I've passed! :) Dunno my marks though. But more importantly is PASS!!!

My flying hours still lack 40minutes so tomorrow will do an additional sortie to complete it. I think I will try for flying around the island anticlockwise.

No time to celebrate this yet as I still have to go for TE Sim. Type Tech for DA42 exam has been postponed too.

So more time to study.

Super tired now. Ciaoz!

Total Flight Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
Endurance: 7hours




































**Anyway, I passed this PT with flying colours. 96%. ;)**
**Later at 1400hours local time, I will go for my last PT in single engine phase (PT4). Wish me luck!!**

Main Route: WMKL - WMKP - WMKL
Total Flight Time: 2 hours 30minutes.



All SOLO sorties have been completed.

No more 943.

From today onwards, I will use other people's callsigns (ie instructors or airlines).

Some of us have completed their Single Engine phase and now doing simulator for Twin Engine phase.

Just hope I can get my PT3 (Nav check) and PT4 (GH check) done by end of this week and then I can proceed to Twin Engine phase.

If no, I think I will be doing TE Sim at the same time wait for PTs.

Type Tech examination for DA42 will be on the 11th Feb. Study time!

Nav 12 to Ipoh again this time but duration only 3 hours. The route to Penang was excluded.

Kinda unlucky that I had to take off at 1100hours local time and so I brought two packets of biscuit along to fill my empty stomach.

I felt mild vibration along the way. I thought maybe the strong wind was the cause. But the aircraft vibrated from take off until I landed. Haha.

When I was approaching to land, I was told to descend from 2000ft to 1000ft.

I cut power from 70% to 30%.

And suddenly the power dropped to 0%!

And the engine felt suddenly like switched into silent mode!!

Damnit. I think my heart stopped beating for that 1 sec!

But anyway, I applied full power back. Oh man, a noisy engine felt so much better..........(lucky me??)

Tomorrow morning going for my last navigation sortie in single engine phase! And it will also be the last time I gonna use my own callsign.

My last ever SOLO sortie.

I am so gonna miss 943~~

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!!

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.

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..

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.

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.

I have done my PT2! Yeah, yesterday morning.

The "ordeal" lasted 1hour 12minutes in clouds, strong winds and turbulence.

My batchmate was in worse state. His VOR instrument went kaput while doing his PT2.

But anyway, both of us passed! ^^

Thank you very much to all who wished me luck! :)

The night itself my batchmates and I went to Secret Recipe for Xmas countdown. We thought there wouldn't be any pub in KT.
One of my friends approached a few girls at the other tables to ask about Xmas countdown places.

Only 3 places. Damn.

This bar that we went to was quite....funny? It felt like a disco pub with the smokes and beers and loud music but we saw uncles and aunties, kids and babies, babes and hunks. Family pub?

It was full house at the time we reached there. One of the staffs lead us to an empty table around 10mins later. But he didn't realise there was another group of girls has booked the place long before we came.

Ah, we thought of leaving the pub already but one of the girls invited us to join them.

It's kinda scary to see that they were so naive and so easily trust guys whom they only met for less than an hour.

They can pass you their car keys and cellphones before going to washroom.

Or they can leave one of their friends who is drunk, with you, in a car.

To some of you who have never been to pub before, check your alcohol limit please.

Oh, did I mention that the girls were hot and yummy? :P

Merry Christmas everyone~!

With the completion of this sortie just now, I am qualified to go for my PT2. Maybe tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

PT2 is an exam which tests on students performance in Instrument Flying.

PT profile:
- Climbing turn
- Descending turn
- Straight climb
- Straight descend
- Rate 1 turn
- Steep Turn
- Slow Flying
- Medium Turn
- Limited Panel + Climbing turn + Descending turn
- Limited Panel with Unusual Attitudes
- Partial Panel
- VOR/DME approach.

Anyway, wish me luck!

Finally a nav sortie to WMKC (Kota Bahru airfield)! Weather was awesome all the way from take-off until reaching WMKC.

Made a big blunder today. Damn. You gonna laugh when you read this.

I was overhead KB town when the ATC told me to descend to 1000ft and to join Right Hand Downwind Runway 10.

But I joined the left hand downwind Runway 28 instead!!

The best part is I didn't even realise I was at the wrong runway heading until the ATC told me it was the wrong one!

ARRRGGGHHH.............

I requested to go around and resume navigation. He cleared for left turn, climb 3000ft.

But on the way to the next waypoint, the weather turned bad. One huge wall of CB was in front of me stretching from sea to inland.

Unable to divert, I had to track back to land at WMKC.

ATC cleared for right hand downwind Runway 10 to land.

I was afraid I did the wrong thing this time, so I asked for reconfirmation again.

Read back correct. But..

I joined the opposite side of downwind!!!

AAAAARRRRRGGGHHHH.......... *smacks head*
Wtf weh.. WTF!!!!

Luckily some of the APFT aircrafts kept a lookout for me this idiot traffic.

You know why I was that stupid?

Because I was holding the runway layout chart upside down!!! It's in black and white, which lead to the false assumption of land and sea areas.

So sorry to them and the controllers that I caused all the confusion. Sigh~~

But anyway, I landed and went to tower, you know, to apologize for my mistakes.

Since it's the first time I landed at KB, I took quite some time to ask around for directions to the tower.

The controllers were kind enough not to scold me but just advised me not to repeat it again. Phew~~

Another controller, Mr. Khairuddin invited me to have a drink with him since I had to wait for an hour or so for the weather to clear up.

It was already 1130hours by the time we came back. The Mr. Khairuddin called the WMGK to ask the weather. I was cleared to go.

Tracking back to KT airfield via coastal was not that smooth either. Had to avoid clouds all the way back.

A good lesson to learn today: We tend to see things that we want to see only.

After completing many of my solo sorties, I am now being scheduled to fly the remaining dual ones.

But aircraft seems to have problem with the propeller governor. It tends to over-speed.

My friend who flew with the aircraft yesterday faced with propeller over-sped in training area. (Power was only at 50%).

He did all the necessary emergency procedures and later requested to track back to airfield.

A journey from the training area to airfield (which normally takes 5minutes) took 20 minutes.

And hence my navigation solo sortie to WMKC has been canceled for two days already including this morning!!

My long lost friend! It is her! Yeap, the girl that I mentioned yesterday!

And she actually remembers me! OMG.




Today I got the chance to backseat my batchmate (I was not scheduled to fly today) for a 2-hours navigation sortie from KT to down south (near the border of Pahang) and back to our airfield.

Visibility was not very good but manageable. Low clouds and strong winds. It was supposed to be a solo sortie.

But since it is the first time for us to fly nav sorties here, so instructors gonna guide us. Sort of like an introductions sortie.

Map to Ground technique is used when visibility turns bad, and vice versa.

Just few more sorties to go and it's gonna be my exam!! Nah, not theory anymore. Just pure flying!!



Just a random search using Google, I found a FB profile. The picture looked so much like her when she was just 9 years old.

I have been looking for her since 3 years ago but to no avail.

Is it really her, I wonder.

I sent her a message. Still awaiting her reply.

I guess it is hard for her to remember me anyway. 12 years we did not contact each other!




Just for humour ONLY:

http://baetzler.de/humor/differences_men_women.html

http://baetzler.de/humor/five_questions.html

Browsing through paultan.org and I came across this model:
Honda Insight Hybrid






For more pics and info, go to:

http://paultan.org/archives/2008/10/09/honda-insight-hybrid-concept-at-paris-2008/