Circuits Pt. II & The Art of Landing

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Well, I started out down a dirty road
Started out all alone
And the sun went down as I crossed the hill
And the town lit up, the world got still

I'm learning to fly but I ain't got wings
Coming down is the hardest thing
Well, the good ol' days may not return
And the rocks might melt and the sea may burn

I'm learning to fly but I ain't got wings
Coming down is the hardest thing

Well, some say life will beat you down
Break your heart, steal your crown
So I've started out for God knows where
I guess I'll know when I get there

I'm learning to fly around the clouds
But what goes up must come down

I'm learning to fly but I ain't got wings
Coming down is the hardest thing
I'm learning to fly around the clouds
But what goes up must come down
Songwriters: Petty, Tom; Lynne, Jeff;

"Coming down is the hardest thing." - That's how I feel this morning. Fear not though. While I'm not sure exactly what Tom Petty had in mind (or in his brain) when he wrote this song - I certainly had some wings this morning.

We worked on some more circuits today. Today felt like a bit of a frustrating lesson. Out of the six or so landings I performed, I think about two or three were as smooth as I would have liked. The others, I was disappointing with. My instructor said that all of my landings are safe, but they're not as smooth as they should be.

By the end of the lesson, the last circuit or so, I think I figured out the problem(s). I think what happens is that I start the flare (pulling up on the control column to raise the nose, which in turn slows the airplane down and gently slides the airplane on the runway, if done right) too soon, too high up. The ground seemed to be coming up too fast, so I pull up too soon. The last time around, on my last landing attempt, I made a concerted effort to let the plane get closer to the ground before I pull up, and it worked better.

I also tended to come in a bit fast, speed-wise. I need to try and keep the airspeed steady at 60Knots on final and decreasing on flare. Anyway, I'll get it right, I have no doubt. Today was just a little frustrating in that way. After every bumpy landing I felt like I let myself and Eric down. He's good though. Very patient and supportive, a good teacher.

Apart from that, I do everything else involved in the circuit pretty well. The first time around today, I had to re-familiarize myself with all of the procedures in the circuit, which I covered a bit in this post. But after that I got a good handle on everything. My radio communications are getting more solid. I'm actually starting to sound like a pilot. It sounds pretty cool... at least to me.

Coming up in the next couple of lessons are more circuits - circuits with engine failure, circuits with cross-landings, and that's about it. After that, as Eric the instructor said to me today "you'll be doing all that stuff without my fat ass in the airplane." I responded to him with a forced smile and a nod.

I'm both very excited and very anxious for my first solo. As well I should be. Every pilot I've spoken to say that I'll never forget my first solo. I'm up to about 16.1 hours of flight time now. I'll be doing my first solo within the next few hours. Eric says that it normally takes pilots-in-training around thirty hours before they fly solo. I'll be doing mine well before that number, it seems. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I trust Eric's judgement, as well as my own resolve.

One thing I need to mention is something about the reality of flying. Today, as I woke up to CBC Radio 1 News, half asleep, I heard the news that a small four-seater Seneca airplane crashed in a field around Pickering, killing all three people aboard. Pickering is near our practice-area, and Seneca flies out of Buttonville, so I connected the dots. That airplane resided in Buttonville, as did those people in that ill-fated airplane. In the airplane was an instructor and two students. They were all young people. The cause is not yet clear. The case is being investigated.

I've gotta tell you though, that wasn't a pleasant thing for anyone to hear while waking up. It made it a bit harder for me to wake up and go flying this morning. As I spoke with one of the instructors at the dispatch desk, the one thing he said to me that sums it all up: "It's just the nature of the industry".

My thoughts go out to the families and friends of the people who died. May they rest in peace.

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I'll quickly take this opportunity to remind you that it's still the glorious month of Movebmer. My mustache is making great strides. I'm so proud of it, it's grown so fast. I remember when it was just a stubbly mess. Today the full-fledged rat on my face garners me a whole lot of unwanted attention. I'm doing it all to raise awareness and money towards research for prostate cancer. Please donate as little or as much as you can, your money will in no doubt save lives in the future. You can donate HERE.

Thank you.

Movember

Well hello there!

Welcome back for another installment of Adventures Aloft. Admittedly, I have not flown this week yet. This blog is about a whole different kind of adventure. It's about growing a mustache!

Now, under normal circumstances, no decent, self-respecting man with healthy mind would consider polluting his face with a dirty mustache.

But tough times call for timely measures (is that how it goes?). The mustache you see above has been growing on my face since the first of November. It's for a great cause - to raise awareness and money for prostate cancer research.

You may be asking yourself "self, what does a mustache have to do with prostate cancer?". Well... it has nothing to do with prostate cancer, really. But, according to one website, the little chia-pets being grown on mens' faces around the world during the month of November is actually their ribbon (similar to the pink breast cancer ribbons).

The story goes something like this: a long long time ago, in a land far far away. A few good men got together for some tea, when during conversation, they decided to support prostate cancer. They brainstormed for ideas of how to show their support and raise awareness for prostate cancer, when one of the geniuses fathomed it would be a good idea to wear a ribbon on their upper lip.

So, the first year of the Movember initiative, the men pinned a brown ribbon to their faces. Turns out that was an awful idea. Not only did the men garner pierced upper lips, but they looked like idiots, and in turn, they were directly responsible for the crash of the world economy a couple of years back.

They eventually decided to grow mustaches to replace the ribbons on their faces. Now, growing mustaches didn't rid them of their idiotic look, but it also didn't cause any harm to the economy.

A few years later, we seem to have a global movement afoot. And I'm glad to be a part of it. I've been personally touched by prostate cancer (thankfully not on my prostate, but a close family member is fighting what looks to be a losing battle). One in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime. This is a big problem that deserves a lot of attention, and that's why I'm doing my part.

I'm not here to nag you about how you should do your part and donate and/or raise awareness for this cause, I'm just here to nag you about how you should do your part and donate and/or raise awareness for this cause.

I'm not exactly sure who and why visits this blog. But I have looked at this blog's statistics, and it looks like this blog has garnered a good amount of traffic since its inception. People have visited this blog from as far away as Japan, so it would be pretty cool if we could come together for this good cause.

Thank you, please go HERE if you wish to donate.
If you wish to read more about Movember, please click HERE.
Up for a little bit of a humorous take on Movember? Click HERE.

Thank you!

Circuits

That was fantastic!

Today's lesson focused on circuits. No, not the electrical type. While having knowledge of electricity is an advantage for pilots, a circuit (or airfield traffic pattern) is a flight path used in airports that standardize approaches and the movement and flow of traffic for each runway in an airport. A circuit looks something like this:
Circuits are used to maintain a natural order to airport traffic, giving pilots that are entering a circuit educated guesses about where other traffic might be coming from. If you're interested in reading more about circuits, you can find more information here.

The nice thing about practicing circuits, is that you're constantly practicing takeoffs and landings. And even more than that, today felt like all of the skills I have learned in my previous lessons were put to use while practicing circuits. A lot goes on when you're doing a circuit. Each circuit preformed takes around six minutes. I'll take you through it quickly:

- take off
- climb to 500'
- while climbing, perform post take-off checklist
- at 500', turn to the crosswind leg.
- climb to circuit altitude (1000 feet above ground level)
- turn to base leg, level off at circuit altitude
- perform pre-landing checklist
- inform ATC that you are turning on base-leg
- look out for traffic while turning base-leg. ATC may inform that you are in line (after other traffic to land)
- also while turning base-leg, reduce engine power to 1700RPM
- configure airplane for landing. Flaps to 20 degrees, 65knots airspeed
- turn to final leg, continue approach, cut engine to idle, listen for a landing clearance from ATC
- Extend flaps to 40 degrees, 60knots airspeed

Don't worry if you didn't understand some of the terminology there. I just laid it out to show the steps that have to be taken in a matter of five or six minutes. As you can imagine, it is a pretty intense exercise. As well, with Buttonville airport being as busy as it is, there is no such thing as a "perfect circuit". Circumstances (such as traffic, crosswinds, landing clearences, etc.) will dictate adjustments that have to be made with little or no delay. For instance, in one of the circuits we did, I was on the final leg, about 15 feet above the ground, over the runway. Because there was traffic on the runway (which seemed like somewhat of a botch-up by the ATC), we never got the landing clearance. We had to glide the airplane along the runway, about 10 feet from the ground. An airplane is not allowed to touch down unless it gets landing clearance from ATC. Because the landing clearance never came, we had to preform a missed approach. Full throttle, climb back up, and do another circuit.

It was all on the fly (pun intended). It may seem like a lot to handle, but that's why the instructor is there with me. To make sure I perform the things that need to be done.

All in all, my instructor said I did well. He said that I've demonstrated I can fly the circuits successfully, and land the plane safely. The only thing I have to work on, is after touchdown, to keep the nose-wheel up in the air as long as possible. Doing that helps a lot of things. It's less wear and tear on the nose-wheel, it makes for a smoother landing, it conserves the breaks, etc.

The next few lessons are going to be mainly circuit practice under different conditions. Such conditions will include crosswind landings, runway change mid-circuit, and engine failure mid-circuit.

My instructor has already started the "paperwork" for my solo flight. He said that it shouldn't take me too long before I am capable of flying an airplane being the only soul on the plane. Man, that will be an accomplishment I could only have dreamed of only a few months ago. I can't wait. Things are good in the neighborhood.

¡Hola!

So, you thought I'd come back from Cuba without an aviation story? Well, think again.

Our flight to Cuba was scheduled to leave at 6:30am on Monday morning. This meant a 3:30am wake up call. Waking up at 3:30am feels very wrong to me. I'm much more used to going to sleep at 3:30am than waking up at that time. Amy and I must have gotten a total of about two hours sleep that night.

We made our way to the airport and eventually onto the Boing 737-800. We greeted the flight attendants at the door and made our way to our seats. I was quite tired at the time but I was feeling the rush of being on an airplane that is about 100 times bigger than the airplane I fly. Thankfully we managed to get a window seat, so I got to see the whole first flight during daytime throughout the window. If you ask my Amy, she'd probably tell you that I was glued to the window the whole flight, but I did manage to get about an hour of shuteye.

Anyway, before take-off one of the flight attendants came around to check of our seat belts are on, and Amy being who she is, took the first chance to tell the flight attendant that I celebrated my birthday the day before, and that I'm also an aspiring pilot taking flying lessons, and that if anything could be done for me to see the flight deck of the airplane, maybe talk to the pilots for a minute, that would be great. I didn't expect her to ask that. My mind was still blank from waking up at 3:30am. I didn't have any questions for the pilots lined up in case I did get a chance to meet them, but I figured the questions would come to mind pretty quickly. The flight attendant said that he'll see what he can do.

Later on in the flight, Amy (who's hilarious and mildly offensive blog you can find here), while in line for the washroom, spoke with the flight attendant again to make sure the flight attendant was still on the case. He asked her what my name was, and admitted to her that the head flight attendant was not as... diplomatic as she could be, and that if anything happens, it would have to be after landing. Amy came back to her seat and told me this, and we both kind of gave up on the idea and mostly forgot about it.

Around the time we began to descend, the flight attendant Amy had spoken to came to our seat and wished me a happy birthday and an enjoyable vacation. When he was on his way, Amy whispered to me: "that was a 'no'".

The airplane finally landed in Cuba. I was very enchanted by seeing Cuba from the air, and was excited to begin our vacation. The lead flight attendant then comes on the intercom to conclude the flight. Give or take a few words, here's how it went down:

Lead Flight Attendant - "Dear passengers, we have landed in Cuba. We wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for flying with Sunwing. We hope you enjoy your vacation and your stay in Cuba. We also wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate a special passenger we have with us today. At seat 11F, Lavi celebrated his birthday yesterday, AND got his pilot license. Congratulations Lavi!"

All passengers - *clap, clap, clap, clap. Look, gawk, clap clap clap*

Yes...
One of the most embarrassing experiences of my life. A plane full of people clapping for me, based on faulty information. A classic case of broken telephone? We'll never know.

For the next hour I had people coming up to me from the plane and asking me about my pilot license. I had to tell them that it was a big misunderstanding. At least I could tell them that I was taking flying lessons. I got to meet some pretty interesting people because of it though. It was a good start to the vacation.

I also took some pictures and a video of the takeoff from Varadero Airport in Cuba. I'll post it in a couple of days when I get access to it. Meanwhile, tomorrow I have another lesson. Circuits! Should be a fun one. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.