Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 14:05:48 ET

Night X-Country to Peterborough

I went on a x-country flight to Peterborough and back with my friend Mark last night. Overall the flight went well. I always love flying at night because its much quieter and it's much easier to see other traffic.

The flight was pretty uneventful until we got to Peterborough. I always call up Unicom first, even though the CFS says its unavailable at the time. Who knows, someone could be there. There was nobody.

I dialed in the AWS frequency. This was the first time I had ever listened to an AWS before. I wish I had a recoding of the voice synthesizer, it was tooo funny. It wasn't your typical text to speech voice. This one had attitude.

The winds were coming 250°, so runway 27 is in order.

Called up Peterborough traffic and another airplane was practicing the NDB approach for 09. We both said hello, confirmed we had each other in sight and continued on our ways. I called my downwind, base, and was just about to call final when the other aircraft came on saying he saw us turning for final and would continue he approach south of the field so that I can do my touch and go.

This is one of those situations where as a VFR pilot, I understood what the IFR pilot was practicing, but I couldn't figure out the timing as to when he would be on final for 09. I was glad (and thanked him) that he allowed me to do my t&g even though he was there first.

Being the first night landing in almost 1.5 months, it was too flat. Didn't flare enough.

The way back was via YTZ (The city) to give a little city tour to Mark. Did a couple of orbits around the CN Tower. Neither of us had our camera, which is a pity since with the CN Tower, Rogers Centre, City Hall, and Dundas Square all light up. He used his phone to take a few shots, which naturally are of substandard quality.

On the way back I made, what I consider, to be a "medium" sized mistake. The active runway was 33, however I was setting my self up for runway 15, thinking that it was 33. I had just entered a right downwind for 15 when I realized my mistake. Thats when the controller asked me confirming I had the airport in sight.

I have edited the liveatc.net archive clip to include only my communication (and edited out dead air). It wasn't until I listened to the clip did I realize I made another mistake.

Did a 180 turn directly to a left base for 33. This time my landing was the opposite. I flared too soon and landed a little hard. Didn't add a little throttle when I should have.

The controller wanted me to report 3 miles south at 2000'. However I reported 3 miles south at 1700' (circuit height is 1650'). Does this constitute a violation of an altitude restriction? I know why he said 2000', thats because of the class C airspace above Buttonville, which starts at 2000'. So the fact that I was lower, was probably better, than being higher.

In other news, the school got a brand new 172S (C-GJMD) with a Garmin G1000 glass cockpit. The school is offering a transition training course for $40 on April 6 from 9am-4pm. Those attending the course will have their valid currency extended. As well, a limited time 5% discount on all rental and dual flights on GJMD for those who are transitioning to fly that specific aircraft.

I have been reading Aviation Mentor for a while now. He is an avid user of the G1000 and offers quite a few tips about the system. I'm hoping that will give me a little bit of a heads up during the "ground school".

I'm also excited to get into the new aircraft and fly a glass cockpit for the first time. Of course, I'll blog about it here.

One other thing I wanted to mention: I noticed that the controllers are starting to append the aircraft type to your call sign on initial contact. They never did that before.

Comments (4) | Permalink | Category: Training

Tuesday, March 18, 2008 - 11:08:42 ET

Number Crunching

I haven't been doing a lot of flying over the winter months. I know because for the first time ever I have been battling to keep my rental currency (which expires every 30 days).

I decided to crunch some numbers in my log book and came up with this graph which shows monthly flight hours per year.

2007 As a whole was a lower year for flying with the exception of October and December, where I had done more flying than in 2006 in those months.

Looking at the graph, I now understand why I think that this winter was the worst winter ever for flying. It's because last month (Feb 2008) was the lowest month ever for flight time.

Here is the same data presented in a "radar graph". It's merely here to illustrate that I do most of my flying in the summer months.

I hope that I can shatter all previous months records starting this summer. Must.. get... that... commercial license!

Comments (1) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Friday, March 14, 2008 - 14:57:11 ET

Pesky Flies

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Friday, March 14, 2008 - 10:38:26 ET

Approved ELTs

Transport Canada has added a list of approved ELTs to their website.

http://www.tc.gc.ca/CivilAviation/certification/elt.htm

Keep in mind though, ELTs that are certified to Airworthyness Standard TSO-C91a will not longer be valid as Transport Canada has mandated that ELTs transmit on 406Mhz. I'm unsure when that requirement takes effect.

CAR 605.38 has more details.

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 21:42:55 ET

Calculating G-Forces in a Turn

A while back I posed the question "Does an airplane in 45° bank experience more G forces than a slower one?"

The quick answer: No. The G forces (or load factor) on the aircraft does not change based on the speed you are flying.

The equation to calculate load factor (n) is as follows:

Where Theta is the angle of bank.

Since the angle of bank determines the load factor and not speed, a faster aircraft at 45° will experience the same load factor of a slower aircraft at the same angle of bank.

The only thing that is different is the radius of the turn. A faster moving aircraft will have a larger turn radius at the same angle of bank than a slower aircraft.

In all instances we're talking about true air speed (TAS).

So lets use two aircraft. A Cessna 172, and a Piper Seminole. Both are excecuting a 45° bank turn. The 172 at 90KTAS and the Seminole at 130KTAS:

Cessna:

Seminole:

This is important information to know, especially if you are flying in canyons or other places with limited area to maneuver. If you need to turn 180° in the smallest amount of distance, its best to slow down before executing the turn (see comments).

Don't forget! Your stall speed increases as the angle of bank increases.

I was never good at math, so please correct me if iIm wrong. The formula states "velocity" and not speed. So I'm unsure if I can use KTAS or if I need to convert that into feet per second.

Oh and where did I get 11.29? See the bottom of this page.

Comments (6) | Permalink | Category: Aerodynamics

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 - 14:33:03 ET

Go Red Sox!

A few lighthearted clips to get you through 'humpday'. (All courtesy of liveatc.net).

Hats Off to JFK - A pilot reports a hat on the taxiway... it turns out to be a Red Sox baseball cap.

I Have Information Blue - A pilot forgot the phonetic alphabet for the letter "Y" - he ended up using "yellow". The controller plays along...

I will be in the Seminole on Saturday if the weather co-operates.

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Monday, March 10, 2008 - 23:09:35 ET

Line Up and Wait

Last week I was in Boston. I flew out of Buffalo because it was a signifigant cost savings over flying out of the most expensive airport in the world.

After a nice three days of relaxing, we were waiting for our return flight at the airport. I was keeping a close eye on the US Airways website for the flight status, and ADDS. I hit reload on the website and it told me that the flight was canceled! I took a look at the METAR for KBUF and saw this:

KBUF 072002Z 02011KT 1/4SM R23/1800V2400FT SN FZFG BKN005 OVC011 M02/M03 A3007 RMK AO2 P0001

Can anyone tell me why, based on the METAR alone, the flight was canceled? Assume the airport is open. :)

In anycase, I ended up renting a car with two college students trying to get back to Buffalo for "spring break". I did all the driving :) They paid for half the car and gas.

I didn't go flying this weekend because I was busy doing this on both Saturday and Sunday:

This was the latest communique from the CFI at Toronto Airways:

Efective April 10, 2008 Air Traffic Contol will be changing some instruction phraseology to be more in line with ICAO standards. These changes will be reflected in the next update of the AIM manual. The term " TAXI TO POSITION" or "TAXI TO POSITION AND WAIT" will no longer be used. The new terms replacing this are: "LINE UP" or "LINE UP AND WAIT" This is not a takeoff clearance but only an instruction to line up on the runway and wait for a takeoff clearance.

AIC 9/08 Outlines all of the details, including a cool chart that shows the different (proposed) phraseology between ICAO, Canada, and the United States:

AIC 8/08 outlines some new phraseology that will help avoid confusion amongst similar call signs. In essence, ATC might state the "radiotelephony designator" after a similar call sign. For example, say there are two flights Westjet 813, and Jazz 8813. ATC will start calling you like this:

"westjet eight one three westjet"
or
"jazz eight eight one three jazz"

They do have another option as well, that is to use the civil registration for the aircraft with similar flight numbers. Especially if it is the same company. For example Jazz 318 and Jazz 818 might be:

"jazz eight one eight"
and
"jazz november delta"

There are a lot more goodies in the recent AICs that have been published that I urge you to check out. Including OCAS (Obstacle Collision Avoidance System) whereby a series of lights and even radio transmissions are automatically activated when an aircraft gets too close to an obstacle.

There is also information about new codes you might see in a TAF.

I really wish they would "push" this information to you, either via regular mail, or electronically using an RSS feed or better yet, an email.

Comments (9) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Saturday, March 8, 2008 - 18:08:58 ET

I'm Back

I'm Back in town from Boston, my flight was canceled so we ended up driving home in a rented car.

There are some changes with ATC phraseology coming in April.

All this and more, in a post tomorrow, stay tuned...

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Site News

Monday, March 3, 2008 - 14:38:13 ET

Out of Town

I will be out of town (in Boston) for the next week. I wasn't able to fly this past weekend due to poor weather.

In the meantime, check out this post at Sullako's Blog of a crazy crosswind landing attempt. Ouch!

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Site News