I was supposed to do my PT1 today. Again, I was re-scheduled for tomorrow. And the best part is, I will have a DCA Captain as my Examiner! Do I sound like I am happy or what?

Honestly I am not, guys. One, I dunno what to expect when I am flying with him. Two, I heard that he is much stricter than any other instructors in my school.

Damn!! The reason why the DCA sent their staff here to do our PT1 is perhaps they don't trust the authorized examiner (AE) from our school. My other batch mates all got the AE to do their PT1 for them. But luckily I am not the only one. I have another batchmate here whose PT1 will also be conducted by the DCA guy tomorrow. So we are now like guinea pigs as no one else has ever done their PTs under a DCA Captain.

If I can pass this PT1, I tell you, I gonna treat myself some delicious food!!!!! I can't think of any food yet. Maybe food related to pork, i guess. =D

I've prepared everything already. Theory of Flight book and the emergency procedures are all inside my stomach now. Yes, I "burned the papers and boiled the ashes with hot water and drank" it. And tomorrow if the examiner asks me, I gonna vomit out all those stuffs in front of him!!! Bloody hell...........


Anyway, below here are some other emergency procedures that I would like to share here. It might sound pointless to some of you, but you can close this window if you don't want to continue reading this.


Total Electric Failure:
1) Circuits Breakers check all IN.
2) Essential Bus ON.
3) If no success, Emergency Switch ON.
4) Flood Light ON.
5) Power set according to engine noise and/or power lever position.
6) Verify flaps position.


Windmill Engine Start:
1) Attitude select 75kts
2) Power lever IDLE
3) Emergency Fuel Valve check NORMAL
4) Alternate Air OPEN
5) Fuel Transfer Pump ON
6) Avionics Master OFF
7) Electric Master ON
8) Engine Master OFF then ON
9) Avionics Master ON.


Powered Engine Start:
1) Attitude select 75kts
2) Engine Master OFF
3) Power Lever IDLE
4) Emergency Fuel Valve check NORMAL
5) Alternate Air OPEN
6) Fuel Transfer Pump ON
7) Avionics Master OFF
8) Electric Master ON
9) Engine Master ON, check Glow Light ON, then wait for Glow Light OFF.
10) Electric Master START
11) Avionics Master ON.

Finished Nav3 (dual sortie) today!!!!!!!!!! Today's route:

WMKA-Kuah-Kuala Perlis-Kuala Kedah-Sala-Jeniang-Kuala Ketil-Selama-Pulau Aman-WMKP-Georgetown-KG KS Muda-Kedah Peak West-Sala- Kuala Kedah-Simpang Empat-Kuah-WMKA.

We made a touch and go at WMKP only. Thought of making a full stop landing at there, you know. But we last minute decided not to do that because we were already delayed.

Weather was very hazy too then we were approaching WMKP. I couldn't really see Pulau Aman even though it's a quite a big island. Plus clouds was everywhere especially thick dark clouds was building up on the mountains. We had to avoid the clouds by going around. Sometimes, we just "squeezed" through the small gap between two huge clouds.

Anyway, to summarize it all, it was quite a smooth ride. I got a B too for this sortie. Tomorrow I scheduled to fly Nav4 (solo) at 7.30am in the morning. Yeah, tomorrow is Sunday and I am flying! The Nav4 route is the same as Nav3. So just pray hard tomorrow I will have aircraft to fly and the weather will be good!!


*WMKP means Penang International Airport*

Today I flew the last GH Solo sortie, GH10. Again, I practiced all the air exercises, trying to simulate the flight test procedure, PT1. Nothing much to talk about it since it was same like previous solo GH sorties. But for today's post, I will include two emergencies procedures for you all to read.



Rough Engine/Power Loss:
1)select attitude of 75kts
2)power lever max
3)check engine caution light
4)if on, check Compact Engine Display.
5)Check main fuel tank quantity
6)Fuel transfer pump on
7)Emergency Fuel valve check normal
8)swap to ECU B
9)Engine master OFF, then ON
10)If no success, ECU swap back to AUTO.

Engine Failure After Take-Off:
1)Select attitude of 75kts
2)pick a suitable place to land
3)Emergency Fuel valve check OFF
4)Engine Master OFF
5)Make a MAYDAY CALL
6)When assured to land, put FLAPS as required
7)Electric master OFF.
8)Secure seatbelts, unlatch the canopy and brace for impact.



Today actually I was not even programmed to fly any Solo sortie. I waited until the very last minute hoping for an aircraft for me to fly. My schedule was actually to fly my Nav3 with my instructor. The weather was so damn good in the noon and evening. But there was no aircraft for us to fly. Plus, there was some para-jump activities at the mainland and thus we were not allowed to fly into the mainland for navigation sorties. Tomorrow's schedule is out again and Nav3 for me at 7.30am. My instructor fell sick, so I am not sure whether he is flying with me tomorrow or what. And as usual, the availability of aircrafts is another question.

My friend was scheduled to fly 0730 hours yesterday but he gave me his slot because his instructor told him to delay his sortie.

I flew GH7 solo. The weather early in the morning was damn good. Wind was calm. No low clouds. Beautiful sunrise. And as usual, I practiced the air exercises at training area for 20minutes before I rejoined the circuit to train my landing and circuit's air exercises. This time, there were none kangaroo landings!

Later in the afternoon, I was supposed to fly Nav3 (to Penang airport and then back to Lgk airport) with my instructor. Weather looked kinda shitty when we were about to take-off. He said we would fly anyway, if weather became worse, the sortie gonna be cancelled and we gonna turn back to land.

However, what caused me to cancel that sortie was not because of weather. But rather it was because of engine problem. Propeller RPM overspeed and the Oil Pressure was low. Damn.

Today again I am programmed to fly Nav2 (solo) Hopefully weather is good and there is aircraft for me.

I thought today gonna fly Nav2 (Solo), but bad weather kicked in. So I had to cancel that sortie of mine. But then again, a friend of mine who was supposed to fly with my instructor fell sick. So the Flight Ops staff scheduled me to take-over his slot to fly my next dual sortie, IF4.

IF4 is the last Instrument Flying with instructor. And the air exercises this time were Unusual Attitude and using VOR/DME. Unusual Attitude was like this: Instructor took over the control and made some extreme controls like dived with negative G, 60 degrees banking with positive G, climb and descend at high speed. Then, I took over the control and recover from it. But hey, I didn't feel like vomiting. In fact, I felt calm! And all this thanks to my crazy friends who "trained" me using special methods. As for VOR/DME, it's gonna be a little confusing to explain it here. However to keep it short and simple, the air exercise was actually like tracking a particular station by tuning to its frequency and heading, and then fly towards the station according to instrument's indications. Haha. I scored another B+ for this sortie!

Anyway, after finished the sortie's briefing, it was already 1900 hours. My friends came to hangar to pick me up and went for dinner at town. This time we didn't go for Bak Kut Teh because we wanted to try something new. We stopped by a Chinese restaurant and I ordered a plate of Wanton Mee and a bowl of Laksa soup. Cost me 6bucks included with drinks. My main purpose was actually to try the Laksa Soup. Thumbs up for the taste, but I think the one I had back down south was much better, cooked by YW's parents. Haha.

The weather is getting weird each day. One hour hot and sunny, the next hour cold and raining. Some of us are starting to fall sick with sore throat and fever and running nose. I finally fall sick too after few weeks of flying under this kinda weather.

Yesterday I was programmed to fly for Nav 1, solo check before I go flying solo for navigation. But, weather at mainland was terrible, I had to replace that sortie with IF2 since the weather on this island was still ok. By the way, just wanna add that I flew with a different instructor because navigation solo check requirement does not allow the same instructor to fly with me.

This time I have nothing to talk about my Instrument Flying, but rather about how the new instructor's teaching. When we were flying through the mountain valley, it was expected to be quite turbulent due to the terrain. If I were to fly with my personal instructor, he'd have let me have all the controls from taxy and back to landing. But this new instructor was like so scared of me crashing the plane! His hand was at the controls most of the time, and I was only like following through. Damn. How can students improve under his guidance??!

This situation is similar to what is happening to the education system in our country. Teachers spoon-feed students with all the notes and the students happily get the info without the need to look for the info by themselves. Worst case is when the teachers deliberately leak out exam questions to their students days before the exam. I am sure these matters are not new to you and you have heard of them so many times or perhaps you were in the same situation before. It's of no surprise that even this problem exists in some universities.

It's about time the education system here to make a change for the better. And fast.






*Why the hell am I talking about that kinda stuffs here?*

Yesterday I was programmed to fly GH8, the last dual GH sortie. Hmmm, the instructor decided to use the one hour sortie to fly IF (Instrument Flying) instead since I already know how to do the GH air exercise. I only need to perfect them when I go for solo GH next time. Flying by instrument again wasn't a problem to me. Climbing, descending, turning, straight&level were easy. Instructor demonstrated to me how to recover from stall by just looking at the instrument panel. Slowly reduce the power to idle, put more and more back pressure at the control column, and then you will see the airspeed starts to washout until a certain point you can feel the control stick is buffeting and hear the stall horn warning getting louder and louder. The recovery method was very similar to the normal stall recovery I used to do last time. With the Attitude Indicator as your 'horizon', put the nose down little by little and slowly power is increased to Full Power. As airspeed comes alive, put the take-off flaps and climb back to regain the loss altitude (due to stall).

After the air exercise, when we were rejoining back to land, we requested to rejoin for runway 21 (not the usual runway 03). I wanted to get the feel to land on runway 21 because I had never landed using the runway before. There is no extension from the threshold for runway 21, only paddy fields before the threshold. So, if I approach too low, I could crash into the fields and then the fences surrounding the airfield.

My short finals approach was like shit, as what my instructor said to me. I THOUGHT that I came in low. By the time I realised, I put too much power, from 10% to 70% and then reduced to idle and then put 45% power again before finally touchdown. So the aircraft was like going up and down, up and down.

According to my instructor, I did not came in low on approach because it was the wind effect from the flat plantation (paddy fields) and trees that caused me to THINK that I was low. Another point to take note is, I should learn to relax more and thus I will be able to control the power throttle in a smoother way. =D




After landed, I was told to fly the same aircraft for my solo GH sortie and finish my solo Circuit 4 sortie. So, I did the pre-flight check again on exterior of the aircraft. For your info, it is the responsibility of the pilot in command to make sure the aircraft is fit to fly before his/her sortie.

This time, there was fuel leaking from the center tank. I already noticed stains below the aircraft when I landed with instructor just now. I did not think much about it because I thought the stain might be from other aircraft that parked there before me. Little did I expect that the stain was actually the fuel dripping from the aircraft I was gonna fly. Another knowledge to share here, we are also required to drain the fuel from each tank (left tank, right tank, center tank) to check for contamination. So as I was about to drain fuel from the center tank, the leak became heavier. Should I continue or cancel my sortie? I called an engineer to come and check the problem.

The fuel valve was not screwed in properly, a little not in-line with the socket. According to my instructor, the valve could burst anytime. And this leads to no fuel and hence engine gonna fail. Quite funny though, before I went flying with my instructor just now, I did the same pre-flight check on the aircraft and found no fuel leak.

Lucky me I made the right decision to cancel the sortie and prevent any unwanted accidents to happen. Unlucky me too because I had to delay the sortie to other days. Haha.

Two days ago, I managed to finish two sorties which were Nav Intro and Circuit 3.

Nav Intro was fun!!! Just like what I mentioned before, I was required to fly to Alor Setar airport and come back, passing through several way points. And of course, I had my instructor to guide me by my side, showing me the important landmarks in order to make sure we were at the right place. This sortie was sort of like driving to a new place with a map, you know. Seeing new things and identify them as what we see on the map. It's just that the scale I see from the sky is much smaller than I see on ground, obviously. Haha. The RT call was also a little different from the normal RT call I did for training area/circuits. However the weather became worse as we travel further into the mainland. Rain started pouring heavily and we had to divert to another way point to avoid flying into the thick dark cloud. Do you know what does it feel like when flying into that kinda cloud? Imagine you are in a washing machine. Turning round and round until you don't know where is sky and land. Coming back to land at lgk airfield was some a little strange to me because I usually approach from left base runway 03 and not right base. But I still landed anyway, will get used to it one day. =D

I was programmed to fly Circuit 3 (Solo) and Circuit 4 (Solo) actually. But due to some problem with the engine, I could only fly for 30minutes to complete Circuit 3. Here was what happened to me:

I was told to hold on ground for 10minutes due to airliners coming in. Later, I took-off as per normal, climbed through upwind, crosswind and then level off at downwind 1000ft while reducing power to 60%. After I made the RT call 'downwind for touch and go', the load meter (connected to power throttle) started to fluctuate in the range of 5%. Ok, this seldom happens, maybe the engine control unit, ECU is adjusting the power by itself. The aircraft is fine I guess. At late downwind turning into base leg, I reduced the power to 15% and started to descend for approach for touch&go. Now here is the fun part.

As I touched down, I retracted the flaps to 'Take-off' position, and then I increased the power slowly to full power configuration. But, when the load meter was showing approximately 80%, the RPM meter went to RED. For your info, this indicates that the propeller was over speeding!! This wasn't all. Immediately after that, the Oil Pressure warning lights went to RED too! And this indicates loss of oil and may lead to engine failure!!

I reduced the power. RPM went green (indicates no problem). Oil Pressure warning lights went to amber (indicates caution,or rather near to warning status). I did not want to take any gamble to continue my sortie. So I immediately reduce power to idle position, aborted the Touch&Go, and taxy back slowly to apron.

Luckily this problem did not occur to me in flight. Phew~~

Anyway, I reported the problem to the engineers and hopefully they will rectify the problem soon.

Just back from sortie today. Bloody tired as always. Tiredness is not just because of flying, but also because of sitting in the hangar waiting 6-9hours for my sortie.

Anyway, perhaps you guys may have noticed that I did GH3 (Flight Day 19) and then skipped to GH5 (Flight Day 21). The reasoning is:

GH1 (Dual) - Done
GH2 (Dual) - Done
GH3 (Dual) - Done
GH4 (Solo)
GH5 (Dual) - Done
GH6 (Solo)
GH7 (Solo)
GH8 (Dual)
GH9 (Solo)
GH10 (Solo)

As you can see, out of the the total of ten GHs, I have only finished four. I was suppose to do GH8 today but the Flight Ops guys programmed me to fly IF1 (IF is the acronym for Instrument Flying) today because my batchmates and I will be sitting for our RTOL examination next week, probably on the 15th of Mac.

RTOL means Radio Telephony Official License. *This is what a senior told me*

Anyway, about IF1 today, this sortie was somehow a 'smaller' version of flying visually. I was only required to focus my eyes on the instrument panel. And I focused real hard! The real horizon now is actually on the Attitude Indicator (AI). Generally for altitude, I have to rely on the Altimeter and Vertical Speed Indicator (VSI). Airspeed based on Airspeed Indicator (ASI) while Direction is taken from Directional Indicator (DI). My performance was not that bad as I managed to obtain a B+ !! =D

According to my instructor , there are two kinds of pilots namely, 'analyzing pilot' and 'thinking pilot'. He said that I more of a 'thinking pilot' type as I fly better with instruments. Well, I personally feel that it's easier to fly by looking instruments because I think it's like playing video games. Sort of like playing Ace Combat 5 (PS2) game, minus the missiles, bombs and the crazy maneuvers!! =)

Let's see whether I can maintain my performance or not for tomorrow's sortie, IF2.

Today finally managed to do one sortie with instructor, GH5. Well, today's weather was pretty windy, approximately 15knots crosswind. So when I was climbing after take-off, I was like 'crabbing' all the way until I reach more than 1500ft altitude. Do you know what is the meaning of crabbing? I suppose you have seen how a crab moves, right? The term is used in aviation in the sense that we cock the aircraft into the direction of wind and at the same time maintain straight and level path.

GH5 air exercise was again with revision of steep turns, stalling and PFL overhead airfield. My PFL performance today was actually quite ok but still need to improve on my decisiveness when flying the aircraft. For example, at high base, my altitude was 1800ft (the recommended altitude is 1000ft). I was thinking to put the flaps down in order to increase the rate of descent so that I could reach the runway at approximately 500ft. So when I told my instructor about my decision, he asked "Are you sure?".

I kept quiet for a while. I know my decision was right. But when instructor started to 'psycho' me, I became to question whether my decision is right or wrong. After nearly 10 seconds thinking.....

Ahh..I don't give a damn. I am gonna do what I think is the best for me.

And I put the flaps down. True enough, the aircraft descended faster to the required altitude. =D

Anyway, as I was about to touchdown, the crosswind condition was getting stronger. Then a sudden up-gust struck the aircraft, causing it to balloon up a few hundred feet. Instructor immediately took control of the aircraft and we managed to land safely back on the runway. What I did was only following through his actions and observed how he landed the aircraft. I have included a picture of how a crosswind landing is made using crab-in technique.

Guess what. My batch mates and I were pushing aircrafts in the rain back to hangar. And of course all of us were drenched from head to toes. What a sh*tty day.

Some of you may think it was a punishment to us because we did something wrong. Haha. It was actually because we were in the list of duty to push aircrafts yesterday. Pilots pushing aircrafts eh? Never seen before? Never heard before? Haha. Now you have heard of it. Come and see it for yourself! *shaking head*

Luckily I did not fall sick today. If not, I would not be able to fly at all. Today I flew solo circuit again in the afternoon. 30 minutes sortie and I only managed to do 1 Touch&Go and then landed already. The traffic was a little busy with big airlines taking-off and landing. Me in this small aircraft had to give way to the big 'guys' by holding in the air. The term 'holding in the air' means circling at the early/late downwind until the control tower gives pilot the clearance to resume circuit. It sounded like a waste of time me going up in the air. But come to think of it, I was actually able to practise my Medium Turn by holding several orbits at downwind. Turning round and round, maintaining 30 degrees of bank angle and 1000ft altitude.

By the way, half of my batch mates including me are given two days holidays starting from today 1700hours. As usual, I can't go back to my home down south. I requested with the Chief Flying Instructor to let me fly and he agreed with it. I am lagging behind some of my friends by 4 to 5 flight hours, so it is a good thing I keep continue flying at here.

I think the raining season has come. Even today the weather is bad, raining in the morning and now in the late evening. Cloud base is approximately 2000ft above mean sea level. If the weather gonna continue for many months to come, I have a bad feeling that we can't complete in time before we enter ground school by early April.

Today sortie was GH3 and it was actually a Solo Check for me to go training area! Haha..And of course, I cleared the check, baby! Haha. The sortie was not much different from the previous one. Steep Turn left and right, then went back to aerodrome for PFL. But hey, today's weather was crazy. At one time, the wind was crosswind 10knots. The next minute, it was tailwind plus crosswind 14knots! And the bad weather condition went on until late evening and I had to cancel my sortie again!!!!!

For some of you who wanna know why tailwind is unsuitable for landing/take-off, I will elaborate in a simpler way. Tailwind is the wind coming from behind the aircraft while crosswind is wind coming from sideways. So imagine now you are flying at 75 knots (indicated air speed) for approach to land and suddenly there is a 10knots tailwind. 75+10=85knots. Which means your ground speed is 85knots the moment you touch down. Please take note that airspeed (based on dynamic pressure in the air) and ground speed (based on distance travelled on ground per unit time)are two different speeds. So instead of 75 knots during touchdown, you have 85 knots, and this equals to longer landing distance to stop the aircraft, agree? What if there is a brake failure at that point of time with tailwind? Crash straight to the end of runway? NO NO. There is of course a 'cure' for the emergency provided that the pilot can handle it. Haha.

I will explain about effects of crosswind next time. Plus with how to land in crosswind, if I have the time. Haha. Gotta go for dinner now.