Day Off #1

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Well, remember that I was previously just exhausted yesterday? I fell asleep on my desk for like 5 minutes, headed over the couch to watch some TV with Matty p and Jeremy, fell asleep there, and felt that I wasn't going to make it. The time was 9:00PM. So, I decided to go to sleep. I woke up at 7:00AM today and felt extremely well rested. Of course, being that there was nothing stopping me from sleep some more, I went back to bed till 10:00 and then back again till 2:00PM when Manoj called and said that he wanted to do some errands. So, I got plenty of rest, had a small headache and headed to Daytona. We dropped off his car for an oil change and he got some new glasses. I had some pretty good Chinese food at a place called China Max that looked like it was run by some Filipinos or at least some other breed of Asians. Saw some really nice shoes for Adelle or my sister or whoever really, just nice shoes and then hung out and watched Friday Night Lights.

We were talking about the movie and the ending on how it would have been exactly like this past year's Rosebowl only if they made that last touchdown. Good times. Then we drove around aimlessly looking for a place to eat only to see them closed or just look too ghetto and just wound up at Daytona Ale House. Now, I'm back at home and its 3:00AM and I'm typing this blog. Maybe its times to go to sleep.

I did get one thing accomplished today....dry cleaning was dropped off and will be done tomorrow. I got a nice list for tomorrow...really I do.

Sim #8

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Well, today definitely was a good day to go back and practice the stall series and steep turns in the MD90. I wasn't at my 100% due to the lack of sleep and early start session. I have no idea why I went to bed so late (2:30AM) because it would only give me 1 hour of sleep! I just got caught up...ya know when you want to go to bed early and plan to but then you just start a new project? Exactly!!! Well, I was happily woken up by a phone call from my gee eff at 4:12AM which where I jumped in the shower and got ready for a 4:30AM departure. Of course, it wasn't only me to wake up a little late, but things worked out. Our session didn't officially start until 6:15AM but my partner and I like to go over a bunch of things before hand. We planned on 5:15AM and it still worked out.

So, getting back to today's sim, I had a couple of faults such as an APU fire prior to V1 where I actually said reject after a fumble or two in thinking exactly what to say and I also got to do a no stabilizer landing. Visual approaches and circle to lands made up the most part of today's lesson. I was practicing and getting exposure to what I might expect and there are some really difficult approaches out there. Let's just sum it up to where I wouldn't want to be in Washington D.C. Dulles with low visibility and ceilings trying to do a circle to land...

I have the next two days off which is great. I also get to work on a computer for a friend which, if you know me, I don't mind. He ended up showing me his old Micron 133 MHz (yes that's a pentium 1 machine) and I heard the Windows 95 opening wav file and just gasped. Am I that old or just that much of a nerd? Anyways...you can count me out for tomorrow. I'll still be studying and trying to fix up my resume while I have the time off. Give me a ring when you're off!

Sim #7: Raw Data

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The box was rather hard to fly today because of the failures that I had or chose to have during the session. I didn't want a flight director and I chose not to have the auto throttles and autopilot. Most importantly, the hydraulics were failed so the inputs that were needed were very intense. I definitely have a lot to in trying to fly the perfect raw data approach, but I thought that I progressed fast over the three that I did over and over again. I'm definitely starting to get a good feeling for the MD90 and feel like the next few lessons will be exciting as I start to brush things up a bit. Just think of it, by the end of the month, I'll be up for the FAA checkride in the MD90! Then graduation, then...anyone want to pick up a pilot? I'll fly...

Sim #4 and prelim for #5

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Sim 4 was great! It was so much from to having an engine go out on takeoff, running the checklists, communicating and getting things organized in the cockpit. Good times. Things are definitely coming along. I stepped outside for a quick break after we caused the sim system to literally crash and realized one thing that I was missing. After my Commercial Multi FAA Checkride, the DE mentioned that he felt a command presence. That's the IT that I have been lacking these last few rides. I am new to the MD90 with only 20-30 so hours and my checkride was done after my 87th hours in the Seminole so to compare, I'm definitely still learning. Let alone its a whole other beast flying a jet. Still, knowing my "stuff" better is the goal for the next couple of rides. Stall Series and Steep Turns are surprisingly coming along rather easily for both Kurt and I.

I had a single engine go around followed by a single engine 20 knot crosswind landing today and it wasn't has hard of a landing than some of my previous. I definitely have a lot to go, but I'm getting there. I wish that I had more time to just keep trying to land over and over again. Oh well, we'll see how today's rapid decompression goes. We don the O2 masks and everything. Emergency Descents, look out below!

Sim #3

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Well, tonight's sim ride wasn't that great but we did learn a lot. I messed up here and there, but my manuevers worked out pretty good. Getting all my callouts standardized is definitely a task, but I'm sure that repetition will hammer them all out. These late night session from 1830 to 0030 aren't that fun. Oh well, I better get some rest now and try to accomplish a lot tomorrow. Let's see: Study, wash the car, clean my room, do laundry, finish learning a song already, work on the website or study some more. Oh yeah, I also have to redo my resume. I have 10 rides until my pre-rate and one more following that for the FAA checkride. Scary thing. Kurt put it in perspective saying that we have come a long way and that we only need practice and more emergency training. I definitely agree, but its just scary. Awesome to know that I can fly a jet, but still surreal. Scary isn't the right word...amazingly scary is more like it.

New pix - Naples

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I decided to fly w/ Matty P tonight to Naples and what a great night it was. The sunset was awesome and the moon rising was even cooler! We went down to Naples, Florida and grabbed some Michelbob's BBQ which is said to be America's #1, but I think that its just over rated. It's my second time there and if you were to add the time of flying (if I had to pay for it) they would have been some $500 ribs! Not worth it really. Of course, I'm still trying to burn off all these hours that CAPT owes me. We call them LOFT (line orientated flight training) time and I still have about 30 to go. Should be lots of fun.

I took a few photos too. Check them out by clicking on the pic.

Server Downtime

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Hey folks! Not that there are a lot of you out there that read my blog of visit my page (actually I got about 100 hits in one day and that's the highest so far) but my entire website has been this way for way too long. I did say that I've been thinking of changing the entire format for it, and here it is. You won't really be getting to see all the stuff until I go public with it, but its a lot of backend projects and coding. Over the next few weeks it'll still be up as I will be keeping up my posts in this area (CAPT). You're probably here already because of the redirect from the main elijahnicolas.com

I'm incorporating a new photo album and a new index that is powered by Joomla. I'm still learning all the comp langauge and stuff, but hopefully I'll be able to pick it up in no time. Of course, this is all going to be accomplished after I finish the MD90 course, so don't think of looking for anything crazy awesome in the next few days. Consider it a work in progress to occupy me during the times of no planes.

Here's a link to the new elijahnicolas.com photo album. It's powered by Coppermine and works great! I'm been deciding on whether or not to use the Apple iWeb application, but looks like I'll just be sticking around w/ Joomla and all this other open source projects. If you would like an account or something or just need some server space to upload some pix, don't hesistate to ask. I have 12GBs or something!

So far so good...

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I completed my MD-90 Oral exam on last Friday and now begins the fun. I'm 14 lessons away from the DC-9 type rating! Really...its crazy! To fully comprehend how much I have learned in the last few weeks is just impossible. I mean its like reading an automobile manual back and forwards with emergency procedures and having the limitations memorized. Of course, the oral was a good 4 hours. You think that you can't talk about a plane that long, but you could actually probably go on for days! It was a good nice smooth oral and I was rather impressed that I knew more and wanted to keep going! I did get stumped here and there, don't think it wasn't hard, but the jet instructors did a tremendous job in preparing all of us.

I finished Sim 1 on Saturday and this final course in the CAPT ciriculum brings me full circle in another a 14 rides. The last one is the FAA Checkride that is held to ATP standards. Should be fun.

the time accordingly. The aircraft that we flew was the DA20-C1 (Diamond Eclipse) 2 seater. She performed great in the air, but sometimes if the headwind was ugly, the cars beneath us looked as if they were traveling faster than us! The power was good enough but the largest factor in our delays was that the aircraft was not IFR certified. Once we had sight of any clouds, we had to land. Oh well...made for a great trip. If anyone wants a plane ferried, don't hesistate to ask.Last weekend, I took a trip out to Long Beach, CA from Spruce Creek, FL with Greg Farlow. It was an amazing trip and we took some great pictures. We logged a total of 21.3 hours and split The picture of the mountains with the snow was taken while we were crossing on top of Palm Springs . I chose that we take the higher road over the mountain for a straight in into Long Beach. Banning Pass isn't always accomodating to small planes. :-)

Is Drew Brees really leaving San Diego? I like Rivers...I just don't want to wait too long until we go and win a Championship!