This advice is obviously for those still struggling to pass your CAA6 and CAA2 subjects.

I just attended a briefing on filling up license application form for the CPL/IR with Frozen ATPL.

For your information, just in case you did not read about the rules and regulations in MCAR......

If you do not clear your CAA6 papers in 12months OR CAA2 papers in 6months from the date of first attempt, you will have to resit all the papers again.
Yes, ALL THE PAPERS in order for DCA to issue your license.

If possible, pass all papers in one attempt.

Don't make your life difficult.

Trust me, you won't wanna study for ground school and flying at the same time.

To seta&ec fellas,

Air Law 1 - 83%

Air Law 2 - 100%

Human Performance & Limitations - 84%

Mass & Balance - 100%

Loading - 100%


No pain no gain. =)

Finally, the day has come!!!!!!!

I have finished my ground school final examination!!!!! Muahhahhahhaha. Hopefully I should be able to pass all subjects!! :)

Ok..that's the good part.



Now the ugly part.

We were scheduled to have de-brief sessions with all the ground instructors this morning. De-brief is actually our job to give feedback to instructors about the questions that came out in exam.

The first 3 sessions went very swiftly and smoothly. But not the last. And the instructor, is the fella who gave me ZERO in my previous progress test.

This moronic instructor actually asked us to produce the complete 100% exactly SAME PAPER with answers ABCD altogether, no more no less!!

@*$#$#@$*& damn!

We managed to produce the 80% of what we could remember, but to demand for such 100%........IT IS JUST TOO MUCH!

I wish I could re-produce the whole recording and post it here. You should listen to how he screamed and shouted at us!! As he left the classroom, he slammed the wooden door so hard as if it owed him a million bucks!!

This is not yet the end. He complained to the principal and Chief Ground Instructor, saying that we gave ZERO feedback to him!!! What the hell???

And of course, Mr Principal and CGI summoned us for that particular matter. Luckily, we were given chance to defend ourselves and both of them understand the real condition. Whether they are going to take action on the sucker or not, it's not our business. We are not under ground school anymore!!



Here comes the fun part.

Only me and another batchmate from Malacca staying here. Reason not going back: Home too far and break too short. The other 15 people all went back this evening. I am already in this crewroom, surfing net for more than 10 hours.

Not that I got nothing to do but I am trying to find myself SOMETHING to do.

If you remember what I said last time, the school computers did not have MSN, YM, flash player, java, chinese software,etc. We cadets could download the applications but could not get the admin passwords to install those stuffs. We had all those before the main CPU was infected with some kinda "Blue Screen of Death" virus.

Frustrated by these things, my friend (a computer expert) and I (a computer idiot) decided to take matters into our own hands.

Damn! Hacking was fun!! :)

Oh, did I say hacking just now? Just forget what I said 3 seconds ago.. :P

Anyway, the only problem left is how to use the chinese software. I installed it already but it's not functioning as it should be! If anyone of you has any good suggestions on where to download usable (and free) software to view chinese words, please feel free to post them in the chatting section.




Lastly, the best part.

After the senior batch completes their CPL hours at Kuala Terengganu, our batch is confirmed on the next list to go too!! The date is around end of October, but it may changed depending to the progress.

Singapore F1 night race is just around the corner!! This is the first night racing in F1 history, just in case you are not a fan of F1. :)


Friday 26th September, 2008.
13.00 Gates open for all ticket holders
14.00 Formula One Paddock Club™, Sky and Club Suite Opens
15.00 – 15.25 Formula BMW Pacific Practice Session
15.50 – 16.20 Aston Martin Asia Cup Practice Session
16.40 – 17.25 Porsche Carrera Cup Asia Practice Session
17.50 – 18.15 Formula BMW Pacific Qualifying Session
19.00 – 20.30 Formula One First Practice Session
21.30 – 23.00 Formula One Second Practice Session
Midnight Formula One Paddock Club™ , Sky and Club Suite Closes


Saturday 27th September, 2008.
13.00 Gates open
14.00 Formula One Paddock Club™, Sky and Club Suite Opens
15.50 – 16.20 Aston Martin Asia Cup Qualifying Session
16.50 – 17.15 Formula BMW Pacific Race One (10 Laps)
17.45 – 18.15 Porsche Carrera Cup Asia Qualifying Session
19.00 – 20.00 Formula One Third Practice Session
22.00 – 23.00 Formula One Qualifying Session
Midnight Formula One Paddock Club™, Sky and Club Suite Closes

Sunday 28th September, 2008.
13.00 Gates open for all ticket holders
14.00 Formula One Paddock Club™, Sky and Club Suite Opens
15.30 – 16.00 Aston Martin Asia Cup Race (10 Laps)
16.30 – 17.00 Formula BMW Pacific Race Two (10 Laps)
17.30 – 18.05 Porsche Carrera Cup Asia Race (12 Laps)
18.30 Formula One Drivers Parade
18.45 – 19.15 Starting Grid presentation
19.46 - Singapore National Anthem
20.00 2008 Formula 1™ SingTel Singapore Grand Prix (61 Laps)
Midnight - Formula One Paddock Club™ , Sky and Club Suite Closes



How's the weather at night down south recently? Raining cats and dogs very often? It's gonna be even more challenging with rain and reduced visibility in at night, I think.

Just one more week to go and I will be free from ground school!! Woohooo!!

*dancing around* =D


Before that is of course to clear my final exam. I seriously don't wish to resit for any paper! Double work, double trouble!

PA and Mass&Balance are relatively more risky subjects compared to the others.

PA consists of 20 questions while M&B has only 8!

Passing mark is still the same: 75%. "Safety margin" is thus lesser. I have failed quite a few times in PA, ranging from 60% to 70%.

And not forgetting that ONE failure in M&B. *grrr*



But I guess I should be fine. :)
Not overconfidence, just optimistic!

5x + 14y = 10
7y=4

Solve the equations above. How many steps are you going to write to arrive to the final answer?

Like this?

x = [10 - 14(4/7)]/5

= 2/5




Or like this?

Let 5x + 14y = 10 ---> (1) and 7y=4 ---> (2)

From (2): y= 4/7 ---> (3)

Substitute (3) into (1):

5x + 14(4/7) = 10

5x + 2(4) = 10

5x + 8 = 10

5x = 2

x = 2/5


*The question above is actually from Mass & Balance, but I changed it a little so that everyone can understand.*
I believe people with common sense with certainly use the first method. But there are some people in my school...wait...not "some people"...there is only one person in my school who likes to use the longer way!!

That special person is my ground instructor, who is responsible to teach me Mass & Balance.

I tried to argue with him. It saves candidates the time to allow for checking other questions (and can save ink summore ;P).

His reasoning: No. You don't take shortcut. It's because of shortcuts, you make errors. In flying, we should follow all the procedures laid down. If you follow those, you can't go wrong, bla bla bla...


Oh shut up already..


My comment: He is just to rigid. Pilots should be flexible and take the best actions in accordance to situations! I got all the questions correct but he gave me ZERO for all that! Just because I did not follow his "procedures"?!! Damnit.


This is mathematics! Not flying, you stubborn old man.

This post is not for people who hates psychology.


Skill Based Behaviour

-relies on skills memory
-stored as routines/motor programmes
-carried without conscious thought
-must be monitored by Central Decision Maker
-allows to do routine tasks at the same time
-skill maybe difficult to explain
-once learned, skill may be difficult to modify


Types of Error:
1) Action Slip

CORRECT DECISION ---> Pilot distracted ---> WRONG SKILL ---> Pilot fails to monitor ---> ERROR



2) Environmental Capture

Decision to do Skill One ---> Skill One & Skill Two are associated ---> But Skill Two is decided instead ---> ERROR



3) Reversion

Task to do ---> Pilot reverts to previously learned skill ---> ERROR




An example of ENVIRONMENTAL CAPTURE which comes from my own experience during flying:

A dual Circuit sortie with my instructor during early February and I had like only a couple of flying hours clocked. As usual, it was a Left-Hand Circuit. Turning into early Downwind, my instructor told me to do a flapless approach for a Touch & Go.


If it is a normal procedure, I will have to put down the flaps at late downwind before turning into Base Leg.


I said yes. But at late downwind, my hand still went for the Flaps Selection Switch to put the flaps down. How smart.



Two more types of Behaviours are Rule Based Behaviour and Knowledge Based Behaviour, which for obvious reason I can't remember all these things in like two days. Goddamn, it's tough!

Navigation - 87%
Radio Aids - 89%
Meteorology Theory - 89%
Meteorology Practical - 83%
Flight Planning - 97%
Instruments - 80%

I have passed all the subjects!! =)

But then again, out of 17 people in our batch, only 7 including me who managed to pass all the subjects. The others will have to resit for their failed paper after 3 months.

Went to watch Dark Knight on Friday night too. Awesome movie and The Joker steals the show!!

Due to Mr Chelwarnce request, I wrote another paragrapgh of thanks just for him.

Thank you for your time to play basketball with me. And also for your time to wait for me until I collect my glasses that day. And also for fetching me for steamboat. And also for willing to eat steamboat with me TWICE. And also the Red Cliff movie, which was fantastic! *Recommended to anyone who is familiar with Romance of Three Kingdoms!*


By the way, CA2 this stage is not that heavy and stressful as compared to CA6. The subjects are as follows:

- Performance A
- Human Performance and Limitations
- Air Law
- Mass & Balance

Classes are only half day until 12.30pm. However, the school introduced another two subjects for our batch: Glass Cockpit and Jeppesen, just for these first two weeks. It's just a repetition of what we learn in CA6, but what to do, this is the style of the school management. Do things without think first.

One thing I find very interesting in Human Performance and Limitations is that it covers mostly about biology. You know, like respiration, eyes, dental, health, physiology, etc. There is also a chapter of Basic Aviation Psychology. All are nothing but facts that we need to swallow in two months time.

Gotta go for classes now~~ ;)

I am back in Langkawi to continue for the next phase, CA2. What was supposed to be the integrated programme now remains as a question. No flying or simulation like what the school informed us weeks back.

Holiday was of course fun. I had only like a week holiday, after minus the bus delays. A few friends that I did not get to meet up, Jie Sheng, Ji Wey, Joanne, Ming Huah, Ee Wuen and I am very sorry about that!

By the way, I also wanna thank a few people here:

Eric, Huiyee, Huiting, Meiroo, Liting: Thanks alot for sacrificing your time the other day to let me talk for 3hours!
Bihguok, Eric, Yek Wei, Hanwei, See Gin, Sheng Yeh: Thanks for the basketball game and pool!
Kailin, Peyying: Thanks for being such a "filial" girl!
Liling: Thanks alot for the pool game and for joining us for the steamboat dinner!
ShokKiang: Thanks for your 3hours time talking to me while standing!
Seng Fatt: Thanks for joining us for the steamboat!
Weixi, Yixuan: Thank you for your whacking both my arms for more than 30 times in total!
Meng Er: Hmmm, I did not have much time to chat with you also that day but thanks for asking me out!


After like so seven months did not go back to JB, many people sure have changed. Some changed for the better and some for the worse. Of course, I am in no position to comment on anyone particularly. But I'd say that people won't stay the same forever. =)

Anyway, I have accomplished all the missions that I had been thinking to do. In fact, I got more than what I want. Like, my parents paid for my transport expenses and this saves me quite a lot of money for this month.

Aviator sunglasses, I bought it in JB, and not in Singapore. To cut long story short, I got a Ray-Ban alike design, with dark green colour lenses. I had oh-my-dear-beautiful-godsis (OMDBGS)who helped me took a picture of me wearing the specs. Maybe I will post the picture here someday. Yeah, I know, it's not the month of Ghost yet.

Not forgetting also my newly-found godfather whom I can like talk about anything under the sun, from politics to fuel hike to education to flying to golf, etc. =)

I do not have a laptop, plus with the crewroom computers not fixed (for one month already), I basically have no entertainment. So I brought my guitar along to Langkawi. Hey, I did not say that I know how to play guitar! I am going to master it before I graduate from here! Sounds confident eh me...



**Another junior batch joined this school today. Batch 22. 16 MAS cadets and 4 privates. Tomorrow night we will have a meeting with them, sort of like orientation (or ragging) as you put it.**

cof CA6 examination. Subjects left are Navigation, Meteorology Theory, and Meteorology Practical.

....is just tomorrow!!! Yes, finally after waiting for so long, the day has come. Preparation is almost complete. Just have to sharpen my pencils and pack the necessary equipments.

Oh yeah, I am going home on this coming Saturday until 2oth July. Please take note that I might not be able to meet all of you due to transport and time constraint. Sorry!

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.

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.

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!*

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

Recovering almost 100%.

By the way, last Monday's Nav test result is out. I thought I did badly especially in my Nav plotting. What came out during the test was not even taught by the instructor!! Bloody hell. But I still managed to get 83%. Lucky me.

Out of all the subjects, this Nav Plotting subject is the only subject which I have no idea what I am doing. Now already enter end of May, and with the syllabus of Nav Plotting coming to an end, I can't believe I am still struggling to understand this subject. Nav Plotting is about plotting of charts, given some flight plans (telling you to fly from A to B to C to D), calculation of wind speed, ground speed, ETA, measuring distance and then log the necessary info into the log sheet.

That's is only a general view.

But to actually PLOT and LOG, I am really clueless, thanks to my instructor. He tells us what to do, but not showing us how to do. There is not one complete example that we can refer to. So the only way to learn is to make mistakes (as many as possible) in tests!