Just like GH18, this is another P1U/S sortie which checks on flying skills. Performance was ok for all the turns and stalls.

But for PFL overhead airfield, it wasn't good because I was told to use the reciprocal runway instead of the usual Runway 03 for PFL. In simple, PFL planning was not sufficient!

Anyway, here's a good news and one bad news.

Good: My batchmates and I are going to Kuala Terengganu to fly.
Bad: The school only informed us this afternoon that the bus to KT is tomorrow 2100hours!!


We know the school really likes to drop bombshell on us. But we did not expect such a huge one! Well, everyone started to rush to pack their stuffs since 6hours ago.

I myself have 2 big sets of luggage, one sling bag and one laptop bag. And oh yeah, my guitar too. That's 5 altogether! Damn.....


PS: Sharman, is the KT airport near to your school? I plan to visit you!!

I made a 180 degrees turn back for circuits& landing when I saw a bloody big CB covering both the training areas.

I was thinking that maybe I could do 6 landings with the one hour sortie.

First touch&go, OK.

Second lap, told to hold early downwind for airline departure.

After ten minutes, it started to drizzle. Over the sea, I saw another bloody big CB moving in from south. If I don't land fast, I gonna be in trouble.

ATC then told me to leave early downwind and proceed to hold late downwind for another 10mins.

By this time, the weather was just 3nm ahead of me. Gonna eat me up in another 10mins I think.

One of the instructor who was holding behind me, asked the ATC to let me land first.

But the ATC said no. Haha. He had to let another traffic to land first, then only my turn.

It seemed that even the thunderstorm activity nearby blurred the RT transmission. Static noise in the background could be heard.

But anyway, I landed without much trouble using flapless approach. Airspeed was kinda high during flaring of course. Compared to the 'crazy' landing I made the other day, today's just small case! :P

What was supposed to be a happy outing for a family of 10 on the day after Deepavali turned into tragedy when a 10-year-old boy was run over by a tram at Danga Bay.

R. Karnaraj, who was riding the tram to tour Danga Bay together with his family, was believed to have lost his grip and fell off.

He was subsequently run over by one of the two coaches.

The tram driver, when alerted of the incident, immediately stopped the slow-moving tram, and pulled the boy out from the undercarriage.

With the help of other Danga Bay workers, the boy was rushed to Sultanah Aminah Hospital. Karnaraj, however, succumbed to his injuries at the hospital.
The tram service is popular with visitors to Danga Bay.

More than 1,000 people use the service daily.

This is the first fatal accident involving the service since its introduction in 2002.

It is learnt that the tram was near the Rumah Limas area when the incident occurred about 4.30pm.

Star Tram Sdn Bhd, the operator of the tram service, extended its condolences to the family of Karnaraj, adding that a full investigation would be carried out to ascertain the cause of the accident.

A police report has been lodged.

I thought I was able to clock 3hours altogether today. And again I was wrong. Weather, again!! Only 2 hours though..

Today's IF8 did some Limited Panel manoeuvres and Slow Flying.

Limited Panel simply means that the gyro instruments have failed on you and you only have other pressure instruments (Altimeter, VSI, ASI), TSI and compass to help you.

It was tough on the first try! You know, the scanning pattern changed and it took me some time to adapt fully.

Slow Flying is more for search&rescue purposes, that's what my instructor told me. To cut out the procedures, it's actually flying with Landing Flaps at slow speed (For Da40: 70kts). Quite easy. :)

I was assigned to use the same aircraft that broke down yesterday. Luckily the aircraft was 'obedient' enough to start-up this afternoon and my one hour did not go to waste. :)

**To clarify the difference between PPL steep turn & CPL steep turn:

Actually there difference is just the accuracy. In PPL, the altitude that we are allowed to overshoot is +/- 50 feet. While in CPL, we have to maintain VSI zero.**

Aircraft had engine problem when I was doing the pre-takeoff check at holding point. I had to taxy back to hangar and wait for another aircraft.

And this wasted me one hour. Damnit.

The news about the light aircraft crash in KT has resurfaced in local newspaper few days ago.


Click here for Part 1

Click here for Part 2



I had a laugh after reading the news. "The source" is so cute that he does not really know what is happening in the local aviation industry.

In simple, he is stupid. Haha.

I am not gonna talk about those points as the case is also under investigation of the police. A criminal case, as they put it.

Nothing special today, just kept practicing the same thing over and over again.

Got a call yesterday night that my friend's dad passed away due to cancer.

My condolence to him and his family.

This is how life cycle goes. Birth, aging, illness, death. We have to accept it, like it or not.



My shoes are not going to last me for another month. Not because I walk too much, but rather I use them to control the rudder everytime. So I decided to buy a 25bucks Pallas black shoes as a replacement. :)

The shop owner, an old uncle, seeing me in my full uniform, struck up a conversation about piloting stuffs.

And we actually sit down and chatted non-stop for an hour! From school fees to education to filial piety.

He saved more than 100K bucks to send his son overseas to study but after his son got a job in Melbourne, his son did not come back to see his parents. Not even monthly allowance for them.

P1 U/S is a mandatory competency check for all cadets here. P1 stands for pilot in command. U/S is under supervision.

Basically my stall procedures was not done based on the SOP, according to the Swedish instructor. While recovery from stall, I was taught by my personal instructor that I just need to put the nose attitude at straight&level to un-stall the aircraft.

But this instructor said "NO!!". Ok, whatever you like, thanks.

So I went to confirm with the Safety&Standard Officer about that matter. He said that there is actually no definite answer. You nose down little by little until the buffet stops, and that's it!

Sounds logical.

My medium turn and steep turn were not good in the first try. I couldn't keep the Vertical Speed Indicator (VSI) zero. :P

Did one PFL overhead airfield. Able to maintain glide speed throughout. And landed smoothly. No problem. :)

One of my bad habit is that I did not use right rudder when I recover from Stalling to prevent the aircraft yawing to the left. I got a lazy leg, I think. Haha. Need to do something about it, that's for sure.


As for my solo GH, I used the time to practise my stall procedures. I can't say it's good. But at least there is little improvement to use my right leg. :P

Ok..gotta go hangar now..for my solo GH 20 today..but weather does not look very good..oh well, at most just cancel the sortie!

I have always thought that crosswind landing is really cool, sort of like car drifting.

BUT today I was proven wrong, by my dear friend named WEATHER.

I was in training area at time 4pm and wanted to rejoin for PFL overhead airfield. Right after I got the clearance from tower, a Twin Engine instructor called me through company frequency:

Instructor: Maha xxx, this is Maha yyy on company.
Me: Maha yyy go ahead.
Instructor: Cancel your PFL and straight away land. Wind is too strong.
Me: Copied that, sir, Maha xxx.

So I contacted tower again to request for landing. Approved and I was told to track via the valleys to join left hand downwind Runway 03.

And guess what, it was super turbulence with up gust and down gust!! Throwing me around, up and down, left and right. I was told to maintain 1000ft but seriously, it was bloody tough to take control of the aircraft!!

Now the exciting part. Or I should say the scary part.

I was turning finals to land when I found my aircraft was actually to right of centerline.

So I thought, oh ok, it's gonna be crosswind landing this time.

My heading was 70 degrees to the left of the centreline!! But I was actually flying straight towards the runway!!

Goddamn...

There was not even the need of rudder to cock the aircraft into the wind. TSI (Turn&Slip Indicator) was showing ball center and wings to the right. I put down Landing Flaps.

And so I maintain 80kts airspeed and continue descending down to above threshold around 150ft.

So I kicked in the opposite rudder to get the aircraft facing straight the runway heading.

And suddenly the whole aircraft was thrown around as if I am driving along road full of deep potholes. Damn.

I tried to land the bloody aircraft.

But I couldn't. I had to go-around and come for another try.

By that time, I already started to sweat alot. My hands were cold. Really. First time experience such a condition, trying to do crosswind landing by myself.

Big CB was already building up nearby the airfield. Cloud was getting lower. Winds getting stronger. I guess the windshear that struck me on the first try was due to microburst activity.

I joined left hand downwind runway 03 for the second try. Flapless approach.

Wind again came from the left, I cocked the aircraft into the wind, approximately 60 degress of the centreline using left rudder, and right aileron to keep wings level. (Crabbing-in method)

Power down to 20% and kept descending until above threshold.

Again, right after I kicked in right rudder, aircraft was thrown up and down, left and right. Airspeed was fluctuating. Controls were sloppy.

I put in more power this time to arrest the sudden descent. 20%. Not enough. 30%. Not enough.

40%. Too much. Cut to 35%. Aircraft was floating and descending pretty much slower and easier to control.

There was only one way to land at this crucial point, I thought.

Wing low technique.

Since the wind was coming stronger from my left, I banked slightly to the right. So that the right wing was low enough for the right landing gear to touch down first.

I was scared I might get wing strike by doing this, so I didn't dare to bank more. Fyi, the wingspan of DA40 is quite long.

Suddenly the speed dropped to 50kts! And the stall warning came! Sh*t!!

I thought I maintained 75kts!!! I increased the power summore. Hoping the aircraft would not drop like a big rock and hitting the runway hard to cause structural damage.

Luckily, it did not happen.

I landed safely. But not on the centerline. I was to the left of it.

Right landing gear touched down first, followed by the left, and lastly the front wheel.

Phew~~~~





You know, flying is not the same everyday.

Everyday you will learn a new thing. Flying in different weather conditions especially.

And today's sortie..

is an experience that I will never ever forget in my entire life.

Weather was quite bad and cloudy today. 6 to 7 octas covering the sky. I thought of going Training Area to practice Stalls and Turns exercise, but..no..bad weather was moving in from east of airfield.

Island weather is more unpredictable, you see. This minute it can bright and sunny. But the next ten minutes, you can see CB starts to build up on the mountains.

It comes fast, and goes away fast too.





I was playing guitar hours ago when I saw my roommate was drawing some stuffs and making colorful cards. A birthday card for his girlfriend.

And this reminds me of Miss Z whom I know personally.

Z was G's admirer for a year or so. A shy girl, she did not dare to confess to G for she afraid she would be rejected.

So she chose to do all kinds of things like cooked for him, made birthday cards for him, etc. Just to get close to him. Or at least to get his attention.

But unfortunately, G's heart was already with another girl, R.

G did not tell Z about that. Maybe because he did not know about Z's love for him.

Or maybe he pretended not to know.

Z's friends found out that G and R were a couple weeks later and told Z.

Z did not believe them of course.




Until one day she saw two of them holding hands together in a mall.




The rest, as they say, is history.

Same route as per Nav 5. The weather turned bad halfway through the journey. So I had to divert back to WMKL.

I was flying in the light rain most of the time. Quite bumpy at times as I flew right under clouds.

WMKL - Kuah - K.Perlis - K.Kedah - Sala - K.Ketil - Redang Panjang - Tanjung Piandang - WMKP - Georgetown - Kedah Peak West - Sala - K.Kedah - Simpang Empat - Kuah - WMKL


The weather yesterday morning was quite hazy and low clouds were like cotton candies over the mainland. It was hard to recognize the ground feature and 40% of the time I used the GPS to help me find the location of waypoints. :P

Arranged for 3 hours sortie but only managed to fly one hour today because bad weather and not enough aircrafts for solo. But it's better than nothing!


Right after I landed, I received a call from Bg, saying that he's in hospital currently. NOT to visit people, but he is warded due to kidney stones.

Two kidney stones, to be more exact.

He is out of operation room already and should be fine, I hope.

That idiot did not drink much water all this while and then got this illness. He still could say that it's sufficient to replenish the fluid loss with teh-o.

Wtf? Someone, slap him please.

For more info, please contact him personally.


To those who always lazy to drink at least 9 glasses of mineral water everyday, please be careful that you might find yourself in the same situation too someday!!

Route taken:

WMKL - Kuah - K.Perlis - K.Kedah - Sala - Pendang - Nami - Jeniang - K.Ketil - Kedah Peak East - Sala - K.Kedah - Simpang Empat - Kuah - WMKL

Weather was not very good with visiblity less than 5km at certain places in the mainland. It was raining heavily during the Pendang - Nami leg. Big CB cloud could be seen overhead K.Perlis too.

We had to divert quite a few times to avoid flying into the "big momma".

It was fun going out of the 'jail' once in a while. :)

Another new batch has come. I was told that it's another mix batch between 5 privates and 16 MAS cadets.

Do you know how much is the fees now?

362K.

That's twice the amount of my contract ONE year ago. Amazing, right?


**A question for you:

What is your first impression towards a female cadet who wears men's brief/boxers?

Keep the answer to yourself. Thank you.**

Air Law 1 - 83%

Air Law 2 - 100%

Human Performance & Limitations - 84%

Mass & Balance - 100%

Loading - 100%


No pain no gain. =)

I just realised that this month is full of my friends' birthday.

Soo's birthday which was two days ago. Happy Belated Birthday!

Today is Wanyin's birthday! :)

9th: Stephanie.

12th: Stella, Loochin and Huiting.

13th: Liting

15th: Suqin

16th: my dear friend SK.

25th: my batchmate Joe.

And lastly 31st is my long long long long long time friend, Weixi.

Today was actually scheduled for IF7. But weather was bad over VPL (Langkawi's VOR), thick cumulonimbus building up very fast stretching from 2000ft to more than 10000ft.

Instructor told us to make our own decision regarding whether to continue fly or not. He said we have to start to learn about decision making for this stage of flying.

My batchmates and I discussed for quite sometime, then checked with METAR (current weather) and TAF (forecast weather).
Conclusion: No fly.

And so instructor told us to go for GH13 instead to practice our VFR flying skill.

Seriously, I couldn't maintain my height when I was making medium turn and steep turn. And I also forgot the full procedures for Clean Stalling and Dirty Stalling. Need to read more on the SOP and fly more!

This morning was raining continuously. Weather forecast showed thunderstorm rain in the noon and evening. I thought my sortie was gonna be cancelled today, but I was wrong.

Weather started to clear up at 1230hours and at 1300hours, all of us got the clearance to fly.

Training was somewhat a little similar to what I learned yesterday, the only different thing is the entry procedure.

VOR/DME entry procedure is divided into 3, namely: Direct Entry, Offset Entry, and Parallel Entry.

Performance was better alot than the day before. Gotta keep it up!

Yesterday's weather was awesome. Bright sunny day. Got lotsa clouds as well, but they were just building up on top of the mountainous regions. So it did not really affected our flying.

Did a VOR/DME approach. It's quite complicated to explain the whole lot of procedures but it's suffice to point out that the main thing about this sortie is to track inbound and outbound of a VOR radial, make holding over VOR and then make a approach (then landing) according to the laid down procedures.


Since this is the first sortie me doing this kinda instrument procedures, so I still don't really get the complete picture of what's going on. But the outline is enough for me to realise what I should know.

Few months I did not fly due to ground school also somehow deteriorates my ability to multitask.

You know, in studies, our mind tends to focus on a single thing at a time to understand a particular topic.

In flying, we have to focus more than 2 things at any one time. Most of the time, it's 3.

So it'll take a few days to re-master again the multi-tasking skill.

My head felt dizzy halfway through the sortie. And also stiffening of fingers.

I thought I was hyperventilating. So I tried to breathe normally but it didn't help much. Perhaps it was due to dehydration cuz I was backseating my batchmate in the previous sortie and I did not drink enough water for my next sortie.

Overall, it did not affect my sortie much as I did everything until I touched down.

My instructor took over after that. Haha. I used up all the energy already. I could barely stand after I got down from the plane. My friend said my face was very pale.

This happened to me when I first started flying. Just need 2 or 3 more sorties to get my body back into flying mode.

JOHOR BARU: A 16-year-old girl was abducted outside a shop, gang-raped and beaten senseless.... (Read More..)


*As far as I know, this is the 3rd time such case happened in Bandar Baru Uda. I dunno whether the police forces are lacking, or the criminals are increasing, I can only advise you all living in Bolehland to take SUPER EXTRA PRECAUTIONS whenever you go out.*

It was worthwhile waiting for the bad weather to go away. I got the chance to fly my GH 12 (dual sortie) with my instructor.

We only flew Circuits&Landing today as the weather at the training was really sh*tty. Did like 6 landings altogether, one flapless approach and the rest were normal approach.

After nearly 6months did not fly, my skill has become rusty! My altitude was running +100feet during downwind the first try! Damn.

At least I managed to get it to +/- 50feet in the following circuits. The standard set by my instructor is 0 to +/-10 feet, by the way.

I spent 50% of the time looking at instruments (which I was not supposed to do so when flying visual). Rely too much on instruments and you will find yourself chasing the needles.

I was told to commit the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) into memory. Eg: After take-off checks, Downwind checks, etc. Not really fluent with the checks just now. Strobe light switch, hmmm, where are you~~? It's white in colour, I know. Took few extra seconds to scan the panels for the switches and buttons. :P

And also to improve on RT too. I forgot to mention fuel endurance after established contact with tower!

Touch&Go and Landing, not that bad! Wind was manageable. No "kangaroo landing"! Things to improve on: Maintain 2 Reds and 2 whites of PAPI lights!! It's important for instrument approaches at the later stage!!

Fast facts about PAPI:
-stands for Precision Approach Path Indicator light system.
-To indicate the position of aircraft on the glidepath (usually 3 degress glidepath).
-2 colours: Red and White.
-4 lights in a row. (But LGK has two rows, one on each side of the runway.)

So it was the Mekkhala Storm in Vietnam that brought continuous rain at the north region.

If I have the chance to fly today, I think I need to keep a lookout of turbulence. Landing may be tough! Crosswind landing, perhaps. But I haven't really mastered the de-crabbing-in skill.

*Selamat Hari Raya to everyone!! =)*