Monday, October 30, 2006 - 20:53:50 ET

Crazy Scenarios and Loopholes

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 ;)
Me: lol
Me: yeah
Me: let me dig up the regulation
Andrew: thats crazy
Me: 602.23 No person shall create a hazard to persons or property on the surface by dropping an object from an aircraft in flight.
Andrew: so its ok to say, dump a body into the ocean from a plane? since that won't hurt property
Andrew: interesting
Me: hmm.. I guess
Me: but wait.. there is a "persons clause"
Me: 602.25 (1) No person shall enter or leave an aircraft in flight except with the permission of the pilot-in-command of the aircraft.
Me: (2) No pilot-in-command of an aircraft shall permit a person to enter or leave the aircraft during flight unless
Me: it doesn't indicate if the person is alive or not ;)
Me: and I guess if you are the PIC, and you are the one dumping the body, then yes. you can.
Andrew: heheh
Andrew: what about firing weapons from planes? ;)
Me: hmm
Me: Munitions of War
Me: 606.01 No person shall carry weapons, ammunition or other equipment designed for use in war on board an aircraft unless the aircraft is a Canadian aircraft or the Minister has authorized the carriage of such equipment.
Me: so I guess if its not for war... then you're alright ;)
Andrew: heheh
Andrew: oh well

So I was wondering if anyone has ever pondered any other "loopholes" with regards to the CARs. I'm sure that there are employers out there that would take advantage of such in order to maximize profits.

Comments (2) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Sunday, October 29, 2006 - 22:36:35 ET

PPL Written: Done!

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 your recepit to the receptionist and she will get you going.

All you are allowed to bring is:

- Pencil/Pen
- E6B (or electronic version)
- Protractor and Rulers

They will provide the proper VNC for your exam (mine was for Edmonton) and a dry erase marker to do your work on the laminated VNC. They will also provide the scrap paper.

I was able to complete the test in about 1 hour 45 minutes. You do have three hours. You can write the test as early as 8am or as late as 12:30.

I was the first to arrive, but 3 or 4 people trickled into the testing area as time went on. So don't expect a totally quiet environment to do your test.

I picked up a copy of MS Flight Sim X this weekend while I was in Ottawa. It's installing as I write this. It will be a good study aid when it comes to practicing some instrument procedures and figuring out the GPS. Hopefully my laptop can handle this beast. It comes on two DVDs and needs at least 15GB of hard drive space. Man.. I remember when my favorite game used to come on 6 floppies.

The only thing left on my to-do list before getting my PPL is:

- Long X-Country
- Review Flight
- Pre-PPL Test Flight
- PPL Checkride

(Is "checkride" the proper term for the actual PPL flying exam?)

Comments (2) | Permalink | Category: Training

Monday, October 23, 2006 - 20:02:12 ET

This is a non smoking flight

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 take me more than 2 hours to write it.

My next flight is booked for Wednesday. If this goes all right then it's on to the supervisory flight and then the exam! w00t.

I was just going over the passenger briefing requirements and does anyone else think that telling people there is no smoking on a Cessna 172 funny?

Comments (5) | Permalink | Category: Training

Sunday, October 22, 2006 - 14:35:28 ET

Break over!

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 crap so I adjusted my lesson to be a ground briefing. My FI will be able to give me the written "approval" to write the written test. I also have a few flight planning questions to go over too.

I realized today that I need to write my entries in my logbook in pen, not pencil. So I'm going to spend sometime today re-writing almost a years worth of flying in pen. Boourns.

Although my original plan to get my licence at the end of September has come and go, I can see my new goal being before December. I still need to do my long x-country as well. The weather this fall has been uncharacteristically wet.

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Training

Monday, October 16, 2006 - 10:21:35 ET

Pending Changes...

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? Are you aware of the types of airspace you are operating in? Do you know what the correct procedures are that you should follow when you do so? What services can you expect from air traffic control (based on the type of flight you are)? What can you do to help NAV CANADA ensure that there is a smooth, orderly, safe and efficient traffic flow in and around the GTA? What are some of the problems that NAV CANADA experiences with the mix of aircraft types, speeds and altitudes that they manage? Come and find out!

It will be the first TC seminar so I don't know what to expect. It is 2.5 hours though, so I'm assuming its full of good information.

Word on the street is that TC/Nav Canada wants to change the airspace around the GTA. It seems that the pressure is coming from WestJet to eliminate the class E airspace around Toronto. Their fear is that non-transponder aircraft (mainly gliders) operate in this airspace and a collision can occur.

What NavCanada has decided to do is eliminate this class E airspace (make it class C?) in four "wedges" extending 65nm from Pearson.

Here's the problem: NavCanada has indicated that they don't have enough controllers to handle that airspace. Because the airspace will be designated class C, users (with transponders) will require clearance to enter. They will most likely get denied due to controller workload. Therefore a large area of southern Ontario will be unusable by general aviation.

This will take effect in May 2007. In other words, in certain areas (inside those wedges) you will need a transponder to fly in between 6500' and 12500'. If you have one, you will need clearance to enter first (which may not happen due to controller workload). This can pose a problem for skydivers, general aviation on cross country trips, and gliders.

I would love to be able to show you the changes, however Google Earth is not playing nice today.

Transport Canada is also changing the licence format. Currently a pilot licence is valid indefinitely and is just a piece of paper with your name on it. No photo, magnetic stripe or "security features". This is going to change in 2007.

The new format is more like a passport. With pages, a photo, and a 5 year validity period. This new format will allow you to keep all of your ratings, documents (like your medical and radio licence) in one place. No need to carry 3 or more papers around. COPA has more information on this change.

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Friday, October 13, 2006 - 11:27:06 ET

First Impressions...

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 the left is the hydraulic system as you would see it on the Secondary EICAS display. You can see the status of the auxiliary pump (on system 4) and the engine driven pumps (EDPs). Quantity, temperature, and pressure are also displayed.

The logic of which error message to display when has definitely gone through a lot of thought. If, for example, a low hydraulic pressure message is displayed, but then later on the entire hydraulic system fails (say in system 4) then that message will take precedence. The Primary EICAS only displays the most important message to the pilot.

The second way of interfacing with the pilot is by analog switches. These switches are magnetically controlled so that they can be "reset" by the airplane automatically. An example of this would be the "auto brake" switch.

The switch contains 6 settings: RTO, Off, Armed, 1, 2, 3, 4. RTO is the "rejected take-off mode", Armed means that the system is on, but not selected to any setting. The numbers represent the deceleration speed selected. The deceleration (from memory) is from 4 feet/s² all the way up to 11 feet/s².

Let's say for example the pilot has set the auto land to setting 2. The plane lands but is not stopping quick enough and the pilot applies the brakes manually. This causes the auto land system to disengage and the switch will automatically flip to the "armed" setting.

It seems that Boeing is caught between the "old way" and the new digital way of doing things. I'm curious to see how Airbus handles the same situations.

Comments (1) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 15:53:39 ET

Where's That Landmark?

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 tracks back to Markham, pick up the Markham water tower , then head back to the airport.

Follow along on the map.

As I was following the tracks back I saw a town that I thought was Markham (Marker 1) and decided to turn towards it. After a while I consulted the map and discovered it was Stouffville so altered my course back towards Markham. I intercepted the tracks and started following them south west again.

I still couldn't find the water tower so I decided to start circling (Marker 2) to see if I can find it. By this point I was at 2000' to ensure that I was under Pearsons class C. The last thing I wanted to do was bust through into controlled airspace.

It only took me one revolution before I heard on the radio a plane call up Buttonville tower saying that they were over the Markham water tower. I spotted them about a mile and a half to my right and decided to follow them in (Marker 3). About 10 seconds later, I saw the water tower.

My problem wasn't that I was lost... Technically I knew where I was. The problem was that I couldn't' find where one of the reporting points was in order to let Buttonville know where I was. If worst comes to worst I could have asked for a VDF steer.

How would you have handled this situation? Leave a comment.

Comments (3) | Permalink | Category: Training

Friday, October 6, 2006 - 23:01:56 ET

Study, On a Friday Night?

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 coast. From what I can gather, it's similar to a GFA however it is much more localized. I'm assuming they are going to roll it out Canada wide. At least I hope they do. The more tools we have at our disposal (especially when it comes to weather) the better.

I am a real big fan of a show called Mayday that appears irregularly on the Discovery Channel. It is an excellent documentary show about the factors involved in an air disaster. The format usually starts with an reenactment of the disaster with the first half being a detailed account of what happened and the last half showing you the investigation process and how they discovered what went wrong.

The show does a investigates a lot of accidents that we studied in our human factors class. Including:

The Tenerife Disaster
Aloha Airlines Flight 243
Air Transat Flight 236
British Airways Flight 5390

If you have a chance to catch the show, I highly recommend it. It usually airs on the Discovery Channel Saturdays at 2pm.

I really wish they made a windows binary of fplan.

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Training

Monday, October 2, 2006 - 13:56:35 ET

Practice Makes Perfect!

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 of stalls (power-on or with flaps). It never happened before but I started doing it a few weeks ago.

2. Steep turns, I keep on forgetting to add a little power to keep the speed up. Must keep my head out of the cockpit too.

I'm pretty confident now that I have both those problems in check.. I will see with my next lesson.

I was having huge issues with my radio this morning though. I was able to taxi onto the runway when the controller was like "did you want to taxi back to the apron to fix your radio problem?". I decided it was a good idea to head back to figure out what was going wrong.

There are two radios in the plane. An "original" Cessna radio and a "new" Bendix/King KLX 135A radio. The "new" radio has a digital display and a built in GPS. It was the "new" radio that was misbehaving. It would continue to transmit even after I've un-keyed the mic.

The radio has a great feature in that it shows you when you are receiving or transmitting by showing a "R" or "T respectively. If you are transmitting for an extended period of time the words "STUCK MIKE" flash on the screen. This is what was happening even though my push to talk button was not stuck. Switching to COM1 (the "original" radio) worked without any problems.

You can see the radio stack in this photo that a took a while ago. The "original" radio has 127.1 tuned in and the "new" radio has 121.8 tuned in.

On my way out I asked the dispatcher how I did on the mock TC written exam that I wrote on Saturday. She said I got 80%. I just need to get my FI to go over the questions I got wrong and then I can write the real TC exam. Hopefully I can do that sometime this week.

Comments (2) | Permalink | Category: Training