Thursday, June 26, 2008 - 20:51:57 ET

Airline Observations by George Carlin

If you havn't seen this bit yet, watch it. Extremely funny.

Contains some strong language.

Comments (1) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Wednesday, June 25, 2008 - 22:36:17 ET

X-Country Flight Conundrum Pt. 2

I first started planning/worrying about my 300nm X-Country flight last September.

My original plan was to make the trip to Sherbrooke (CYSC), which is 341nm from Buttonville. My reasoning was as follows:

1. I get to overfly my (now ex) cottage near Magog, Quebec.
2. I get to fly in some American airspace.
3. Get some experience dealing with the French radio calls (I can speak French fluently).

I've started re-evaluating my decision based on the following:

1. I'm more confident with my flying now, so why not make the trip to the US?
2. To recoup some costs, why not share this flight with someone else who has to do the same?

So, consider this an open invitation to any pilot out there who would like to share the costs of the 300nm CPL x-country trip with me. Here are some ground rules:

1. We must agree on the destination. I have compiled a list of the closest 25 American and Canadian airports. These have not been vetted for suitability.
2. I must meet you in person to go over the flight planing at least once before the flight.
3. The return leg will be flown by me, at night.
4. It will be in the Toronto Airways G1000 C172, so you must be current and checked out in that aircraft.
5. We are both responsible for checking each others weight and balance, and flight planning.
6. You are responsible for everything for your leg of the flight, flight plans (filing, opening, closing), weight and balance, ensuring the aircraft and documents are in order, etc.. I am merely a passenger while you are PIC and vise versa.
6. All costs related to flying (fuel, oil, rental, insurance) will be split 50%.
7. We are buying the TAL insurance deductible waiver ($10/hr.)
8. Flight can be any time during the week, but preferably on the weekend.
9. I will be bringing a passenger, you are welcome to do so as well, assuming weight and balance works.

I hope for this to be a fun and learning experience. If you do not yet have your night rating, but would love to experience night flying this will be a great opportunity as I will be flying the return leg at night.

Please email your interest to me by filling out the contact form. Ideally I would like to do this flight before October.

If I don't hear from any interested parties by August 1st, I will be doing the trip alone.

Comments (2) | Permalink | Category: Training

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 - 11:57:35 ET

IFR Flight Test Database

Aviatrix over at Cockpit Conversation has a great idea for IFR students.

She speculates states that most examiners have a set routing/plan when they give IFR rides to students or pilots whose IFR currency has lapsed.

Her idea is to set up a database of possible flights that you will be tested on so that you can be better prepared for the flight.

I encourage you to send along your most recent flight details to her so that she can start compiling her database (and so that I may use it when it comes time for my IFR ride).

On a similar note. A user at liveatc.net has compiled audio files of IFR clearances for students to practice with. Scoot on over there any check out the "audio clips" section in the forum.

For fun, listen to this IFR routing from JFK to Point Salinas Airport.

Comments (4) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Friday, June 20, 2008 - 14:16:32 ET

Stuck Mike: Enjoy the ride!

A stuck mike at JFK can be a serious thing. You're blocking a really busy frequency.

However, when everyone is stuck on the ground due to weather and you make a PA announcement over the ground frequency instead of in the cabin, well.. You're bound to get razzed.

The clip starts with a stuck mike. Intertwined in here is an aircraft with a potential engine fire.

I love it how everyone is keying their mikes while he's making the PA announcement.

Comments (7) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Thursday, June 19, 2008 - 23:03:12 ET

Timeline

I get asked quite a few questions about my training. So I decided to put together a time line that outlines specific milestones/events over the course of learning how to fly.

The time line extends into the future, with goals/plans for the future. You can access it from this link, or on the left of the website under "by the numbers".

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Training

Thursday, June 19, 2008 - 11:29:57 ET

YKZ Tower to open 1 hour later

This news is a little late. However, AIC 21/08 fills us in:

TORONTO/BUTTONVILLE, ONTARIO REDUCTION IN THE CONTROL TOWER HOURS OF OPERATIONS

NAV CANADA, the country's provider of civil air navigation services, recently conducted an aeronautical study that reviewed the hours of operation of the control tower at the Toronto/Buttonville airport.

Taking into consideration the complexity, level, and nature of operations, NAV CANADA concluded that reducing the hours of the control tower by one hour would not adversely affect the safety or efficiency of flight operations.

Currently the hours of operation for the control tower at the Toronto/Buttonville Airport are 0600h to 2300h local time. As a result of this study, the hours of operation will be amended to 0700h to 2300h local time.

This change will take effect 5 June 2008 at 09:01 Coordinated Universal Time. The appropriate aeronautical publications will be amended. For further information, please contact:

Marcel Pinon Manager, Level of Service & Aeronautical Studies – East NAV CANADA 77 Metcalfe Street Ottawa, ON K1P 5L6

Those tower guys deserve an extra hour of sleep ;)

Comments (3) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - 15:38:18 ET

Tax Tips for Pilots

I came across this post on avcanada.ca. I'm posting it here more as a "reminder" for me when it comes time to file my taxes as a full time pilot. I'm going to copy-and-paste it verbatim:

From http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=41875
Original Author: wallypilot
(spelling and links/html cleaned up a bit)

1.Did you have to move for your job? If yes, you can deduct moving expenses. The total goes into line 219.

2. Did you get paid per diems in your job? If no, you can claim up to $51 CDN per day in Canada, but you must have a signed form from your company. Use Form TL2 at the following link.

Also keep in mind that if you were paid per diems, but less than $51 per day, you can claim the difference up to $51 per day. For example, your employer pays $30 per diems. You work 200 days in the year. you can claim another $21 per day, or $4200. this then gets cut in half, and your claim will be $2100 entered in the employment expenses part of the income section of the T1. Note that the TL2 has to be signed by your employer. this verifies the amount of per diems they paid you. Same goes for if you were working to the US, claim $51 USD per day. Canada Revenue Agency has an average exchange rate for the year, and for 2007 it was 1.07478127 CAD per 1.0 USD. See this link for the rest of the main currencies. All amounts claimed must be converted to CAD.

3. You can deduct the cost of Charts, Approach Plates, Uniforms, Cost of your Medical Examination, License Fee, and even Headsets if you can get a note from your doctor saying that a headset is required to protect your hearing. (this shouldn't be a problem). all of these items get added up and entered as one total in the employment expenses section. (You need form T2200 signed by the employer saying charts, etc were necessary for performance of duties. But even if you can't get that, I would claim it anyways, as it's a pretty common claim by pilots, especially at smaller companies).

4. If you paid out a training bond, get a form from your employer stating that training costs(and the other costs above like charts, etc) were required for employment. Form T2200.

5. Northern living allowance if you live north of 60 degrees. T2222

6. Overseas Employment Tax Credit if you spent more than 6 CONSECUTIVE months working outside of Canada for a Canadian company. this is form T626. this also must be signed by the employer. This is potentially a huge tax credit. This does not have to be in one tax year, but if it crosses tax years, you can't claim the credit until you have surpassed 6 months working outside of Canada. Example: Start working in africa in october 2006. don't come home other than for vacation until April 2007. you can't claim this until you file for the 2007 tax year(which would be march 2008). What you do is go back and re-file your 2006 return with the T626 that you would have had your employer sign at the end of the 2007 tax year. So the credit saddles 2 tax years, but I have never had a problem refiling the previous year. they even pay you the interest on the money that they would have owed you after the 2006 tax year.

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - 12:52:52 ET

Day and Night

I was able to get in two x-country flights this week. The first flight was to Owen Sound.

During my flight planning, I noticed the NavCanada website was down. I thought to my self.. great, I'm going to be on hold for ever when I call up London FIC.

Had to wait maybe 10 seconds before I got a flight service specialist. I got a weather briefing, which included upper winds, and NOTAMs and started the planning process.

The FD for both Wiarton and Toronto were showing 25KT winds at the 3000' level and 6000' level. I ended up planning to fly at 6500' there and 5500' on the way back. Since it didn't really matter because the winds were just as strong at 3000' than they were at 6000'.

Flying into the sunset with Nottawasaga Bay to the north

As I climbed up to 6500' I can see my ground speed on the GPS dropping.. 90KT...85KT.. 70KT!! Brutal. Guess the upper winds were wrong! as the winds were clearly a lot slower at 3000'. I descended back down to 3500' and saw a more "respectable" 90KT on the ground speed.

(I can hear the terminal controller chuckling when I said I wanted to descend down to 3500' because the winds. My poor little 172 chugging along at 70KTs on his radar)

The airport was really easy to find at night. It's beacon was bright enough to be able to discern it from other light pollution.

My original plan was to do a touch and go. But I ended up floating down the runway longer than I was comfortable with. So I stopped and backtracked. This was probably the hilliest runway I've ever landed on.

The flight on the way back was uneventful, except for the 130KT ground speed on the way back. I was able to find Buttonville easier this time around. I think I'm getting used to approaching it from the west at night now.

GPS Showing 127KT ground speed

My second flight was to Tyendinaga on a Mohawk Indian reserve. It's just east of Trenton. The weather was beautiful and smooth. My route took me over Oshawa and CFB Trenton. I was able to take some nice snaps of the aircraft parked at the base.

CFB Trenton

Thinking back, I think this is the first time I've ever joined an uncontrolled airport straight in to the downwind. Previously, I've always flown overhead.

On the way back I played the "I'm lost" game. This is where I will use navaids to estimate my location on a map. In this particular instance I used the Oshawa (OO) NDB and the Coehill (VIE) VOR.

First, I used the VOR to figure out which radial I was on. After tuning and identifying the VOR, I turned the OBS knob until I got a from flag and the CDI was centered. Approx the 240° Radial.

Next, I used the Oshawa NDB and the ADF to give me a bearing to the station. It was 10° to the right.

I took a look at my map and drew a line representing the 240° radial from the Coehill VOR. Now I know I am someplace on that line. Then I took my heading (270°) added 10°, then took the reciprocal (100°). I then drew a line from the Oshawa NDB south east, approx 100° until it intersected the 240° radial. That was my approximate location.

Fun!

Comments (0) | Permalink | Category: Training

Friday, June 13, 2008 - 15:50:09 ET

Calculating Legal Night

One thing you need to do that wasn't really taught (to me) was how to calculate when you're flying at night (or Legal Night as us pilots like to call it).

This is important for a few reasons:

- If you don't have a night rating, you need to know when you need to be wheels down and engine off.
- If you do have a night rating, then you need to know when you can log your hours as night.
- I'm sure airport operators needs this information for when to turn various lighting systems on or off.

First, lets define when nighttime for the purposes of aviation and your log book starts and ends.

GEN 1.6.2 Says:

In the morning, Twilight begins when the sun is 6° below the horizon ascending, and ends at sunrise, approximately 25 minutes later. In the evening, Twilight begins at sunset, and ends when the sun is 6° below the horizon descending, approximately 25 minutes later.

Who did what in the where now?!? In other words...

Dawn is 25 minutes before sunrise, Dusk ends 25 minutes after sunset.

So we know when Twilight starts and ends for both the morning and evening. How does that apply to finding out when it's nighttime? We need to turn to CAR 101.01 for that:

"night" - means the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight; (nuit)

So in other words, "night" for the purposes of aviation starts 25 minutes after sunset and 25 minutes before sunrise.

Great! So uhmm.. how do I find out when sunrise and sunset are? Here are a few ideas:

- Hand held (and probably aviation) GPS units have that information in a menu someplace.
- You can ask ATC (especially if its an FSS you're talking to)
- You can use the graph found in the AIM.
- You can use the internet, specifically the NRC website.

No matter what way you use to get the information be sure you do the following:

- If you are given values for sunset and sunrise, add 25 minutes to the sunset time, and subtract 25 minutes from the sunrise time to give you legal night.
- If you are given values for civil twilight start and civil twilight end, then do not apply any correction to the time.

This is another reason to keep track of your start-up and shut-down times. As this can occur on a day/night boundary. Ie, you need to log your 2 hour flight as 1.1 in day and 0.9 in night.

Comments (4) | Permalink | Category: Training

Wednesday, June 11, 2008 - 12:34:53 ET

How to Land an Airplane.. According to Wired Mag.

I came across this article in the latest issue of Wired Magazine (Jun 2008, Page 50). It describes how anyone can land an airplane in an emergency.

As a pilot, I was highly skeptical that these steps would work. It assumes that the person flying the airplane knows where to find the auto pilot, radios, flaps, etc. I'm sure most would be overwhelmed by all the buttons and knobs.

I'm curious to your thoughts on the article. You can click on the image to make it bigger.

Comments (12) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Saturday, June 7, 2008 - 15:46:56 ET

Safety Pilot

I was approached by a member of the Buttonville Flying Club to be a safety pilot for him so that he may do some approaches to keep his IFR currency. This was to be done in the owners aircraft, a 1980 Beechcraft Baron 55.

This was my first time in a Baron and the only other twin I have to compare it to is the Seminole. My first thoughts:

- The Barons wingspan seemed to be a lot smaller at 11.53m (versus the Seminoles' 11.77m)
- This particular aircraft had the throttle quadrant set up, from left to right, as: Prop, Throttle, Mixture.. Contrasting to the more "standard" of: Throttle, Prop, Mixture.
- A lot more room, both head and leg. (6 person seating, versus 4 person of the seminole)
- Blue line of 100KIAS versus the semonoles 88KIAS.
- A lot more toys, such as a storm scope, radar, Traffic Advisory Service (using the Avidyne EX-500), and a working autopilot.

The "Cockpit"

After a quick runup, we departed 33 for Brantford airport. Followed the shoreline to about the Skybridge then headed direct to Brantford. The approach we were going to do was the GNSS 29 to minimums. I kept a sharp eye out for traffic while the pilot donned on his hood and did his thing.

I'm always amazed had how well these approaches work sometimes.

Our next stop was to shoot an ILS approach into Kitchener/Waterloo. That wasn't going to be possible as the ceiling (broken) was approx at 2800' ASL. We would need to climb up to 3000' to do the ILS approach. Instead we decided to head back to Buttonville.

Approaching Kitchener Airport

The Baron would haul ass. I was keeping an eye on the ground speed and I saw it peak out at about 180KTs (about 330km/h).

All in all the flight was a great experience, and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again. The last time I acted as a safety pilot, was for Mark over a year ago. It's rare that I get to fly from the right seat, and it's even rarer to just be a passenger.

In other news... studying the G1000 is coming along nicely. Hopefully I can get checked out next week.

Comments (6) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Wednesday, June 4, 2008 - 22:50:52 ET

I know NDBs are old but...

So I started studying the G1000 (Nav III) for the Cessna and spent 20 minutes in the simulator trying to figure out how to tune an NDB when I looked it up in the manual:

The G1000 does not support tuning of the ADF in Nav III aircraft. ADF tuning is accomplished through the Bendix/King KR 87 ADF Radio. ADF volume must also be adjusted through the KR 87.

A top of the line system doesn't even have an ADF/NDB radio built in? WTF.

So you can get ADF info on the PFD, but you have to use and tune an external radio.

Boourns to that.

Comments (1) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Wednesday, June 4, 2008 - 15:37:03 ET

Plan for the next month

Firstly, lets answer the question I posed in my last post.

In the Boomerang, which is the critical engine? There is none. In fact, there is no asymmetrical thrust created when one engine is inoperative.

The next month I plan on getting checked out in the C172 equipped with the G1000 avionics package.

Once that is done, there are at least two cross country flights i'd like to make. First, is solo to North Bay (perhaps with my girlfriend). This is my pre commercial x-country. I really don't want to jump into a 300nm trip right away. So I figured a 150nm one first would help.

The second trip is to fulfill a few hours I need of dual x-country for the CPL. Probably go to Buffalo with my FI. With the G1000 no doubt.

This all the while getting the necessary solo time for the CPL by practicing stuff.

My last lesson was in the sim. Practicing some partial panel and radio navigation.

I was flying nice and level when my FI decided to instruct the sim to give me a vacuum failure. Boourns! I noticed the failure, but couldn't prevent my self from going into a spiral dive. The problem? I thought the TC failed as well so I was ignoring it, as it was showing a full deflection to the left. Turns out I was just in a 90° bank turn. Whoops!

I know better now.

We also did some VOR work. Ugh, I hate them. I just need to practice some more. At first we were intercepting the radials after turning to a heading to parallel it -- The slow, inefficient way. By the end of the lesson, however, I was using the "real" method.

Interception angles to use? flying inbound, 90°, flying outbound 45°

Comments (1) | Permalink | Category: Training