Waffle House

Today finally marks the end to Adelle's little fantasy of waffles at the Waffle House. Definitely not that great at all. I don't even recommend eating there really. It's okay, but nothing short of what I couldn't do. I mean, eggo waffles taste better! Oh well, it was the experience that we were after. There was also this HUGE fly buzzing near. I mean, it almost looked like a bumble bee.

Tonight should be the first night flight in the PA44. We are in N926ER, again. If you don't remember, its the plane that had the mold issue going on and crews getting sick. The last time I flew that plane, it wasn't that bad at all. I mean, the weather was a little colder than normal so that probably helped with the smell. Usually on the hot days, 926 smells the worst. Adelle is thinking of coming tonight, but we'll see how the plane is prior to taking off. Maneuvers should be fun. I've never done them in the PA44 at night. I'm definitely looking forward to the flight.

GO CHARGERS!!!

Personal Record

So, if it isn't weather, its resources. It's not the lack of instructors at CAPT, but the lack of multi-engine aircraft. We have 4 PA44 and 3 of them are still down. So, yeah, I didn't fly again today. This will be bordering a record of how many days I haven't flown.

Graduation of a class that I actually knew took place today. The catering was better We'll see how things go! and the keynote was very informative. It would be nice to get a transcipt of the speech. We also got new CAPT hats. They don't look that great, but they were free (in some weird sense if you don't include the huge tuition). Looks like there is good news all around with the various airlines working with CAPT. Once again, excitement is in the air.

Adelle is here on a short trip. I'm excited that we get time to hang out.

Busted again

I was a little surprised to get canned tonight. Once again, another PA44 was downed for maintenance or whatever. So, Manoj and I are beginning to truly get the feeling of not flying everyday. It's not that bad, but I mean, I could be using my time here to be working or studying whichever. It just feels as if I could be using my time more wisely and I'm not. Yeah its my fault but I just don't want to exert myself too much before a flight.

Adelle is coming over tomorrow early in the morning. She's taking the red eye from SD to LAX to ATL then down to DAB. It's going to be a long flight. But she's a trooper. I can't wait. I do have a night flight in the evening which will dappen the mood, but it should be a lot of fun.

Good flying

Today was a good day in N926ER. I have to say that I was a little hesitant in flying that airplane because of what Laura told me last night. To sum up that experience, she didn't feel that good at all. She basically threw up afterwards and the rest of the crew got sick. I'm not sure, but the smell inside the aircraft is quite rancid. So, after eating a huge lunch, Manoj and I were a little scared of feeling sick ourselves. We had weather on our side today because it didn't allow for the smell to heat up. Instead, the cold weather helped out a bit in keeping it down. We flew around for about 3.7 hours total and got a good lesson in. We start night flights tomorrow along with steep turns and other maneuvers. That should be fun.

Should I get my CFI?

wake up call to no plane

I had a feeling that I might need two alarms for the morning, so last night, I set one at 5:40 AM and the other at 6:20 AM. Did that work? Nope... Instead Manoj gave me a, "Where are you?" call around 7:30 (I just got up like 2 minutes before) and notified me that we were on standby waiting for resources. Of course when I say resources, its none other than the PA44. Three out of our four were down and one was out. We stuck around for our instructor who then just told us to go home and wait for a call. We got one, but it was the news that we had been cancelled. Oh well!

Adelle is ocming this Friday! I do have night flights so that's going to stink up the night time events, but the morning and afternoons should be fun! What do you want to do babe?!

uneventful...

I have to say that the past two weekends that I have had a chnace to relax by going out have been both huge, major busts! I mean, I don't expect anything anymore of Daytona Beach, but at least some gratifying notion of social life would help out the demeaning character of this hell hole. Whew...that was a mouthful.

Well, looks like Hurricane Wilma has come and gone. It's a good thing I guess. I got a free hour in the DA40 and I'm ready to leave whenever another storm hits. Come to think of it, the season is slowly but surely almost to and end and without any harm to my residence. Is this just a quirky notion that I should sell the house before some devastates my neighborhood? *Ummmm*

I walked outside today and the weather is amazingly frigid. I mean, it was if I was standing in some snow in Big Bear! It was nice. I almost had to get a jacket for the 2 minutes that I was outside checking the mail. I'm loving this. Good thing for cold fronts. ^_^

Sad day...

Well, the pressure was on and the Bolts weren't able to pull through. We had a good rally and tried to help LT break the record but with no success. I never thought that I would ever get emotionally over football, let alone the Chargers, but damn, I was really mad. In every game that we have lost, we have lost with the lead in the 4th with the opposing team making the winning drive within the last few minutes of the game. It was an absolute disaster! I remember watching the pregame and every player on Phillys team was asked how they were going to stop LT. They did their job and quite well too. I rememeber that they were also talking about how LT needed a new name, I was thinking that Jojo's name of Boltron be a good one, but now, I just don't know. (check out his icon)

So, after waking up to the Chief Flight Instructor of CAPT giving me a call to give us a heads up on Hurricane evac, I ended up going back to sleep because he said we were okay. So of course, I started to continually dream about evacuating and the procedures involved. It wasn't pretty...the dreams I mean. It was restless sleep so I just decided to wake up and get going on my new big breakfast ordeal. I woke up to Jeremy making some Chocolate Chip pancakes. They were awesome. I even went back to my old school ways. I had some with syrup and some with butter and sugar. I actually preferred the latter. I guess that I was just accustomed to being not able to have syrup as a kid. It was a great childhood. I miss it!

Standby

Well, being that Hurricane Wilma is right around the corner, I had some recurrency training yesterday in the DA40. It was fun to fly that plane again. The landings were nice and smooth and I was even impressed. We did three approaches and because it wasn't a checkride, we got to act as a crew. I had the Standards Manager, Wes Treco as my co-pilot. It is so intimidating to fly with him because he's so well trained. He's just an overall awesome pilot. He did all my radios and configured the avionics accordingly. I shot three approaches and finished up. I did all this because I was almost at the 90 day mark for DA40 flying. Now, I might get to rent it when Adelle gets here. That should be fun.

I got a call this morning at about 11 EDT just to notify us that we were not going to be evacuating today. We are still on standby for 8 AM EDT Sunday until the evening and even till perhaps Monday morning. It'll be interesting to see what ends up happening. I'm starting to feel how it is being on standby. I just need a pager now!

First real AMEL PIC time

After logging my checkride as PIC, today was the first real log, without testing the anxiety factors. To my dismay, the flight wasn't that great at all. You probably would have been asking how the heck I received my ticket. I guess you can attribute it to being very tired and weary (preflight was at 6:00 AM EDT). I was just so drained. I stayed awake for Manoj's ride and when I got in front, I just started to get sloppy. I wasn't holding altitude well nor was I actually cleaning up the plane due procedure. I was a mess. Oh well...I'll do better next week.

We might evacuate this weekend actually when H.Wilma comes along. It'll be really interesting. I'm excited for the flight. I'll definitely be posting daily as I hear more news on this.

I also got my first iPod today from my one and only. Go over to TECH Rants for the small words. I'll have a review soon enough.

--> TECH Rant

Bud Light Commercial - Real Men Of Genius

This is by far the best damn audio commercial! You have to listen to it. Tell me what you think!

Evacute?

CAPT has put up a temporary advisory notifying us qualified pilots that they might need our assistance. As of now, we are on standby for temporary evacuation! It's nuts huh? Check out this graphic. The red circle/dot is where I live. We are just north of the track, so it shouldn't be that bad, but H.Wilma is still a very scary Category 5. For those who don't know, Hurricane Hunters have already called this the strongest Hurricane ever measured in the last 150 years. This means that the central pressure was measured to be the lowest at 882 mb. That is just darn low and abnormal. Wish us luck!

What a bummer

Summary: A solo pilot misjudged her landing and ended up long at the opposite end of Runway 29 at Flagler. She ditched the plane and was in waist deep of water. Apparently she landed long, skidded out and was unable to come to a full stop.

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Flagler/03FlaglerFLAG03101905.htm

Private AMEL

Guess what? I can fly multi-engine, complex, high performance aircraft! Let's go do it! Now, I just have to build up a lot of PIC (pilot in command) multi-engine time so that I'll look qualified to the airlines. Come to think of it, I'm already at the level of being 3rd senior in the piston phase of CAPT! That's just ridiculous! One more section (Commercial Multi-Engine) and Advanced Meteorolgy and on to jet! It's soon all going to be over! I just hope that I'll be able to finish and have a job ASAP. Umm... Ft. Lauderdale?

Hectic times, WX, Bolts

Well...as the hurricane season is coming down to an end, we have yet another tropical depression that has formed just south of cuba and seems to be heading in our general direction. We'll more of an accurate estimate of landfall as the upcomming week progresses, but until then, I hope that I'm able to get ahead in the commercial phase of my multi-engine training. Most of you may not know yet, but I did pass my inhouse checkride on Friday and I have the DE ride tomorrow morning bright and early. It should be fun.

I'm going to be a hermit for the remainder of the day and try to get everything down. I'll probably even just paper fly (that's when I sit in front of the plane and pretend) a bit for work on my procedures of Vmc demos and Emergency descents. So far so good though.

Hopefully I'll be posting some good news tomorrow afternoon.

GO CHARGERS!!! We better win esp. after last weeks performance. It was good, but apparently not good enough.

Omens...

169 point 5

and yes, I have achieved the unimaginable...i weigh just that!

get the low down...

*update* Tech RANTS

When I titled this blog, I was technically referring to the cloud bases. It has been so bad lately, that the only flight I've done in the last 8 days was today and that was just staying in the pattern for some short field take offs and landings. Yeah, we also got to work on the single engine takeoffs and stuff, but nothing like a true flight. Manoj got to finish today, so he just needs to complete some paperwork and off he goes to the DE. I have yet to finish the actual end of course (EOC) ride with the inhouse instructor. Hopefully tomorrow the weather will be more cooperative. The prog charts say no.

Compassion

I have to admit that there are few with it, but those who have it are usually the ones in the right place making the fair decision. Not to say that everyone doesn't have it or chooses a wrong decision, but attitude and maturity always comes in to play. I highly admire this individual and I have to say that I will be owing quite a bit of my future to his sole belief in me. Thanks again for everything.

Now, on to the checkride!!!

12 hours to go

Well, I still have my in house flight checkride left before they sign me off for the DE. We'll how I do. Stay tuned. I'm going to sleep.

Pass and Edited!!!

Well, I passed my oral exam ( I even used my left hand to draw on the white board) and was written off as ready for the next step: the actual flight portion with the instructor. I know that all I will be doing this weekend is reviewing my flight in my head and doing all the maneuvers one by one, line item by line item.

I was going to go up for my ride today, but weather started coming in and it just clouded all over and around us. I didn't feel that great about going up while there were IMC conditions at Daytona Beach as well as Flagler. I needed to demonstrate an engine out and secure as well an emergency descent so those maneuvers cannot be done with a deck below. There is also in no chance that I could have completed my approached single engine because of the instrument conditions. Oh well, I'm hoping that Monday will prove to be okay.

jokes are off

Well, I woke up without the confidence to pass my oral exam today and that's what I got. I froze like I've never frozen before. I stalled like no other. My glasses fogged up, I was full of anger at myself and I just couldn't come up with the answer. I looked like a fool just sitting there moving my leg. It was almost as if, I never studied...at all! I'm the one who went over the answers yesterday. I knew them just the day before. I thought that I could perform and I didn't. I didn't deliver. Don't look for that much updates until I get my sh*t straight. I'm seriously disappointed in myself. I mean, I should have passed. Stupid anxiety bullsh*t. I'm pissed!!!

Its a go...

Read the title! So far, its a go for the first part out of 4 final exams regarding my private multi exam and checkride. We always have one oral and checkride exam in house before they sign us out for the Designated Examiner (DE) Oral and Checkride. I'm going to make this one short.

I woke up today and saw that we had the storm just off of our coast named Tammy. It's good stuff. Also, basically no one flew today but it was good for Manoj and I because we had some good time reviewing the aircrafts systems, etc. I still have quite a bit to go over before I feel fully confident, but I'll get right to it as soon as I finish updating this. I'm addicted now. I can't stop. I mean 7 full entries yesterday alone! This is my second one today and I still have yet to updated the other fulltime blog. I'm trying to make the trelijah one fulltime, but sometimes the Sprint Photo library connection isn't available. Whatever that may mean.

The storm is moving upward parallel to our coast, but it isn't really dropping that much rain here just yet. Most of the weather is to the northeast and north of the eye, which we kind of got to see. It was kind of neat. Calm and stuff. The trees aren't blowing that crazy anymore. If you look at radar constantly, you can see that there is another little bugger brewing just south of the Florida peninsula, just a little south of Cuba. If you are too lazy, head over to http://www.nhc.noaa.gov and check out all they have. The satellite images are awesome. Here's what I'm currently looking at:

NEWS ALERT!!!

NEW TROPICAL STORM TAMMY HAS FORMED JUST RIGHT OFF THE FLORIDA COAST!!!

FCI Maneuver: Lomcovak

Click here to see me in a Lomcovak


Here's a definition: A Lomcovak is NOT an inverted spin. It is NOT a non-precision maneuver. The pilot is NOT "just along for the ride". Recovery does NOT just occur at random without any control by the pilot. It is NOT a single maneuver, but rather an entire family of maneuvers, all of which are very precise and controlled from beginning to end IF they are properly done.

The key element in a Lomcovak is that the airplane's attitude and motion is controlled by four primary flight controls rather than the usual three. The fourth attitude control in this case is gyroscopic precession from the prop, controlled via the throttle. This is why it's extremely difficult (that's spelled i-m-p-o-s-s-i-b-l-e) to do a true Lomcovak with a model; in most cases our props simply aren't heavy enough to provide sufficent precession forces.

There are five main types of Lomcovaks. There are also variations within each type. All are performed under negative "G".

DE on Friday?

*Check out TECH Rants* or click there -->

With the schedule that I'm on now for the rest of the week, if weather permits, I could have a good chance of becoming a multi-engine rated private pilot by the end of the week. My flight have become so much better and the fact that my instructor likes the "commanding / authoritative" presence that I have in the airplane, this gives me the confidence that I need to believe that I'm ready. Its good to know that he feels that from me. I'm excited.

My upcoming week:

10/5: Pre-Oral exam with my instructor
10/6: In house End of course oral and checkride
10/7: DE ride

This schedule could totally change with the fact that there are four of us on this same schedule. I wouldn't mind finishing on the weekend either. I just want to start Commercial Multi and get done! It's been a good day!

Christmas

This just in! Looks like we will be having our Christmas Vacation this year! Mom...I'm buying a ticket home today. Look out for me in San Diego from Dec. 23rd until Jan. 2nd. I haven't been this excited for the holiday break since...elementary school! In case you didn't know, there was a good chance that I was not going to go home until next April! That being said, we almost had Christmas cancelled this year! No turkey day, but that's okay. I'm stoked!

Championship or Bust!

Even though we set a new record in the lowest winning percentage to enter the playoffs and capture a division in the MLB, you have to give it to the Padres for a great year. Check them out at Playoffs Padres vs Cardinals on ESPN. Hopefully they'll do okay today. Go PDARES!!!

*update* apparently we lost, but we did have a small rally. Not enough, but its a good start. Hopefully we can win the rest! SD 5 STL 8 final score :(

San DI-EGO Super CHARGERS!!

That's right! We manhandled the superbowl champs! To top it off, it was in their house too! Damn, I miss watching them live! Can't wait for next Monday night's game against the Steelers. We need another W!

*updated* Check out more pictures at signonsandiego.com

GO CHARGERS!!!

snake....where?

In my garage...that's where. We caught it and it was so freaking viscious. It was jabbing at us from inside the tupperware like it was going to just take a bite. Rusty let is loose in the yard next door. So, we're expecting it to make it back.