Friday, July 27, 2007 - 16:43:12 ET

Book Review: "From the Flight Deck: Plane Talk and Sky Science"

Title: From the Flight Deck: Plane Talk and Sky Science
Author: Doug Morris
ISBN: 1550227653
Size: 184 Pages

Rating: 3 out of 5.

The author uses a fictional flight from Toronto to Hong Kong to demonstrate and explain some of the common questions about commercial flying. Most of the information in the book is pretty basic that most private pilots (such as my self) would already know. The books audience is tailored to the infrequent flyer.

The title of the book is a little misleading, there is hardly any science at all, if not none. Most of the information is anecdotal with simple (but sometimes impressive) facts peppered throughout the text.

That said, I still enjoyed reading the book. Some of the jokes and stories the author presents are entertaining. Here is a sample of one of my favorites:

"Apparently even Santa Clause could not escape the required flight test with a Transport Canada flight inspector...He knew the inspector would examine all his equipment and truly put Santa's flying skill to the test. The examiner walked slowly around the sled. He checked the reindeer harness, the landing gear and even Rudolphs nose. He painstakingly reviews Santa's weight and balance calculations for the sled's enormous payload. Finally they were ready for the check ride. Santa got in and fastened his seatbelt...and checked his compass. Then the examiner hopped in carrying, to Santa's surprise, a shotgun.

"Whats that for?" Santa asked in disbelief.

The examiner winked and said: "I'm not supposed to tell you this ahead of time", then he leaned over to whisper in Santa's ear, "but you're gonna lose an engine on takeoff".

The author is a pilot for Air Canada, so all the facts and figures deal with their fleet. Some of the figures he quotes are astounding (The amount of fuel Air Canada purchased last year: 3.8 billion liters) and add to the interest of the text.

I will be recommending this book to a friend of mine who is scared of flying.

Comments (2) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - 13:03:03 ET

Cool Pics from News46

I was bored last night and decided to type in "YKZ" into flickr to see what popped up. Amongst the photos of some event someplace, I found a nice picture of the new tower at Buttonville.

I decided take a look at the other photos from the same user and was impressed. From what I can tell he is probably the pilot or crew that works in the CTV Helicopter that I see buzzing around all over the place. With a name like News46, I can only assume.

New Tower at Buttonville

City Centre Airport and Toronto Skyline

Landing Runway 21

I suggest you check out the rest of his photos on Flickr.

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Wednesday, July 18, 2007 - 08:52:49 ET

How Do You Keep It?

So you've worked your butt off (and took out a second mortgage on your home) to get your pilot licence. Now that you have it, how do you keep it?

A lot of people ask me how long the licence is valid for. I usually give them the simple "forever" answer - which is not entirely true.

CAR 401.05 has all the details about Recency Requirements for your PPL (you can also see a "plain language" version at the AIM). I have distilled them below:

In order to keep your licence you have to satisfy three time based requirements: 6 months, 2 years, and 5 years.

At a bare minimum, to keep your licence, you would have to:

- Acted as PIC in the past 5 years
- Completed the self-paced study program in the past 2 years
- Performed 5 take-offs and landings in the past 6 months.

I personally think just doing the self-paced study program is not enough. I plan on attending at least 3 aviation safety seminars a year. As well, spending some time with an instructor every 24 months to go over some of the less used exercises (like forced approaches, stalls, etc..) to keep them fresh in my mind.

You don't want to end up in a situation where you forget how to exit out of a spiral dive.

Comments (5) | Permalink | Category: Training

Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - 22:07:06 ET

Instruments and Avionics Presentation

A few classmates wanted a copy of my presentation on ILS.

You can download the power point presentation here.

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Training

Thursday, July 5, 2007 - 00:07:55 ET

How I Did

First of all, I would like to thank everyone (again) that wished me good luck and congratulated me on passing.

I received a comment from someone named "kkjlai" who wanted to know more about the exam. So this post is all about that.

The weather was good. Visibility was alright, although at some times there really was no defined horizon (especially to the south). It was bumpy however, plenty of thermals. The exam took a total of 4 hours, which included pre-flight stuff, actual air work, and a debriefing.

Take a look at the Pilot Examiner Manual for PPL on how the examiner is going to administer the test. Be sure to ask any questions if you are unsure as to what the examiner is asking you to do. As well, check the Flight Test Guide (Private) for the criteria the examiner will be marking you on.

In the majority of the cases during my exam, stupid little mistakes cost me a perfect mark. Things like using the current METAR for flight planning instead of the forecast weather for the time of the flight. During the soft field take-off, holding in position on the runway at the request of ATC instead of declining and asking for a take-off on the roll.

Make sure you take your time and be prepared to answer scenario type questions.

As one of my teachers used to say: "It doesn't matter what your mark is, as long as you pass"...

(A passing mark on the Private is 64. On the commercial it is 93. I got 95 on this exam.

Comments (3) | Permalink | Category: Training

Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - 21:42:25 ET

All Done!

Thanks to everyone that wished me luck on my check ride today. I passed!

Just have to take care of some paper work with my FI tomorrow. This includes syncing up my paper log book with my PTR. Pain in the butt.

It was a bumpy day, but that didn't stop me from doing well with all of the exercises. The debriefing with the FTE pointed out some areas I need to work on. All in all though, everything went well.

So whats next?

I'm going to be working on getting my night rating, which, if the weather holds (it's been great so far this summer) should only take me a month or so to get.

Then it's on to the multi-ifr rating. This is what I'm looking forward to the most.

Comments (6) | Permalink | Category: Training

Monday, July 2, 2007 - 21:25:16 ET

PPL Test Tomorrow!

The weather tomorrow is looking good for my PPL test.

I spent some time today with my FI reviewing a couple of items and I'm going to study some ground items tonight.

Hopefully I will get some sleep tonight, and be refreshed for the exam tomorrow.

With the new tower the ATIS information is now automated. By that, I mean a computerized voice reads out the ATIS information really, really, slowly. Previously the controllers had to record the AITS message and would usually do so at a decent pace.

I have the rest of the week off work, and as such, also have a plane booked each day this week. If all goes well tomorrow, I will probably end up canceling the bookings. As well, there will be a slew of new solo bookings as I have a list of people who want to come up for a ride.

I just need to find a decent cheap used headset for my passengers...

Comments (5) | Permalink | Category: Training