still alive

in

Yes, a lot has been happening. With Manoj and I trying to "catch up" through multi-engine commercial phase, we are flying our butts off. Not only are we in the air for about 6 hours, but we bust duty days like they never existed. I mean, we are on track to finish on time but this is without our personal safety zone of performance being reached. What I really mean is I am confident of my skills, but not for testing purposes. We aren't even techincally behind the rest of the group. They just had better oppurtunities to fly out west and double on lessons where we were just doing one a day. Is it our fault that the date for jet was set without them knowing where we were in the course? I am not at all bitter because it is how the game goes. I am determined to finish and move along, but I do wish that I had more time to brush up on things. Being rushed and/or pressured is never a good feeling.

Over the last few weeks since the Asheville Entry, we have been to Peachtree, Georgia (near Atlanta), Pensacola twice with different instructors, Tallahase over again and just about anywhere else we could build time. It's been a great ride. We were 1 out of the two crews that were unable to go out west. I really wish that I had the chance to do just that. The stories I hear about what the cadets learn are just amazing. Makes me jealous.

I am also sorry for not being able to fly that one day. To everyone who does not know, I did go home for Thanksgiving because my mom really sounded like she wanted me home. I mean, come on here...it is a Holiday that pratically everyone takes off. Being that most West Coast flights depart early, I had to leave Wednesday morning which then caused me to miss a flight. I felt really bad that I let down a couple of people, but for reaching a finish date with the sacrifice of family? There is a thin line. Don't put words in my mouth either that this program isn't a priority. This issue was coming and was forseen weeks in advance and the one day that most people have off to travel, I get dinged?

Luckily, I was able to change my flight from December 23rd to the 24th without that much punishment. It only cost me $7.00 because of the refund due to ticket pricing changes. Good stuff. But with that being said, please don't expect any presents this year. I am copmletely broke!

My friend Andy is doing really well in China. I am really proud of how much he has learned and the website that he is maintaining. You're doing a great job Andy! I've been listening to my language CDs and speaking to my mom a little bit. I'm still in the pre-beginning of things and dialogue, but I think that I am actually getting somewhere. ^_^ I can't spell things, but pronouncing is a different story.

Go Chargers! Last night's game against the Raiders looked like a joke. We just need some key events to take place and we're in!

Asheville, North Carorina

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Well, you can see that I'm wearing a sweater in the plane and I'm just being a little tourist while still being a good pilot monitoring. The trip planning to Asheville, NC was awesome! I mean, I was definitely on top of things. I was made aware of a departure procuedre due to the mountainous terrain nearby as well as the temperature and dew point spread. Basically, we landed and the recorded temperature reached 1 degree Celsius. It was freezing cold!!! Being at an airport with an altitude that was 2165 feet really changed the way we briefed the approach. Also, with the weather being cold and gusty, we really had to sit down and just prepare for the flight. It was a great trip. We even got a crew car and headed of for some local North Carolina BBQ. It was pretty good too! Here's a shot of some terrain. The airport lies within a small valley surrounded by mountains. It was pretty exciting.

Precip. and wind

in

Well, today was a very good day where Manoj and I got to double up our lessons and somewhat catch up to the others. We went to Tamiami once again followed by a trip to Marathon. To get there, we took an east bound departure from Tamiami and headed towards Key Biscayne. We were VFR the entire time at 2000 feet so that gave us the opportunity to just use the Florida Keys and the US 1 Freeway to guide ourselves straight down. We didn't get to Key West today which is the southern most point in the US, but oh well...we have quite a few more lessons to try to make that shot down there.

On the way there, we encountered quite a few rain clouds and some other various cloud build up. Through all that precipitation, I was able to take a picture of double rainbows around the Orlando Area. Take a gander. Doesn't look like you can make out the one to the left of the vivid one.

It was an overall very productive day but we weren't able to get any food anywhere. We then just went for the vending machines at the Falcon Trust Air FBO and I had two bags of chips and a strawberry shortcake popsicle. How nutritious huh? Of course, on the way down, I had a nutrigrain bar and granola bars. I didn't get a chance to eat a good meal till around 19:30 EST after an entire day of flying. Oh well, I guess its all about busting our butts. Hopefully, I'll be more prepared tomorrow.

Oh yeah, also on the way to Tamiami, we got a chance to be about 3 miles from a Delta Boeing 757 jet. Looked a lot closely than it really was. We were passing right beneath him as he approached Palm Beach International.

Flying to Marathon was a great experience. Just overlooking the water and everything (sight-seeing) just made it really worth while. There was also a retired military jet landing there who was giving tours around the area. I have to tell you though that the entire time I was trying to land, there were some pretty good gusts of wind. It was reported at winds 100 at 14 gusting to 21. That always adds a little excitement to my crosswind landings. Runway was 7 at KMTH, so it wasn't that bad, but single engine maneuvering for final and touchdown is a task. :-) I had fun.

Here's one more picture of what winds in a hurricane can do to your aircraft while its on the ground. I wish the owner the best. This was taken while on the taxi way in Tamiami headed in to Falcon Air FBO.

NetJets!!!

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It's been a couple of months since the NetJets presentation at CAPT and today they flew in a Citation Sovereign Jet! It was awesome! This is a rough piece-together of two separate photos. I didn't want to do it in Photoshop or anything. I'm on a busy schedule. I got to tour the inside and took as many pictures as I could. Here are a few.


This is a picture of the cockpit area. It doesn't look that spacious but the equipment / avionics is freaking amazing! Look at all that glass.

The next two are the bathroom and the LED Right Wing Green Position Lights. It's a lot of wood for the banio eh? Clean and fresh looking.

The postion lights were even cool enough to take a picture of. I'm not sure if you can tell but they consist of two sets of 3 green LED bulbs. Good stuff huh?

Of course, we had to begin our flight after a short delay of oooo's and aaaa's and it started raining a little bit. It was the first time that I got to use my Sporty's headset adapter (actually second) where I hook up my cellular phone to my headset and communicate without all the jet noise. It worked seemslessly. I was able to clearly file an IFR flight plan with Gainesville Flight Service and get a clearance void with Daytona Approach. It was a good feeling where I was able to totally be part of the crew. Sadly enough, it was the first time that I ever filed a Clearance Void. We were at the end of the runway anyways, so Daytona Beach gave us from :27 after the hour until :30 to takeoff and contact Approach. It was good stuff. Here's a shot of the Citation departing right before we took the active Runway 11 at Flagler.

Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention that two of the CAPT graduates got to go for a ride to Virginia to watch the pilots training do practice approaches into some random airports with terrain variations. They also headed up to Columbus, Ohio which is the location of their headquarters. They will get a tour tomorrow and get to fly in a Citation X tomorrow back to Flagler. That's just freaking awesome. I hope that we can establish some relationship where they do start hiring us. That's the job that I would go after! Corporate all the way!

Cadets on Beach Street

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Well, after a long week of straight flying night after night and a Saturday Stage Check (which I passed by the way if you didn't read the previous entry) a bunch of us decided to check out the beer fest out in Daytona Beach. We had scheduled to get there before it ended, but things got shot down a bit and we ended up there around 10:00 PM. Little to say, we ended up at a place called Redtails then after much "hanging out," we headed over to an Irish pub called McK's just to wind down. Here's a picture of all of us. Yeah I look like a tool but I was squished in between a wall and hugging Matt, so it just came naturally to just leave my hand in that position. Don't comment on the Deb's Glamour Shots Pose.

Stage I complete and on to Stage II

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Stage 2 of Multi-engine commercial consists of just building up time. I mean a lot of time! We have a lof of multiple cross country flights that extend beyond 250NM and even farther. We have to accumulate about 2-3 hours on the HOBBS alternating between flights. With this all said, we have a great possibility of actually traveling across the country. Another crew is already on their way to Las Vegas and I hope that I might also have this oppurtunity in the following week. More on this topic later.

Today's flight was alright. Not my personal best but I guess that stage checks aren't ever that good anyways. My approach was a little sloppy in reference to altitude. It was really bumpy on my entire flight and I had a simulated broken HSI. That made the approach really exciting because it extends my normal scan outside of its boundaries back and forth between CDI #2 and the Garmin 430 stack. I definitely have to fine tune everything prior to the next two stages and the DE ride. But come to think of it, I only have 2 more in house checks and the DE + Adv. Meteorlogy then I'm done with piston! It's amazing!!!

Frustrating (part 2) and Otis Spunkmeyer

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So, Manoj and I got a Seminole today and guess which one?!?!?! N935ER! Apparently maintenance fixed the problem. So, it was my turn to go first because of the make up time I needed from the night before. I take my time setting up the Garmin GS430 and complete a good runup, get lined up for 29 at X47 and execute a short field take off. Engine instruments in the green...opps, in the yellow...crap in the red...damnit it peaked past! It's the same damn instrument: Left Oil Pressure Gauge. I abort a total of three times after trying to do a static run and cycle the prop a few times. That doesn't help at all. I actually spent a totally of .6 doing that too and just taxied back to the CAPT ramp and asked for another plane. That's always a good way to start a flight.

We get N926ER: the mildew infested aircraft. I do a preflight and notice that the flight controls weren't "free and correct." We got them lubed up and the plane then smelt like mildew/grease. It was great! We discussed those issues on our departure briefing and headed for the fuel farm. We got gas, took off, did some maneuvers in the North Practice area before heading on our trip to Tallahassee (KTLH). It was a nice chill ride there with all my checkpoints lining up nicely. Finally when we were clear to land on 36, it a while for me to see the airport because it was just really dark. I spotted it after a while and did three landings. Got those out of the way and landed and taxied to Flightline FBO. It was awesome! Pool table, Otis Spunkmeyer cookies, leather ottomans...it was gorgeous! Fuel wasn't that much either at $3.64 /gal. Good stuff. I met a gentleman by the name of Colt who flies the Citation II out of X47. It was a nice contact and hopefully I'll be able to meet up and talk to him more often. Anyways, if anything, I got some good night time flying in and am pretty close to reaching my Stage I check before the week's end.

Frustrating!

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Another frustrating day of PA44 flying. Piper, ERAU, & CAPT really have to get together and figure out what the hell is going on with the stupid oil pressure indicator. There has been a few times already where this would cut the lesson short. There also have been crews that do not down the airplane because this problems arises so much that it might not be all that risky. Shoot, I'm not going to take this risk. I guess next time I should take a picture or something.

To top it off, Diamond Aircraft came by with their DA42 Twin Star and did a quick show. I didn't have a chance to check it out because I didn't even know that they were coming. The had it on the ramp for a while too. I mean, what is ERAU trying to do to the new students? First they promise it from the beginning of our training and now (10 months into it and almost done with the multi-engine phase) they are taunting us again. The last few months have just been full of rumors and comments on our situation with any plane with G1000 Garmin Equipment. We are suppose to be the leaders in education and training and technology?! I don't think so. I know that the training is the best, but the equipment? Two out of out 4 PA44 are just dirt and full of mold/mildew. It makes me sick. I mean, the two planes really make me feel physically sick. Oh well, almost done. I hope that I get to experience a long cross country soon. But until then, resources, resources, resources. We'll see. Help pray for the best! I can almost see the end.

Oh yeah, Diamond Aircraft delievered the first one already in the US to a gentleman in St. Petersburg. I want to fly it sometime! The DA42 is such a sweet plane! I want a DA42 when I grow up. It just awesome! Check out the specs by clicking on the picture above!

The Weather Man

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Umm...I actually just watched this movie and have to say that it was bizarre. I don't know what category of good / bad to put it in. I mean, its a story but one that is very bland or mopey as one critic called it. I guess if you really want to look at the artistic nature of the film, it does the job?! I don't even know what I'm talking about. I definitely would just have to advise to perhaps, watch something else a little bit more cheerful. Not loving this one too much. For more reviews from other people, click the poster. (It'll lead you the review page under Rotten Tomatoes.)

Go Chargers!

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Yet again, another close game. All of the Chargers losses have come down to it being decided in final minutes of the game. Today, was yet another one of those nail biting experiences. I have to admit that my heart dropped right around the same minute mark as last weeks game against the Eagles.
LT got a record four touchdowns today which was awesome! The first half was definitely the Chargers at their best, but you can argue that it was the Jets defense at their weakest because they shaped up really well for the second half.

Okay, so they are saying that the game ball goes to 23 - Quienten Jammer? Oh please...once San Diego acquires a new CB, he better be the first to go. The first play of the game, he gets a face mask call and then a pass interference call a just a little later. He is ridiculous! Every single game, he gives up a crucial defensive play. Now, Shawne Merriman and Luis Castillo...that's a whole other game! Shaun Philipps too?! Man, we just making some good moves up there. Donnie Edwards definitely needs to keep his cool. But all in all, it was a good game. Now, I can rest for one weekend! Oh yeah, I forgot that Reche Caldwell made up for those two lost fumballs. Well, not really. He's still not out of my dog house. Gates seems like he's on the ball!