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..

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.

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.

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/

My instructor and I were turning inbound in the procedure turn for VOR/DME approach and contacted the tower for touch&go intention.

But tower instructed us to land due to IMC conditions.

Heavy downpour and we couldn't visual with runway until 3 DME from VKR (quite close to runway already).

The windscreen was like a piece of white sheet.

It was only at less than 1DME we saw the runway lights and managed to land.

A good experience though. I don't think I can get that in Lgk! :)

Flew pass some low-lying areas and they were all flooded very badly. Especially near the airfield.


My friend saw one guy trying to push his car out from his house even though the water level was at his neck already!

Finally after 6 days of not flying, I am back to the sky again! =)

As expected, my performance was below par. Especially instrument scanning. Again.


The road in front of my house is flooded. Ankle deep.

The ceiling in my room leaks during heavy downpour.

We informed the house owner already. Hopefully he can do something about this.

We did NDB (Non-Directional Beacon) tracking in and tracking out exercises. It's simpler in terms of procedures.

NDBs is a little similar like VOR (read previous post).

They are used as airfield approach (not runway approach) aids for airlines.

In aircraft, we have Automatic Direction Finding (ADF) equipment to detect the NDB signals, and that is why we can track towards a particular airfield.

The accuracy is lesser and more prone to errors compared to the more advanced nav aids, like VOR and GPS.

If there is a thunderstorm activity nearby, the ADF needle will point towards there! Other sources of error including:
-terrain
-night effect
-aircraft banking
-shoreline




It's nearing the end of the month and we have to update our flying hours in the logbook.

Me?

83:20

Long long way to go...........

Another normal day. Yeah, normal.

As usual, strong winds. And I mean really strong. At least 20kts.

Maximum crosswind permitted for solo cadets is 10kts. So only sorties with instructors were allowed to proceed.

We practiced procedure turns. 4 types altogether.
-Turn 80degrees to the right/left, then turn 260degrees left/right.
-Turn 90degrees to the right/left, then turn 270degrees left/right.
-Turn 45degrees to the right/left, then turn 225degrees left/right.
-Base leg technique: 180degrees one round turn.

Procedure Turn is used to position ourselves to intercept a particular VOR (VHF Omnidirectional Range) radial and then track to the VOR station (which in this case, the VOR here is named VKR).

There are 360 radials, with the VOR as the center, ranging from Radial 000 to Radial 359.

Try imagine VORs are like our toll booth (minus the toll fees obviously). And airways are like highways connecting one waypoint to the another.

Mutual sortie as usual, practiced for VOR/DME of VKR Runway 22. I messed up the procedure turn section. Dunno what the hell was I thinking. :P

Solo sortie: I went to Rusila Training Area. That was my first time to that training area. Hills all around and a small town at the rivermouth.

I thought I could fly at 3000feet but as I flew pass a layered cloud at 2000feet, I couldn't visual with ground at all.

It's kinda scary to fly without knowing what's below you.

Bright sunny day and a little morning drizzle. A rare weather to be seen during this season.

But cloud cover in the training area I went was quite low at 1700 feet. Only could practice some turns.

To practice stalls, the height requirement is 2500feet or above.

This training area that I went yesterday is actually the location of the crash of 9MHMT.

I was flying 1000feet to look for clearings or flat areas to practice the PFL. All around me were small hills, secondary jungles and palm oil estates.

Seriously, if there was any emergency, the only place that's suitable for forced landing would be the beach.

Flying inside cloud sounds fun. I thought it was fun too.

Yesterday low cloud was everywhere. Cloud base 1800feet. We had to maintain 3500 feet over VKR, so entering cloud couldn't be avoided.

Fyi, instrument flying emphasizes on 3Rs, namely:
Rely
Refer
Relax

I managed to do the first 2Rs. The last one was tough. I was feeling the leans.

The Attitude Indicator showed straight and level flight. But I felt the aircraft was turning&banking slowly to one side. Damn.

By the way, solo sortie today was boring. 4 Apex aircrafts came here for Nav plus 3 company aircrafts. Traffic was too busy. Bad weather in training area. I had to hold at training area in the rain for 20minutes. And another 20minutes at downwind!!

Only managed to do 2 touch&go and that was all for an hour sortie! -_-"




Yesterday another cadet here caused propeller strike on a TB10 he flew. The nose wheel is damaged quite badly.

The best part is, the cadet is the same guy who created history of the first TB10 propeller strike few weeks ago. Hahahaha.

I wonder what the hell he was thinking during flaring.

Perhaps he wanted to test the aircraft limit? :P

Or maybe he felt he lived to long. Wahahahahaha.

I think I am getting the hang of flying at here already. The procedures parts were fine! Just need to fine tune on my landing skills.

First landing- flared to high. Added with crosswind. Ended up kangaroo landing. :P

Second Landing - flared nicely. Landed smoothly but at the left of runway.


My instructor said that I always pick the wrong reference point to maintain runway centerline.

Oh well, I will just pick a new one and practice more again!

Just as what my seniors said, you can be a Master Of Crosswind Landing when you come to fly here.

The techniques which I used in LGK last time to land in crosswind conditions have been refined. The procedures are as follow:

- Approaching finals with crabbing-in method.
- Power as required to maintain airspeed of 80kts
- On flare, kick opposite rudder to maintain nose with runway centreline
- Ailerons into the wind, and let aircraft sinks slowly.


Yesterday I got the chance to try out Keropok Lekor of KT. Simply delicious! Worth the money spent! 5big pieces for 1buck. Even the chilli sauce is homemade sauce.

Yesterday was the first time I tried VOR/DME approach for KT Runway 22. Seriously, the IF procedures here is more complicated than in LGK.

Two different charts for two Runways here while in LGK, the IF procedure is so easy with just one runway!

The codename for KT's VOR is VKR. But I was so used to LGK's VOR that I nearly said VPL when I was reporting overhead VKR!


I still need some time to get used to the new procedures and RT call.

Do you know KT here has 6 training areas? So many training areas but so few aircrafts to fly. But anyway, we normally use the nearest 3 training areas. It consumes alot of time just to climb to 4000ft!

Oh yeah, now that xiuyu mentioned it, I forgot to explain why we were sent here to fly. The reason is stupid though. No surprising as it comes from stupid management.

The reason:

Our batch is progressing way too fast already and need to slow down. The average flying hours that we have clocked so far is 73hours (including PPL 42 hours).

Back in LGK, we were able to clock 2 to 3 hours per day as our batch 'conquered' all the DA40s available. So if the progress continues, we can actually graduate at mid February.

BUT...

According to school's brilliant plan, again, we will only join Twin Engine Flying stage at 9th February. Which means we have like 3months to complete our single engine flying hours.

2months to clock up to around 115hours here in KT because some of the long navigation sorties and night flying and PTs can only be done in LGK.

*145 hours for Single Engine*
*55 hours for Twin Engine*

Thanks to the intelligent management and thinking of our beloved Mr. Aerofoil Head, we were sent here with just 3 aircrafts to fly. And in schedule, there is only ONE HOUR for each of us to fly. They were thinking that KT monsoon season can reduce our progress more.

But hell no. The weather here is like drought + strong crosswind + few low clouds. Suitable for flying but just have to be a little more careful with the crosswind on landing.

We gonna try to complete the remaining single engine hours by CNY2009 and then apply leave to go back for few days.

Angpau~~ Angpau~~ Where are you?~~

Just arrived in KT yesterday morning after a 9 hours of bus journey. After that followed by 8 hours house cleaning.

There is no internet connection at the housing area. But luckily there is WIFI at this small little hangar.

There isn't much time for me to update everything. Just flew finish and need to go back to house soon by van.

So I will update those next time.

PS: I saw a MAS 747 at here taking off today!! Super awesome!! =)

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. :)