I was chatting to one of my friends from Australia about the PPL test I had written on Friday. One of the questions I had got wrong was “No person shall drop anything from an aircraft in flight” (or similar).

Here is the conversation we had:

Me: I said you’re not allowed to drop anything from the airplane

Me: but the correct answer is “… as long as it does not damage property or persons”

Andrew: wtf

Andrew: so, we could say, drop leaflets from a small plane over a suburb …

I wrote my PPL exam Friday morning and passed with flying colours. If you ever decide to take the test at the Ontario/Toronto Transport Canada office here are some time saving tips:

1. Head to the TC office on the 4th floor first, tell reception that you want to write the PPL test. She will fill out a form and tell you to head to the 3rd floor office.

2. Head to the 3rd floor, pay your $105. You will get a receipt.

3. Head back up to the 4th floor and show …

Spoke to my FI today to work out plans for the next week or so.

Weather today prevented any flying.. at the windsock the winds were gusting to 22 knots and even at 3000′ the FD was showing 30knots wind. Not to mention the ceiling was low.

Annnnyyyways…

I’m going to write my PPL written Friday morning before I head to Ottawa for the weekend. I called the nearest Transport Canada office and they told me I can come in as early as 8am and no later than 12:30pm. I suspect it wont …

I haven’t been flying in over a week. It’s been a good break since I had a lot of things to take care of (I’m now a proud owner of my first mortgage).

This weekend has been a good opportunity to do some more studying. I’ve been mainly focusing on Instrument Procedure stuff. Mainly holds. I discovered that in Canada we call it an off-set entry, but in the states they call it a teardrop entry.

Anyways. I’m ready for my flight test, both written and practical. The weather tomorrow looks like …

I wont be flying at all this week and my flight on Sunday was canceled because of poor weather. So this means that it’s study week.

I have a mid-term in my Basic Aircraft Systems class on Thursday. Plus I need to get ready for the pre-flight test with my FI on Monday. I want to nail it down and get my licence as soon as possible.

I’m planning on attending this month’s Transport Canada safety seminar. Check out this gripping introduction

Do you fly in/around/through/over the Greater Toronto Area? …

Last nights class was interesting. We had some extra time left over so the teacher pulled out his training CD-ROMs for the 747-400 and we went through the hydraulic and landing gear systems.

The first thing that I noticed was the “user interface” with the plane systems. It was a mix of digital (EICAS) and analog (solenoid and magnetic switches). The layouts of the switches make sense if you know what to look for.

There are two EICAS systems. Both run on CRTs and are named Primary and Secondary. The image on …

I originally was going to go on a cross country flight on Sunday… but decided against it in favour of some practice instead.

I headed out the Claremont training area to practice some forced approaches. This area is better than the north (cooks bay/Keswick) because it has more fields to choose from (and it’s not close to Greenbank airport).

Everything was going dandy until I decided to head back to the airport. There are a set of train tracks that run right through Claremont and go through Markham. I normally follow the …

I know I should be studying … but I have having a hard time trying to find motivation on a Friday night.

The weather looks like it is going to hold up for my x-country on Sunday. If this high pressure system stays over Ontario for the entire day it will be a great smooth fall day for flying. I’m going to bring along my camera this time.

I just noticed a new “product” from Nav Canada. It’s called the Local Graphic Forecast (LGF) and is currently only available for the west …

The weather couldn’t have been more perfect for flying this morning. The sky was mostly clear and the air was smooooooooooth. Wind was calm.

Today was a solo flight to practice some air work (stalls, steep turns, forced and precautionary landings) to bring them inside flight test tolerances. I was having to major issues:

1. With my stalls I keep on getting the stall horn again on recovery. This is bad because it could indicate a potential secondary stall – which is a fail. This would happen with all the different kind …