Yesterday marked the end of Climatology topic in Meteorology. Around the world in 8 days, that was what my instructor said before he began the classes of Climatology. Here is a list subtopics that we studied:


1) North Atlantic
2) North West Europe
3) Mediterranean
4) Persian Gulf
5) Monsoons
6) Indian Sub-continent
7) Far East
8) Australiasia
9) East Africa
10) West Africa
11) South America

It's not easy to master this subject. There are many factors to consider before we can get to correct answer. Example, for a route from Singapore to Tokyo via Hong Kong in the month of January, we have to understand that January is winter season in the Northern Hemisphere.

Land is colder than sea during winter. Thus, the surface pressure on the land is greater than sea surrounding it. Wind will blow from high pressure regions to lower pressure regions.
The bigger the land mass, causes a larger temperature difference between the land and sea. So where is the biggest land mass in Northern Hemisphere?

Siberia.

Hence, surface winds will blow out from Siberia in an clockwise manner towards Japan, down to Philipines, China, further down south to Malaysia and Singapore.

This is why we have North East Moonsoon between January and May generally and the coastal areas of Terengganu and Kelantan will have a very bad weather. Thunderstorm showers.

The explanation above is just a general view on surface wind and weather. I still haven't touched on upper winds conditions, clouds, turbulence and icing. Don't worry, I won't elaborate any further cuz it's just too much.

Out of 38 questions is Meteorology, there will be at most 6 questions on the topic of Climatology. Obviously it is risky to just ignore those questions and concentrate on other 32 to pass this bloody subject. Seniors have advised us not to rely too much on the worksheets given by the instructors because the question trend has changed since Batch 17. All the CA6 papers are set in UK, so exam result will probably take a month or so to process I think.



Latest news from http://nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Saturday/Frontpage/20080628070918/Article/index_html

ASIAN stock markets tumbled yesterday amid growing alarm as oil prices spiked above US$142 (RM461) a barrel for the first time and on Wall Street’s dive on Thursday.

Crash-landing: The wreckage of the two-seater airplane lying in the garden of the house in Ipoh Thursday.

Badly injured: Ahmad Tarmezee being carried by rescuers to an ambulance after the crash Thursday.

The two-seater Eagle 150B trainer aircraft crashed-landed in the garden of a double-storey link house in Taman Cempaka, Ipoh, Thursday. The trainer and trainee pilot survived the crash.

Source: The Star
Friday June 27, 2008

By IVAN LOH

IPOH: Housewife P. Susila was stunned when she heard a loud bang and saw the object that crashed into her garden here yesterday, just metres from where she was standing – it was an aeroplane.

The two-seater Eagle 150B was largely intact and was upside down with its nose embedded in a patch of plants in Susila's nicely-maintained garden in Taman Chempaka. The wingtips had just missed the boundary wall and a pillar. A set of garden furniture just metres from the wreckage was untouched.

Relating the 1.30pm incident Susila, 49, said: “I was inside the house when I heard a loud noise. When I looked out of the door to check, I was stunned to see the plane in my garden, just metres from my doorstep.”

Soon after, several people were shouting at her to tell her to open the gate so that they could help the two pilots who were still in the cockpit, she added.

Trainer Mohamad Faizal Kamaruddin, 37, and his 23-year-old trainee Ahmad Tarmezee Ahmad Lotpi were in the airplane belonging to an aviation institute here.

It is believed that the pilot had lost control of the aircraft before it crash-landed into Susila’s compound.

Ipoh traffic chief Deputy Supt Mohd Rodzi Rajab said the two men, who were badly injured but in stable condition, had been admitted to the Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun.

Police said they were still investigating the incident and had yet to identify who was flying the airplane.

Chia Kwan Hong, who was having lunch nearby said he saw the plane hitting a tree first before it crash-landed.

Chia, a 25-year-old computer salesman, said he and his father Kook Kheong, 51, rushed to the crash site to see if they could help the survivors.

After 20 minutes, rescuers managed to free the two men from the wreck and rushed them to hospital.






***Apparently the newspaper did not mention the name of the flying school. From the colour of the stripes on the aircraft body, I guess it is from Integrated Flying Academy. Thank god those two survived the crash.

If you read one of my post regarding Practiced Forced Landing (PFL), I mentioned about what kinda place to choose to land the aircraft in case of emergency (such as engine failure).

I am not sure whether the instructor was really superb or just pure luck, but he somehow managed to make an Emergency Landing in a house compound! You can notice how small the compound is! Looks like the garden is the biggest place to land the aircraft at the time problem occured.***

The motto, Anything Is Possible given by us fits the school really well. Read more if you wanna know what the school decided for all the cadets and for our batch. Lets start with the ALL THE CADETS first.

24th June 2008, 1655hours: The Chief Ground Instructor informed us that there will be Physical Training (PT) in the morning 0600-0630hours, and in the evening 1730-1830hours from Monday to Thursday. This ruling will come into effect next week onwards. However......for this week, PT has been commenced this morning. And tomorrow too. Reason? I don't know.


Since the PT starts at 6am, I have to wake up at 5.30am. I found it really tough to wake up so early. Before this, my sleeping time was until 7am. One and a half hours gone because of this PT. I could hardly open my eyes just now in class.



News for our batch...One good news and one bad news. I shall start with the bad one first.

The school is not closing down..yet.. *I do hope they close down the school after our batch graduates from here ;P*



Good news:
As what I have said last time, our batch is the first batch of HMA under the order of Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) of Malaysia to undergo the Integrated Programme. In this programme, we cadets, during the CA2 phase, will have to attend Ground School in the morning session, then go for flying (CPL stage) in the afternoon.

This was what the programme like:
PPL Ground School ==> DCAT Ground School ==> PPL Flying Phase ==> CA6 ==> CA2 + CPL Flying Phase ==> Twin Engine Simulation & Twin Engine Flying.

However, Diamond Aircrafts now are running out of engine hours and no spare parts are coming in. Since there is no aircraft for us to fly starting from mid of July, we will go for Twin Engine DA42 Simulation. If I am not wrong, the SIM consists of 35hours altogether. The moment we complete our Ground School (CA2), we will be sent to Terengganu to start our CPL Flying Phase.

Now the programme becomes like this:
PPL Ground School ==> DCAT Ground School ==> PPL Flying Phase ==> CA6 ==> CA2 +Twin Engine Simulation ==> CPL Flying Phase ==> Twin Engine Flying.



This is actually not a good news to me though cuz after completing Twin Engine SIM, there will be a gap of at least two months before we gonna start Twin Engine Flying again. So the things that we learn in SIM can be easily forgotten. And we might need to waste some hours to go for refresher course.
Anyway, gotta go for class now. Lunchtime is over.

·Purchase things from outlets that offer bargains.

·Plan your trips so that you can complete all chores and your shopping in one journey.

·Organise a garage sale to get rid of your unused items and this will earn you some extra money, as well.

·Purchase items that are only necessary and in cash and avoid using credit cards.

·Plan your meals menu one week ahead and buy groceries accordingly.

·Only purchase items in the list you have prepared and don't be tempted to buy unnecessary goods.

·Try to visit hypermarkets towards the end of the day where fresh products go for a lower price.

·Shop at the local markets for fresh vegetables because they offer better price and bargains.

·Where possible bring home-cooked food for lunch at work, as this is cheaper than eating out.

·Look out for offers, coupons and freebies.

Source: The Star.

Today I had to wake up at 7.30am, just to grab this pc to online. Seriously, 100 people fighting to use ONE pc is not fun at all.

No update yet..because the apparently the school held an internal meeting and the decision has not been released..However, there are rumours that Diamond flyers will be sent back home for long holidays until further notice..Can be 3 months, can be 6 months or even longer..

Again, nothing can be confirmed until there is official notice from the top management.

Yesterday my batchmates and I went to Telaga Tujuh (Seven Wells). If you had been there, I suppose you would have noticed how beautiful the waterfall is!! 7 natural pools formed by a small river flowing down off a mountain. Eventually, the water plunges over a marble cliff and forms a huge waterfall..






More than 600steps to reach the recreation and swimming area. Saw alot of monkeys on the way up. Caution: DO NOT FEED THE MONKEYS.
Man, it was tiring. But it's fun! Many foreign babes were there too! Well, not really many. Just 8 of them.



Fresh cooling stream gushes down from seven natural pools. This is what you see on top of the waterfall. And this is also the place where we swam and enjoy the breathtaking view! Err hemm, I am not referring to the view of the babes.

We noticed that there was another route to go higher up to the mountain. With just slippers and shorts and some half-naked, we decided to go jungle trekking. Damn. It was a hell long route and we didn't know where we were heading honestly. Haha. It was getting dark by 5pm. So we tracked back after 40minutes. Mission to conquer the mountain, we shall leave it some other day, with fully-equipped gears.


*All the pictures in this post are taken from various sites*


As I surfed the net for Telaga Tujuh pictures, I saw these two pictures of Langgun and Datai, the training area for our single engine aircrafts.








My impression of KL? I am so enchanted by it. I love the colors, the humidity (it does amazing things for the skin), the architecture and all the tropical decay. Also, the fact that it is a city, but it is so full of palms and trees and flowers and green everywhere. The food is incredibly fresh and varied. It is like being in China, India, and tropical Asia all at once, with its different cultural groups, the Chinese, Indians, Malays and Indigenous tribes, all living in seeming harmony.

There are Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and Indigenous Animinsts all living side by side. What is so spectacular is seeing their temples side by side, too. I love that you can see a hejabi (a muslim girl/woman who wears a headscarf) walking down the street beside a girl in a mini-skirt. I am sure that racism and religious intolerance exist here, as they do everywhere, but it was less evident to me.

Latest news from the school. Remember I mentioned about the bankruptcy of Thielert Aircraft Engine (TAE)? Initially, the school wanted to switch to Lycoming Engine. But the cost to change the engines is not cheap as it involves also changing the related instruments and system such as the Engine Control Unit (ECU) which runs on TAE manufactured engines only.

The cost to have all the aircrafts here for the changeover is more than 4millions bucks. We were told that the school gonna make some kinda BIG decision, perhaps this Saturday.

Worst guess that we can think of right now is the Tan Sri decides to close this school (cuz he is not making any profits) and we cadets have no where to go. Hahaha. That's gonna be so pathetic.

Almost all the flying schools in Msia use Diamond aircrafts. So they are facing the same dilemma like us at here. Spare parts until now are not coming in too. Plus, the recent fuel hike came at the wrong time.




Oh yeah, ever heard of MAS cadet pilots can't become pilots after graduate?? I don't think you know about this. During the last recession in the 1980s, MAS had to retrench many of its staffs and the cadets are not spared too. These cadets had to choose either to find a new job again or become stewards. After 4 to 5 years later, they were offered for the pilot vacancies again but only a few took the offer.

Crewroom's internet facility has been down since yesterday. I called the school warden to inform him about the matter. But it seems no one in Langkawi knows how to fix the problem. Awesome.

By the way, result is out. As expected, I did not score for Flight Planning. Radio Aids result should be out tomorrow as there wasn't any RA class today.

Met Theory: 93%
Met Prac: 91%
Flight Planning: 86%
Navigation: 98%
Instruments: 90%
Radio Aids: 90%

I finished my exam at 1515hours. The last paper, Instruments was tough. 13 out of 36 questions were calculations. I hope I did not make any careless mistakes for this paper.

Yesterday I just found out that Flight Planning actually consists of 38 questions. I left out the last two.

Great. Burned two questions. I even checked the paper twice just in case I left out any. Damnit. This reminds me of my SPM four years ago. The same blind mistake I made in my Physics (Paper One). Out of 50 questions, I only finished 40 questions. I had 30minutes to check the paper. Three times, I tell you. Three times I checked the paper! And I did not even notice there were 3 more pages after Question 40! Everytime I checked until Question 40, I would automatically flip back to page 1 again.


Lucky enough, I got an A2 for that subject.


Tomorrow I won't be so lucky, I think.

First day of battle:

The 'battle' for my Commercial Pilot License Examination. Obviously, a failure in this exam means I can't go for my ATPL exam on July.

Failure is not an option. Good luck and all the best to me.

It's Father's Day! Yes, to those who claimed to be filial, what have you prepared for your dad today? Bring him out for a dinner (and then he pays the bill)? Or you gonna cook some dishes for him? Or, make him a present? Or, you are just too lazy but still wanna show your filial piety, how about buy him a present instead, say, a Breitling?

Or, you are far far away from home and you can't do all the things listed above, but still wanna show him that you love your dad?

A call or sms will do. It's the thought that counts. That was what I did.

Anyway, today is also Alvin's birthday! Happy Birthday!! =)

Ok fellas, new system finally up and working! Thanks to Psycho, I was able to generate this template according to my preference. Very easy to use and it's free! Please take note that I will be using my initials, SY for the chabox.
By the way, I just received my Private Pilot License (PPL) yesterday!!



As what you can see at the sidebar, I have clocked 42hours of PPL flying stage. This license is like your typical driving license, with the exception that it states also my aircraft rating which is Diamond 40 (Single Engine). I can feel the sense of achievement when I received this license! You know, just like the first day you got back your driving license. Haha. This marks the first step towards two more licenses: Commercial Pilot License (CPL) and Airline Transport Pilot License (ATPL). Talking about CPL, that reminds me of my CPL exam next Tuesday and Wednesday.

I also got back my Navigation progress test result yesterday. A very tough test and I thought I was gonna fail miserably. But believe it or not, I passed with 92%. Haha. Still got a few topics I haven't studied yet. Gotta go now......



*A major announcement will be made on the first week of July. Don't miss out!*

I will be implementing another security and privacy measure in this blog coming up next week. Please take note that only the people I choose will be able to view this blog. And I will also add the chatbox feature and shut off the comment moderating setting. Blog invitation will be sent to your email soon under my Gmail account.

To those (invited only) who do not have a Gmail account, you can proceed as guest and has a "credit" of 30days after which you can renew again.

I know it's quite troublesome but that will allow me for more personal touch in this blog rather than having remain anonymous all the time.

If you do not receive my invitation by the end of next week, kindly please mail me to my Friendster/Facebook/Hotmail/Gmail account. Thank you.

I was browsing through friends' blog and saw this funny site and decided to give it a try.
http://www.blogthings.com/whatsyournameshiddenmeaningquiz/


You are very charming... dangerously so. You have the potential to break a lot of hearts.
You know how what you want, how to get it, and that you will get it.
You have the power to rule the world. Let's hope you're a benevolent dictator!


You are well rounded, with a complete perspective on life.
You are solid and dependable. You are loyal, and people can count on you.
At times, you can be a bit too serious. You tend to put too much pressure on yourself.


You are very intuitive and wise. You understand the world better than most people.
You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts.
You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals.


You are deeply philosophical and thoughtful. You tend to analyze every aspect of your life.
You are intuitive, brilliant, and quite introverted. You value your time alone.
Often times, you are grumpy with other people. You don't appreciate them trying to interfere in your affairs.


You are the total package - suave, sexy, smart, and strong.
You have the whole world under your spell, and you can influence almost everyone you know.
You don't always resist your urges to crush the weak. Just remember, they don't have as much going for them as you do.


You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing.
You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long.
You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start.


You are confident, self assured, and capable. You are not easily intimidated.
You master any and all skills easily. You don't have to work hard for what you want.
You make your life out to be exactly how you want it. And you'll knock down anyone who gets in your way!


You are a free spirit, and you resent anyone who tries to fence you in.
You are unpredictable, adventurous, and always a little surprising.
You may miss out by not settling down, but you're too busy having fun to care.


You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone.
You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together.
At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together.

As expected, petrol kiosks nationwide were flooded with hundreds if not thousands of cars queuing for petrol two days ago. And yesterday, there were already a few protests held at two states.

As of 0000hours 5th June 2008, the petrol price will increase again. This time, 40% increase, from 1.92bucks to 2.70bucks. Diesel price will also be increased by 1buck to 2.58bucks.

So, a heavier burden for the citizens. That's not all.

Electricity rates is not spared - 18% increase for home users.

I guess there is nothing much we can do but to bear with it. Domino effect of the rising oil prices has spilled all over the world. As usual, we can expect the prices of almost everything will rise. I saw a report that more than 200 airlines all over the world are suffering from heavy losses. Yes, even jet fuel price has increased.

I don't see much rise in the salaries over the years too. No input + more output = Disaster + Trouble.
We really have to dig deep into our small (and near empty) wallet in order to survive from day to day. We will definitely kick a really big fuss out of this matter, that's for sure. But don't forget too that, the citizens of this land are forgetful. Sooner or later, we will still have to accept this fact and move on as usual. Just take an example of the Nurin case. Anyone still remember about that? Many have forgotten, I dare say. Updates from police? No, I don't see any. Correct me if I am wrong. There are many other high profile cases which are yet to be solved. And just to inform you in case you don't know, now the police of Bolehland are patrolling blogs too! Goodness. They sure have that much of free time and that many of police officers to check the blogs eh.

Anyway, I just read another article in an online news site. The government is planning to use public funds to construct a toll plaza. And according to the newspaper, the construction needs 168million bucks but the state's annual income is just 180million. To quote what a MP said - "It is like going to the coffee shop and paying for your drink and then made to contribute towards the shop's rental or renovation!"

If the government gives green light for the project, I think this will add as another list of "great and unbelieveable" achievements done by the Bolehland.Well, there are more achievements that I can list out here. But, I got no time for now.

Tomorrow got Met Practical test and then Friday got Navigation theory and plotting test. Monday had Met Test too and I barely passed with just 77%. Yesterday had Nav Plotting. Today had Instruments. Gotta study now.

I have changed my blog skin again! No special reason. Just wanna to have a fresh new look. And also added a new feature "Passengers". I had been quite reluctant to add this initially. But, oh well, try it out first. If there is any "unwanted things" happen to me, I will have to delete this list (and probably this blog as well).

More tests are coming up next week and my CPL in-house examination will be on 16th June. Lunch time now. Ciaozz!

=D