All my GH sorties are done. Now just gotta wait for my PT4. Good.
I got no more sorties to practice. Sh*t.

Nav8 to Ipoh. As stated, it's a nav check to clear me for solo nav to Ipoh.

I was supposed to fly with Capt Z, but somehow he was replaced by another instructor Capt W, which was a very good thing cuz I don't really like to fly with Z.

A bloody cocky instructor. Skip that.

Heavy rain around Ipoh. IMC conditions. So VFR flights like us are not allowed to proceed there.

We later diverted our route and then resume nav to Penang. Landed at Penang for 45mins before continuing the sortie.

I cleared this sortie and will be going for my solo nav tomorrow 0730. Need to report at the hangar an hour before.

So gotta sleep early. 5 hours flight tomorrow!!

Ok, you know already. Back here in LGK. Parents fetched me to lcct and I took the flight to the island.

Gotta go now. Ciaoz.

Yeap! The casino! Went to Genting Highlands with my family. It started to become misty and getting worse as we drove up to the peak. Very very windy too. At least 30knots, I think. Visibility less than 50metres.

Parkings were 99% full. Spent like 30minutes to find a place to park. Lucky!

Hotels were fully packed anyway. Arcade already closed. So my siblings decided to stay at MacD while my parents and I went to casino.

Fyi, Genting has quite a few of casinos. 5 I think. The first one I went was located in First World Hotel. The biggest one of all, my dad said.

Bloody hell. It was really huge! Goddamn! Even if you are not interested in gambling, you should also come and get the feel! The slots machines, oh man, I think there were like thousands of them. And not to mention the table games. Blackjack, pokers, baccarat, pontoon, roulette, etc.

Want to know more? Click here and proceed to gaming guide.

I didn't gamble. What, you think I lied? ;p

Only my dad. Not me. Not my mum. I walked around by myself, went to few tables and check out how they played.

The slot machines here are very much like arcades. They don't use coins. Instead, they use 'debit cards'. I saw an uncle with 210bucks loaded card playing that game. Guess how much he won in the end after 10minutes game?

160cents.

Blackjack table seems to favour the bankers quite alot too.


Chinese has a saying, bet 10times, lose 9times.

Just a glance at all the looks in the casino, only 10% of the faces looked happy and satisfied (and kept gambling). 85% looked sad but hopeful that they will win the next round. The rest? Hopeless. Grumpy.

My dad? He's in the 10% league. Shot down "8 tigers" in an hour. Lucky for him.
Tigers mean thousands. When we say: Go up the mountain to hunt for tigers, it means go to casino to win $$.


I only visited one third of the casinos. Gonna conquer all of them next time! ;)

Eat.

Collect angpau.

Eat.

Gamble.

Eat.

That was what I did days back. I gained few kilos, that's for sure. Gambling? Eim..I lost 30bucks on the second day of CNY and then stopped playing already. Haha.

Big fat red packets this year. The biggest one after 21 years 11months and 10days of living on Planet Earth.

Wahahahhahhahhah!!

Wth. CNY ended so fast. Back in LGK. And going for flying in 2 hours time. But before that...

updates!


The trip back to MLK was not a pleasant one, again.

First, the ticketing machines. There were at least 10 of them installed but only two working. Hundreds of people queing up in rows of two. What was supposed to be a 5-minutes queue ended up to be 20minutes. Lovely.

Second, the LRT cars. Not enough at all, really. The first trip it came at 2035, it was already packed full with 'sardines'. Only twenty people or so came out but hundreds wanted to go in. I was pushed out.
A girl who managed to squeeze in also came out 10 seconds later cuz she couldn't stand the smell of the men surrounding her.
This is also one of the problems for females using this kinda sardine-alike train service. Sexual harassment is unavoidable in this condition. Oh yeah, pick-pocket too.

Third, punctuality. Need to elaborate on this? Better not.

Anyway, bus to MLK was scheduled on 2100hours. I reached Pasar Seni at time 2055. With the guitar over my left shoulder, a sling bag over my right shoulder, a laptop bag on my back, one hand luggage, I ran as fast as I could towards the bus station only to find the bus already gone. Sh*t.

I saw a guy shouting "kl jb kl jb, kl melaka kl melaka" and asked him when is the next trip to mlk.

"Bus kat sane tu. Baru je jalan! Mari!" He helped me carry my luggage and both of us ran to the bus which was like 80m away.

I hopped into the bus and paid 15bux. Sweaty and tired. I slept like a pig minutes later. Reached home at midnight already.


What a day.

Lucky day yesterday! One of the instructor was on MC. Hence there was another extra aircraft for solo cadets!

I requested to finish my NF solos and my instructor approved! I am so glad that I got the Night Rating just in time before I go back for CNY.

And so this marks the end of my night flying chapter.

0935 UTC time departure LGK-KUL. Ciaoz!

I finally got to do the Total Electrical Failure simulation this time.

He switched off the Flood Lights and Instrument Lights. Cockpit became dark.


Instructor: Ok, now total electrical failure. Do what you need to do.
Me: Yes sir. Switch on the Emergency Switch. Then switch on the Flood Light.


Now, the emergency switch for DA 40 only powers up the Attitude Indicator and Flood Light for 30minutes.

I joined downwind 800feet.

He took out my headset's sockets so that I could not hear anything from him nor the tower. I saw him talking, should be requesting for the simulation.

At finals, maintained 300 feet. I used the torchlight and flashed to the direction of tower for morse code R (.-.)

After passing tower, full power and climbed back to 800feet.

At finals, I tried to look at the light signals emitted from control tower.

None. wtf. Am I blind? I can't see any except for the white and green rotating beacons!!!

I glanced at the altimeter... 300feet...290...280...

I opened my eyes real wide this time...But still NO!!! Nothing!!! wtf!!

250feet..240...230... Land or not to land?!!

I was once told that if you are not sure whether you get the clearance to land and unable to contact tower, just go-around.
So I decided to go-around. But just to confirm again with my instructor, using hand signal, I told him I couldn't visual with the lights and going around.

He nodded.

Full power, climbed to 800feet again. He plugged in the sockets and told me that he requested the tower not to show the light signals to me just now. -_-"

Phew~~ If I tried to land just now, my ears probably would go deaf from the yelling of both instructor and ATC. Haha.

Coming back approach to land, at finals, I saw steady green light just below the rotating beacons. Kinda hard to see it, seriously.

***Steady green = Cleared to land***






The leave forms which we passed to the Chief Flying Instructor (CFI) to get recommendations were missing for 2 weeks. I had been looking for them all around in hangar and in ground school.


Flight ops staff: No, leave forms for your batch are not at here. We didn't see any!
CFI: Yea yea. I approved it already and passed to principal. Go ask him.
Principal: No. I don't have. Go ask SWO (Student Welfare Officer).
SWO: No. There is none here. I have leave forms from other batches but not your batch. Go ask the ground clerk.
Ground Clerk: Takde lah. Ah kak dah cari sana sini pun takde. Cuba tanya orang lain lah.
Admin Clerk: Not here.


No one knew where the hell are the forms until..............

Yesterday after my night flying sorties, I informed the CFI again. He searched around his office and finally found them. It was stacked in between other documents. You should see his office. Full of papers, logbooks and licenses. Enough to bury two people alive.

And guess what, our leave forms were not yet approved by principal and he himself, the CFI did not sign it. Cool~~

This morning I rushed back to the principal office just to get his signature.

Me: (nicely and politely) Sir, can you please sign the leave forms for our batch? I finally got them from CFI.
Principal: I don't what you all are thinking about. We have the system but you all don't follow at all! Do you think I am so free to just sit down here and sign your stuffs? The system is to pass the leave forms to SWO and he will pass to me. Not the students to come inside my office and disturbing me! Now just leave those forms here and go out.

There are only two words in my mind now: F*** you.

I left without a word after putting the papers on his table.

Whether the bloody idiot signs it or not, we don't give a sh*t. We are going back for sure.

The school decided to chop down almost all the the bigger trees inside the compound. Even the two mango trees in front of my block are not spared as well.

No more nice shade in the heat of the day. No more free sweet mangoes.

It seems that they can hire lesser workers to sweep the dry leaves. And consequently more profit.

Yesterday night sorties were all cancelled due to MAB audit and no instructors available.

I should be able to fly tonight. No chance to do PT4 by CNY already. But I hope can get Night Rating by Friday!

Oh yeah, I added a weird game: Aircraft Lander. Scroll down more and you will see it on the right.

I tried 50times and only managed to land it twice. One with 8points. Another one with 6.

I give up.

Maybe you can do better.

Traffic was so busy that my instructor and I had to hold on ground for ten minutes. Then another 35minutes in the air.

We did 2 Touch&Gos and then landed. I had no chance to try out the simulated radio failure and total electrical failure.

I am not sure whether he's gonna clear me for my solo tonight without doing the two exercises.

General Handling 44 - Solo

I think my PT4 is just around the corner. Hopefully I can get it done before I go back celebrate CNY!

It's gonna be quite hard to enjoy eating and playing (and maybe try my luck in gambling) without thinking about the test.

Today is like trying to get myself adapt to the Lgk training areas again. Checked out the clearings to perform PFL.

It looked like the farmers here have finished burning the paddies. Visibility since yesterday evening was getting better.

And I have a longer and bigger and flatter place to practice my PFL!

But after today's sortie, I realized that my flying skills is reaching saturation point.

And I don't have many sorties left to improve it further.

It was actually my off-day yesterday. But my friend was sick, so I had to replace his slot with my IF32&33.

2 hours sortie with THAT instructor was not that nice. Kinda stressful with him as my safety pilot. Almost all the cadets here complained about him anyway. Even the fellow instructors say he doesn't know how to teach. Haha.

Skip that and now to Night Flying!!

Yesterday night 2200hours was my first ever night flying sortie. Oh my god, I tell you...Night Flying was fun (and dangerous)!!

Taxiway edge lights: blue
Runway edge lights: aviation white
Correct threshold lights: green
Wrong threshold lights: red
Taxiing out lights: green
Taxiing in light: green and amber alternate
##The reason we term it as aviation white is because its intensity is less than 50% of the normal white. A little yellowish.##


It was already pitch-dark at 10pm. Went into aircraft. Switch on Electric Master, then the Instrument Light. Followed by the Flood Light.

Continued on the pre-flight checks then cleared to taxy to holding point Charlie.

It was quite difficult to taxy on the yellow line. Simply because it's dark outside and switching on Taxy lights was not helping much at all.

Taxiing speed became more difficult to judge. So we used the lights at the edge of runway to help us determine how fast we were taxiing.


Cleared to line-up and wait.

Then cleared for take-off.

Full power with brakes ON. A quick scan on all instruments to make sure ALL OK.
Brakes RELEASED.


Runway centerline was much easier to see because it was WHITE in colour and with Landing lights ON during take-off.


Rotate at 60knots >> Climbed out 80kts from Upwind leg turning into Crosswind and then into Downwind.


Mountains were not visible. Sea and ground looked alike. Lighted-up boats and the civilian houses were very similar from the skies.

Just like day flying, in order to maintain sufficient separation with the runway, I had to make sure wingtip is 'sliding' on the runway. Runway lights were used as reference in this case.

Something stupid about the design of this aircraft is: There is no light for the compass. It is very troublesome to take out my torchlight and then shine on it to get the reading. At the same time still need to keep my hands on throttle and control stick.

**Just some technical stuffs here, the Direction Indicator is made based on gyro. And it tends to misalign after few manoeuvres. This is the reason why we have to tune the DI same as the compass.**


Downwind checks completed. Power reduced and turned to base leg.

Taxy and Landing lights on.

On approach path, 500ft, flaps put to Landing position.


Now at this moment, I couldn't see the runway surface at all except for the approach lights and runway lights.

Basically it felt almost like I was descending into a black hole with stars at the side. **Sorry, I can't think of any other sentence to describe that.**

It was only at 80feet I could visual with the 1000-foot marker.


Power was then idled. Flare. And touchdown for another 4 Touch & Gos.




Conclusion: Landing part is the toughest in Night flying. The timing to decide WHEN TO FLARE becomes very very important. One second late in flaring can end up in propeller strike. Flare too early might cause stall, heavy landing and hence damage to main wheels.


************


Did IF 34 this morning and now going hangar for GH44! Ciaoz..

So what should I buy for myself this coming CNY?

Cellphone?

Wallet?

T-shirts?

Jeans?

How about all? Wahahahahahahahaha!!!

Keep dreaming, boy. -_-"




A video I found somewhere on the net:



Gotta go prepare for night flying now. Hopefully it is not gonna be cancelled AGAIN like yesterday night!

Saw the US Airways A320 news? No? Go here: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PLANE_IN_RIVER?SITE=MYPSP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2009-01-15-21-40-59

The news above suddenly make me realize that I don't really know about ditching into water.

Many questions popped inside my head minutes ago.
What to do when my engine quits on me during nav sorties over the sea?

How am I going to ditch the damned aircraft in glassy water?

If the sea is rough, how the hell am I going to ditch it?!!

Am I going to remember all the emergency procedures that time?

Have I equipped myself with a serviceable life vests and other necessary survival equipments?

How am I going to survive after ditching?

I just remember I can't swim...................


But anyway, I have tried looking for information online regarding ditching stuffs. Below is what I extracted from equipped.org. Read this, SE pilots. We gonna need it someday.:

Recommended Ditching Procedures for S/E Airplanes

The following procedures are intended for a typical high-wing, fixed-gear, single-engine airplane. Normal approach speeds of 70-80 KIAS (flaps up) and 60-70 KIAS (flaps down) are assumed.

Power-off Ditching:

1. RADIO--TRANSMIT MAYDAY on 121.5 MHz or any other frequency, if able, giving location and intentions.
2. WING FLAPS--AS DESIRED (Flaps up recommended).
3. APPROACH--INTO THE WIND. Except in light winds and heavy swells, in which case LAND PARALLEL TO SWELLS.
4. HARNESS--SECURE. Brief passengers without shoulder harness to remove eyeglasses and cushion face with folded coat or blanket just prior to touchdown. Don life vests if practical. Do not inflate prior to egress.
5. CABIN DOORS--UNLATCH AND LOCK OPEN.
6. AIRSPEED--80 KIAS (Flaps up). 70 KIAS (Flaps down).
7. TOUCHDOWN--TWO STEP FLARE WITH TOUCHDOWN AT MINIMUM AIRSPEED. Keep wings parallel to water if landing along swells. If able, kick drift off with rudder prior to touchdown.
8. AIRPLANE--EVACUATE through any available exit. If necessary, open window and flood cabin to equalize pressure so doors can be opened.
9. LIFE VESTS AND RAFT--INFLATE AFTER EGRESS.

NOTE

Expect one or more preliminary light skips before the principal impact with the water. The principal water im pact may be severe. Do not unfasten the harness too early. Do not inflate the flotation gear prior to exiting the airplane. Under some light wind conditions, glassy water may make judging the height above water surface very difficult. The above procedure is generally the best way to make a water landing without power. In glassy water situations, make every effort to use other cues, such as floating objects or shorelines, to judge height above water.

Power-on Ditching:

1. RADIO--TRANSMIT MAYDAY on 121.5 MHz or any other frequency, if able, giving location and intentions.
2. HEAVY OBJECTS--SECURE OR JETTISON, if practical.
3. WING FLAPS--AS DESIRED (Flaps down recommended).
4. APPROACH--INTO THE WIND. Except in light winds and heavy swells, then LAND PARALLEL TO SWELLS.
5. HARNESS--SECURE. Brief passengers without shoulder harness to remove eyeglasses and cushion face with folded coat or blanket just prior to touchdown. Don life vests. Do not inflate prior to egress.
6. CABIN DOORS--UNLATCH AND LOCK OPEN.
7. AIRSPEED--60 KIAS (Flaps down).
8. TOUCHDOWN--USE POWER TO ESTABLISH 100 - 200 FT/MIN DESCENT AT 60 KIAS. Keep wings parallel to water if landing along swells. If able, kick drift off with rudder prior to touchdown.
9. AIRPLANE--EVACUATE through any available exit. If necessary, open window and flood cabin to equalize pressure so doors can be opened.
10. LIFE VESTS AND RAFT--INFLATE AFTER EGRESS.

    NOTE

    Expect one or more preliminary light skips before the principal impact with the water. The principal water impact may be severe. Do not unfasten the harness too early. Do not inflate the flotation gear prior to exiting the airplane. The touchdown technique is a no-flare power touchdown. Glassy water may make judging the height above the water surface very difficult. With power available, do not attempt to guess the point at which to flare, but allow the airplane to fly itself into the water at minimum safe speed with sufficient power to keep descent rate at a safe level.

I dunno anyone of you notice this but I added a new link called The Life Lessons.

A 747 Captain's blog. It's not all about aviation terms and stuffs. I'd say it's a combination of psychology and aviation.

Recommend y'all to read it!

Remember to click on the his Photo Album link!

Wtf..Navigation 12 (solo) was canceled this evening due to strong winds and bad visibility.

And tomorrow I am scheduled for Night Flying.

Yeah, you read it right. It's Night Flying!!

In order to get the Night Flying rating, I only need to clock 7 hours of flying (at night of course).

That's pretty short, isn't it?

From what I heard from seniors, Night Flying only consists of circuits (dual with instructors, solos and lastly P1 U/S).

Flying is as per day flying. No changes.

The differences are:
- Light signals to ground crew.
- Emergencies during radio failure & total electrical failure (on ground and in the air).


Anyway, my batch mate just came back telling me that all Night Flying sorties tonight have been canceled. Reason: strong winds, again.

Damn.

Route: WMKL <---> Taiping
Flight Time: 02:40
Endurance: 07:00

Traffic was quite busy in the morning especially near Alor Setar and Penang airport. I was told to hold for quite sometime before I could resume normal navigation as per flight plan.

Visibility was bad too. Especially up north. No thanks to the farmers who are burning paddies every day. Sigh~

Wind was very strong these few days. It was calm until the day our batch came back from kt, my senior said.

Yesterday one of the AK's A320 had to take-off from Runway 03. The tower told the pilots to use Runway 21. But the Captain insisted on 03.

Fyi, taking from Runway 03 at here for airliners is actually quite dangerous due to the high terrain ahead.

Well, the headwind was so damn strong that the airbus lifted of at half of runway length! So they cleared the terrain easily.

The aircraft itself has some kinda equipment that can detect wind speed.

Guess how much was that?

25knots. That's equal to 46 km/h.

School only approved leave from 24th to 29th. I have booked ticket to go to KUL on 23rd evening and coming back here on 29th night.

Now the only problem is bus tickets. Afraid that the flight might be delayed and that means spend overnight in the bus station.

Going to jb? Maybe.



I am back in LGK.

Not Saturday night. Yeah, they changed again.

It's tomorrow night we are going back.


Sh*t...

Last minute decision, as usual, from the school telling us to go back to the island this Saturday night. We gonna report back to flying wing the coming Monday.

Anyway, about whether I can get leave for this year's CNY is still a big question mark. Although the company has no problem in giving us extra leave, but the final say is still up to the Aerofoil Head.

I applied for a week leave. If I get just 5days or less, I will only go back to my hometown to celebrate with my grandmother and family.

If more than that, I will make extra trip down south to meet up with you guys.

Hopefully I can get the email from the company this evening.

Airfares are getting more expensive! Help!!

.....at our house yesterday night to celebrate all of us passed our PT2!

After 12 days of not flying, finally I was scheduled to fly this morning. Felt kinda weird when flying just now. Control stick felt heavy. And I took more time to visual with aircrafts.


Yesterday was a very lucky day! Guess what, I got the once in a lifetime chance to enter a Boeing 747 cockpit!!!!

You see, my batchmate has a FO friend (from our company of course) who was scheduled to fly to Jeddah to fetch the Muslim pilgrims home. A 3-men crew flight. We requested to see 747 cockpit. Permission granted. Arrangements were made soon after that.

Departure time 1900hours. So we waited at the departure hall at 1700hours because we also not very sure what time they were supposed to arrive at the airport.

20minutes later and we saw 2 Captains and 1 FO arrived in a MPV. We sat down in a restaurant and had some coffee together with them while waiting for the immigration office to open. One of the Captains, Captain SH treated us the drinks! :)

It was quite awkward to share the same table with them! You know, they were wearing the black blazers, with the 4 gold bars on their wrist (not forgetting the 3 bars on the FO's). And 5 of us were..urmmm..just nothing compared to them!

Then we saw the FO took out all the necessary documents for the flight. Notams, METARs, TAFs, flight plan, load sheets, etc. I got the chance to have a look at their METARs, TAFs and Notams. Goddamnit! There were so many pages!

The FO said that they would read it during cruise phase. Fyi, such long-haul flight consists of many legs (or sections as you call them). So only certain information are applicable to certain legs. Reading everything at one shot will take forever, he said.

At around 1740, we proceeded to the aircraft! The climax! Haha.

Captain SH showed us personally (yes personally!) to the First Class seats. We passed by the Business Class cabin and seriously it was fantastic! Oh my god! But the First Class cabin was even superb! He showed us how to operate the chair-to-bed massage functions, touchscreen monitor, etc.
Call me anything you want. Haha. But I have never experienced a First Class seat until yesterday! Not even Business Class! Maybe I won't have the chance to fly one of those too!

Yes, we saw the cabin attendants of course! Busy with the final preparation before take-off. Hehehe. Fyi, they were all retired cabin crews hired specially for the haj flights. Why retired ones, you asked? I don't know!

But hey, they all looked between 25 to 29 years old. Very pretty some of them. And very professional indeed. The way they carried themselves, the way they talked, very friendly.
Except for one, a gay b*stard steward. Felt like punching him. Ok, please. He did not molest me. Haha. I just hate gays. I had seen too much in my school last time. So.....you know....yeah.

Anyway, all the steward and stewardess 'booked' the First Class seats. No passengers at all. Ferry flight, remember?

After that we walked to the upper deck, where it leads to the cockpit! =) Cockpit~~ It was awesome, folks!!!
Damn. Just seeing them at airliners.net or other online websites is certainly not enough! Haha. Being able to see it live is pure happiness!! Pure joy!! =D =D =D

As we were busy taking photos and looking around inside, the FO was busy doing his job. Keying in data into FMS, getting the latest weather info, checking the switches and buttons of instrument stuffs. The pilot in command, Captain SJ was less busy, it seemed. But he shared some of the the workload. Haha. As usual, most of the stuffs are to be done by the juniors!

The FO later went outside to do the aircraft walk-around. This is one of the pre-flight procedures to check the airframe visually for defections. (Even the small aircrafts that we fly have to be checked visually before each sorties.)

Captain SH showed us the crew rest bunk just left rear of the cockpit. Very small. Haha. Two beds, top and bottom. Two washrooms just on the right rear of the cockpit.





Departure time was just 15minutes away and we heard the gay b*stard announcing through the speaker to inform us to get out from the plane ASAP. We thanked the Captains and FO before we left.

From outside I just realised the aircraft's nickname is jb! Haha. I was the last to notice that actually. My friends saw that even before they stepped into the aircraft. Just in case you don't know, all the company's 747s side are named after cities of Bolehland.

A Flying students' diary..

Week 1

Monday: Rain

Tuesday: Rain

Wednesday: No rain; no visibility either

Thursday: Take instructor to lunch. Discover I don't know enough to take instructor to lunch.

Friday: Fly! Do first stall and second stall during same manoeuvre. Cover instructor with lunch.

Week 2

Monday: Learned not to scrape frost off Plexiglas with ice-scraper. Used big scratch as marker to set pitch.

Tuesday: Instructor wants me to stop calling throttle "THAT BIG KNOB THING." Also hates when I call instruments "GADGETS"

Wednesday: Radios won't pick up radio stations, so I turned them off. Instructor seems to think I missed something.

Thursday: Learned 10 degree bank is not a steep turn. Did stall again today. Lost 2000 feet. Instructor said that was some kind of record -- my first compliment.

Friday: Did steep turn. Instructor said I was not ready for inverted flight yet.

Week 3

Monday: Instructor called in sick. New instructor told me to stop calling her "BABE". Did steep turns. She said I had to have permission for inverted flight.

Tuesday: Instructor back. He told me to stop calling him "BABE", too. He got mad when I pulled power back on takeoff because the engine was to loud.

Wednesday: Instructor said after the first 20 hours, most students have established a learning curve. He said there is a slight bend in mine. Aha--progress!

Thursday: Did stalls. Clean recovery. Instructor said I did good job. Also did turns around a point. Instructor warned me never to pick ex-fiancée's house as point again.

Friday: Did circuit work. Instructor said that if downwind, base and final formed a triangle, I would be perfect. More praise!

Week 4

Monday: First landing at a controlled field. Did fine until I told the captain in the 747 ahead of us on the taxiway to move his bird. Instructor says we'll have ground school all this week on radio procedures.

Tuesday: Asked instructor if everyone in his family had turned grey at such an early age. He smiled. We did takeoff stalls. He says I did just fine but to wait until we reached altitude next time. Three Niner Juliet will be out of the shop in three days when the new strut and tyre arrive. Instructor says his back bothers him only a little.

Wednesday: Flew through clouds. I thought those radio towers were a lot lower. I'm sure my instructor is going grey.

Thursday: Left flaps down for entire flight. Instructor asked way. I told him I wanted the extra lift as a safety margin. More ground school.

Friday: Asked instructor when I could solo. I have never seen anyone actually laugh until they cried before.

---

Pilot Trainee: "Tower, please speak slowly, I am a baby in English and lonely in the cockpit"

---

Student Pilot: "I'm lost; I'm over a lake and heading toward the big E."
Controller: "Make several 90 degree turns so I can identify you on radar."
(short pause)...
Controller: "Okay then. That lake is the Atlantic Ocean. Suggest you turn to
the big W immediately ..."

---

The student in his primary trainer was flying a solo cross-country. He lost his way and before he finally ran out of fuel he decided to put it down on a road. With hardly any cars on the road he managed to coast his aircraft into a gas station and said to the attendant, "Fill 'er up!"

The attendant just looked at the pilot.

"I bet you don't get too many airplanes asking for a refuel," said the pilot.

The attendant replied: "True, most pilots use that airport over there."

---

Does your son fly your aircraft? No, it was like this when I bought it.

---

Tower: "Aircraft on final, go around, there's an aircraft on the runway!"
Pilot Trainee: "Roger" (pilot continues approach)
Tower: "Aircraft, I said GO AROUND!!!"!
Pilot Trainee: "Roger"
The trainee doesn't react, lands the aircraft on the numbers, rolls to a twin standing in the middle of the runway, goes around the twin and continues to the taxiway.

---

Student Pilot: "I'm lost; I'm over a lake and heading toward the big E."
Controller: "Make several 90 degree turns so I can identify you on radar."
(short pause)...
Controller: "Okay then. That lake is the Atlantic Ocean. Suggest you turn to
the big W immediately ..."

---

Cessna 152: "Flight Level Three Thousand, Seven Hundred"
Controller: "Roger, contact Houston Space Centre"

---

Tomahawk: "F-XAA is final 29, touch and go."
Tower: "XAA is cleared touch and go, 29".
(several long circuits later)
Tomahawk: "F-XAA is final 29, touch and go"
Tower: "F-XAA is cleared touch and go, 29. How many more circuits were you planning on making?"
Tomahawk: "We though we'd make one or two more."
Tower: "Roger. I just wondered because we were calculating your landing fees, and you're up to $13,000 now."
(long delay)
Tomahawk: "THAT WAS OUR LAST ONE!!!!!"
(another long delay)
Tower: "Just kidding. Next time, read your flight supplement."

---

Lost student pilot: "Unknown airport with Cessna 150 circling overhead, identify yourself."

**post has been edited partly due to font&colour problem with blogger**

1st of January 2009..

1st post of year 2009..

Happy New Year, folks!

*and Happy Birthday to Huey Ni!*



--- 2008 was a great year! And a lucky one for me too! Happy with the all the things that happened to me in the past 366days. Just hope luck continues this year! ---