Fly With Blake | Fly With Blake |
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IMG_0626.JPGDate: 29/03/2008
At: Dec 05 2008 00:00Z
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Monday, July 31, 2006 - 23:59:14 ET
I was able to go up tonight for my last solo flight before uncontrolled airport stuff. I got checked out (cause my currency expired) by a substitute FI. 21 was the active and I probably haven't taken off from 21 in months. Everything was good except I started a right hand turn in the circuit until I was corrected otherwise... whoops! A little high on the landing but flawless otherwise. My FI was satisfied so I dropped her off at dispatch and headed up to the north. Visibility was crappy to the south (probably 6-8sm) while it was better up north. I attempted a few steep turns, did some slow flight, practiced a forced approach and did a couple of stalls. I was flying in Toronto Airways "newest" airplane. A bright orange 172 named C-GNFX. It has "roll bars" a "V" shaped bar in the windscreen that attaches to the frame and dash. Annoying at first but I quickly got used to them. It was a short flight, 0.9 on the hobbs, but one that I desperately needed to do. I have a flight booked tomorrow which should go ahead assuming the weather holds up (calling for 35°C ... may be a little too warm) Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Training
Saturday, July 29, 2006 - 03:43:07 ET
"You'll never hear pilots announce to their passengers that they’re smoking a joint before takeoff so they can relax and enjoy the flight." I seriously hope not. I discovered this site through a blog I read regularly. Pilots are not tested for drugs. At least, you dont need a drug test to get your Transport Canada certificate.  I never really thought about it until now. I think it is a smart idea for pilots to get drug tested. Then again, I don't recall ever reading a TSB report on an airplane crash because the pilot was high on street drugs. Comments (4) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things
Friday, July 28, 2006 - 11:46:17 ET
My student currency expires today and I haven't flown in two weeks due to weather. The problem? Afternoon bookings. Trying to fly in the afternoon in Toronto in July and August is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. The forecast for the next three days all call for Thunderstorms. With that in mind.. I've booked some "early" morning flights (8am). Although today's 7am flight was canceled because of weather (900' ceilings!). This is the first time that I've had my currency expire so I'm not sure what the procedure is. I have a solo booking tomorrow at 9 and a lesson booked at 4. I can't progress with any more lessons until I get that last solo flight in. But as of tomorrow I cant fly solo until I get checked out... annoying. On a somewhat positive note... I've enrolled in next semesters classes. I'm actually looking forward to Instrument Procedures. Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Training
Tuesday, July 25, 2006 - 22:04:07 ET
Just came across an interesting video on YouTube of an airplane landing at Pearson (runway 06L). At the very start of the video you can see highway 401 and 410. Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things
Monday, July 24, 2006 - 15:38:09 ET
It's been almost 10 days since I've been flying thanks to the weather. My booking today looks to be canceled too! The 172s are booked solid this entire week but I was able to squeeze in a booking for 7am on Friday. I need to get this last solo flight in before I can progress any further.  I still hope and plan on getting my license before the end of summer (Sept 23rd). I have a lot of bookings set up and I can only hope these afternoon t-storms stop popping up soon. The classes that are being offered next semester are "Instrument Procedures" and "Basic Aircraft Systems". I'm unsure what the difference between Basic Aircraft Systems and Aeronautics are. I think the former just goes into greater detail of aircraft systems. Let's hope that neither of these classes get canceled. If I can go flying on Friday I would be practicing slow flight, forced approaches, and stalls. Of course I'm going to throw in a few steep turns for good measure. I think this time I'm going to head to the east to the Claremont training area. Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Training
Saturday, July 22, 2006 - 09:27:52 ET
All photos were taken by Joe DeCaria. 
 The weather forecast is not looking good for flying this weekend. My booking was canceled for today because they needed to repair the plane I booked.
Comments (1) | Permalink | Category: Training
Monday, July 17, 2006 - 12:43:17 ET
This past lesson was the last one on diversions. We did three diversions all by my self. I took care of everything including the radios. I wish I had brought my GPS so that I could later review how well my calculations were. My lesson yesterday was canceled because of the TAF. It was calling for winds gusting the 30KTs. My next lesson (which may or may not be today depending on the weather) will be dealing with landing at an uncontrolled aerodrome. I need to review the procedures today sometime. I hope that we actually get to land on a grass strip so I can actually put to use my soft field landing. Comments (2) | Permalink | Category: Training
Friday, July 14, 2006 - 22:19:11 ET
I spent 1.3 hours today in the training area practicing steep turns and a couple of stalls. I can execute a steep turn flawlessly 95% of the time. Todays flight went really well, it was quiet. I was in SMB which I know not to take the next time on these really hot days. Even though the cabin heat is turned all the way off, there still seems to be a small leak and I could feel warm air seeping in. I have a lesson booked tomorrow with my FI at 12pm. I just hope I beat the weather. It's supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow morning. Lets hope it's good enough to fly by 12. I'm not quite sure what we are going to do, however, I'm going to do some review before the lesson: - Diversions (need to write a cheat sheet of the items I need to keep track of during a diversion) If there is enough time with tomorrows lesson I'm going to ask my FI if we can do two stalls together. If there is still some time left over, a spiral and spin recovery too. Just to keep them fresh in my mind. My scanner can pick up Toronto City Centre tower and ground perfectly from my living room. I decided to take a bike ride down to the island (it was about 5 minutes away). I took a quick picture of the tower in the fading sunlight.  Comments (4) | Permalink | Category: Training
Thursday, July 13, 2006 - 12:26:16 ET
One of the legs I have on my plan is from CYKZ->YEE. I decided to mark my set heading point as "Newmarket". My flight plan therefore is: DCT Newmarket DCT YEE DCT .... (yes, I know I can omit the DCT) I was looking through the CFS and noted that there was an official ident for "Newmarket"; it's VCNMT (I think). Would I be able to file my plan like: DCT VCNMT DCT YEE DCT ... Will the FSS guy know what I'm talking about if I use a VFR Reporting point ident as an item on my flight plan? Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Training
Thursday, July 13, 2006 - 12:19:46 ET
My navigation class last night was excellent. Last weeks class was canceled so it was nice to get back into things. We learned how to fill out a NavCanada flight plan and went over how to make en route observations and apply them to the course correction techniques (double angle, etc..) we learned earlier. I need to spend a few hours planning some sample trips that were given (the same ones that you can choose from for the PPL exam). I want to be able to whip up these plans without having to spend three hours on each leg ;) A classmate got his PPL this past week. He is going to head up north to Muskoka to get his float rating and start his Commercial training on the floats. So congrats to him! I want to get my PPL by the end of summer and ideally my night raiting before November. I haven't been flying in a while and I'm anxious to get up. I have a solo booking for tomorrow evening. The forecast is showing 30°C (without the humidex) and I have a feeling I wont be able to go because of the weather. Saturday and Sunday are not looking promising either (too hot). Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Training
Monday, July 10, 2006 - 15:48:01 ET
Got this email from John Davis at Toronto Airways: At approximately 1:30 pm today a violent Microburst went through the Buttonville Municipal Airport. Some damage was incurred on a few aircraft tied down on the field. We have decided for the safety of our cutsomers to inspect each and every aircraft whether or not it appears to be damaged. Aircraft will be released for training/rental as their inspections are completed. Please be patient as this will take some time for our staff to complete the necessary inspections. To help speed the process up we are bringing in maintenance staff from our school in Oshawa as well. I hope it isn't anything too serious... Just got this email from the Buttonville Flying Club:
The Toronto Star has an article about some of the damage.  Credit: KEVIN OMURA/TORONTO STAR The Toronto Sun just published a small story about the storm/damage. Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things
Monday, July 10, 2006 - 11:00:23 ET
I've been looking for this video for quite a while. The author finally posted it on his site. He produced the video for his daughter so that she could see what he does when he goes to work. It has some good behind the scenes stuff at the airline he works for. Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things
Monday, July 10, 2006 - 10:46:23 ET
Saturday was a perfect day for flying. Not a cloud in the sky and not to warm. I headed down to the school to begin the paper work needed. I forgot to bring my updated CFS... d'oh! So I couldn't go flying. The CFS is a "yellow pages" of airports. It lists all of the important information about all of the public airports in Canada. It is updated every 56 days (or so) and a valid one must be carried on board at all times. I originally went to Aviation World to pick up a copy - they were sold out. So I got one from the Prop Shop at Buttonville. I order to prevent this in the future, I've decided to get a subscription to the CFS directly from Nav Canada. There are two ways you can get one. Either print out the form and fax/mail it to Nav Canada. Or give them a call (1-866-731-7827). I decided to give them a call as I found their form a little confusing (you have to calculate the taxes and shipping charges your self). It literally took me only three minutes on the phone with Nav Canada to get a subscription set up. The cost? $130/yr (works out to be $18.57 per issue.. which is significantly cheaper than getting it in stores). If only they could do the same for VFR charts. The weather on Sunday was no good for flying solo. Winds were gusting to 15KTs. I have another booking today, but with the rain, I don't think I will be going. Comments (3) | Permalink | Category: Training
Friday, July 7, 2006 - 11:01:30 ET
Flying yesterday went spectacularly, especially for a three hour lesson! My FI and I did a ground brief for an hour on diversions. We decided to see if there was a plane available for 7pm - there was! So we headed up to practice what we talked about. It was a beautiful evening. Smooth as a baby's bum, and only a few tiny clouds. The sunset really was amazing. I can see why a lot of people say getting your night rating is so awesome. The exercise went extremely well. We did three diversions. The first one was from Claremont to Sunderland. My FI flew the plane while I planned everything. You have to figure out the following info as part of your diversion.. all the while flying over your starting point. - Time There are a few rules of thumb you can use to figure out time and distance. Before we started our flight we figured out how "long" my thumb is in nautical miles (it happens to be 9nm on a VNC). So after I marked the track on the map I measured it with my thumb. Then using the "rule of thirds" I calculated how long it would take to fly the track. At 90KIAS you travel 1.5nm / min... which works out to be 6 min for each "thumb-length". Convenient for me... In order to calculate your MEF, take a look at the MEF figure for the quadrangle where your track is in (on the map). That figure is the highest point in the quadrangle. Just add 1000' for your MOCA. As long as your altitude is above the MOCA, then you wont fly into any terrain. This was the easiest diversion. The next one my FI reduced our altitude (so you can see less) and made me do all the work and fly the plane at the same time. It's important that you don't keep your head down too long, do something then peek outside. having the plane trimmed is extremely important here. This diversion was from Sunderland to Zephyr. We passed right over the Simcoe VOR.  What a VOR looks like from above (thanks to Google Earth) The last one was from Zephyr to Newmarket... This was the worst of them all. I must have miscalculated the wind direction for my heading and was off by quite a bit. The good thing though is that the visibility was good enough that I could just visually alter course. By this point in the flight the sun was low enough that some of the street lights on the ground were on. Bright up at 3000 feet, not so on the ground. The light level was annoying enough to be too dark with my sunglasses on, but too bright with them off. My FI wanted me to do a soft field with obstacle landing. Once again I just skimmed the top of the "imaginary" trees. Next solo lesson I'm going to practice some obstacle landings before heading to the north for some air work practice. Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Training
Tuesday, July 4, 2006 - 10:44:10 ET
I came across some videos on YouTube of various WestJet Goodies. Someone put a montage together with U2's Beautiful Day of various goings on at WestJet. A more "exciting" video is one of when WestJet retired their 737-200 earlier this year. The video shows the plane doing some low passes at Calgary International and getting its "farewell shower". An interesting 9 minute video (slide show really) walks you through the career of a pilot from first job in 1993, to his current job today at WestJet. I'm going to be putting up a new post later tonight outlining my lesson on Saturady and the one I have tonight. Comments (1) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things
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Flying at last! 
