precautionary landing checklists memorized before the lesson - just to impress my FI. ;) This is also going to be the first time I've been to the practice area in about 2 months.

I'm going to be moving a lot closer to Toronto city centre airport in the next few weeks (I get the keys to my new condo next Wednesday). I also bought a new antenna for my scanner that is tuned specifically for air band frequencies. The plan is go offer a full time feed of Tower and Ground at the city centre airport on liveatc.net. Hopefully it will work out.

School is going good, last week we spent 3 hours with our noses deep in the CFS. Next week its going to be all about the E6B... i've been dying to learn how to use it. My maps are already starting to tare. My teachers suggested that I get some high quality clear packing tape and use it to tape up the folds.

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Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - 21:53:26 ET

Quick Update

Nothing really new to report..

Went flying on Monday, practiced some soft field / short field take-offs and landings. My next lesson is going to cover emergency and precautionary landings.

The Toronto Star has a good special called Collision Course running this week, all about air safety. Check it out.

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