My lesson on Sunday went well. Except for the take off. Me: What kind of take off today? FI: Lets to a short field take off *taxi into position, start the take off roll and rotate* FI: what happened to the ground effect part Me: whoops! I forgot Yeah, so I did a “short field…
Yesterday’s lesson went well. I was more prepared with the forced landings. Armchair flying really does help! Today we are going to be doing precautionary landings. Right now (at 9am) the visibility is already at 9SM. The TAF is forecasting 5SM by the time I’m supposed to fly. If my flight is canceled, this will…
The past two lessons have all been about forced approaches. I’m starting to feel challenged again! To answer my own question in my previous post, we don’t learn the 360° landing forced approach until the CPL phase of training. The hardest thing I’ve found is judging your touchdown point on a grass field. There really…
I read in the paper the other day that a popular landmark for both nautical and aeronautical navigation will be no more on Monday. “The Four Sisters” is an old electricity generating plant that has four big smoke stacks. The Toronto VTA shows the “four stacks” as a valid VFR reporting point. It’s been used…
I found out today that a fellow co-worker (well a Manager) at work got his private pilot license 20 years ago – he hasn’t flown in quite a while though. I reviewed precautionary landings and forced landings tonight for my lesson on Saturday. For a forced landing the Flight Training Manual suggests two ways of…
Nothing really new to report.. Went flying on Monday, practiced some soft field / short field take-offs and landings. My next lesson is going to cover emergency and precautionary landings. The Toronto Star has a good special called Collision Course running this week, all about air safety. Check it out.
Brian posted a comment letting me know his lesson at 2pm today was canceled because it was too hot. I had a plane booked at 6pm to practice some short field take-offs/landings solo. I was hoping the temperature would be cooler by then. No dice. The temperature was 34°C with a dew point of 19°C….
Today’s weather was perfect for flying. Blue skys, light winds, warm weather. The only problem is, everyone else is thinking the same thing: let’s go flying. I have never, ever, ever seen Buttonville this busy before. I had to wait about 10 minutes to take off right from the get-go. This was a normal take…
John who?! JD McCurdy, as he is known, was the first person to fly an airplane in Canada. He was schooled at St. Andrews College in my hometown of Aurora, Ontario. He was also the first Canadian to receive a pilots license. The frame and structure of the Silver Dart (the name of the plane)…
Tonights flight was good. During this time of day the same controller works both ground and tower, so when you’re on either frequency you only get half of the conversation sometimes. Someone on the radio jokingly asked him “so do you get paid double to work both tower and ground?” The first flight I did…