Good cop Bad Cop

Well it has been a few days since I last updated the blog so just a quick update to let you all know I'm still here and haven't forgotten about the blog but I have been swamped with exams and moving house so not much interesting has happened. Fortunately I took the last of my ground IR exams today and passed!


The other day I also had my stage 1 review of my instrument flying. All was booked, the flight was set for midday which meant that I had an opportunity for a lay in. Getting ready and my mobile rang, its the head of the flying school asking if I could come in early as there is some paperwork to go over (not uncommon, as mentioned earlier, aviation runs on paper). I jumped in the car (which has now been fixed), arrived at the school and was informed that everything was sorted and I could just relax and prep for my flight test. At 11am the phone ring and its a guy from the FAA (American flying regulators) asking me if I was in school and if they could come over and have a chat.


Two guys from the FAA arrive a few minutes later, we went to a meeting room and they start asking me questions about the engine failure that happened the other day.


One of the guys was Mexican and had poor English so I had to say everything about 12 times. After being grilled for 45 minutes and wondering if I had done anything wrong I was allowed to leave and take my flight test.


At this point my nerves were gone, I just wanted to go and relax and didn't feel like taking the test. I prepped for the flight and started to relax a bit, I jumped in the plane and did the flight which actually went very smoothly and I passed.

We are go for launch 15-03-09

Today's the day we are going to see the space shuttle launch after the earlier delay due to the shuttle having a fuel leak.

I arrived at the airport planning on being a passenger and was going to let one of the other guys fly. Upon arriving I found out that the guys had done the weight and balance and to carry enough fuel to get to Melbourne (Just south of Orlando) and back without having to refuel would mean that they could only carry 3 people.

This meant that Steve and Myself wouldn't be able to go which was disappointing. Speaking to the guy on reception he said they had a plane spare (N2236B) and I could take it. Fortunately I had brought most of my stuff with me but Steve had never flown a PA28 so I had to fly. Within about 10 minutes Steve and I had planned what we were going to do and set off to check the aircraft. With so little time to prep Steve and I divided up the tasks of managing the aircraft (I flew and had him support me by looking up radio frequencies and verifying my position fixes etc).

All went well and the flight took 1hr 30Min's and we arrived at Melbourne, Fl. The guys had hired 2 cars for the 12 of us and the first 3 guys didn't want to wait so took their car and shot off. This meant that 8 of us had to fit into a little Mazda 2 (3 in the front, 3 in the back and 2 in the boot). We made it to our viewing point (a little bemused and squashed) after sitting in an hour of traffic jumped out and waited.

"Whats that over there!" I herd one of the guys shout, I looked and it was as if a giant explosion had gone off and the sky to the North East glowed as if looking at a flame through fog. The light rose and the ground trembled, higher and higher the shuttle climbed as we saw the booster rockets drop off and the shuttle carry on into space. Overall it took less than 2 minutes but was impressive to watch first hand and it is supposed to be one of the last of these shuttle launches I was so glad to have seen it.

We all piled into the Mazda and headed back to the airport, I took off from Melbourne around 9:10pm (Eastern Time) and headed back to Naples. As I have mentioned in the past I really enjoy night flying as its so calm and quiet plus this time the flight was for pleasure and I had no instructor telling me what to do. Half way back I was flying through the everglades which is mostly swamp and at night is pitch black (not somewhere you want an engine failure as you can't see whats beneath you) I noticed the engine was running a little rough so went through the normal rough running drill and it seemed to clear.

I carried on and approached Naples Airport (which had closed for the night) I got the weather and nominated landing on runway 05. The landing was perfect and smooth (even if I do say so myself and even Steve commented on how nice it was). Rolling down the runway towards our exit and the ramp suddenly the engine cuts out! Its totally dead! I run though the engine restart checks but there is no life in the aircraft anymore.

I broadcast to all aircraft and services in the area that we have had an engine failure and are blocking runway 05. We managed to push the aircraft off to the nearest taxi way which we thought would have been the safer than blocking a runway at night and then the emergency services arrive.

Steve and I spent the next hour filling out witness statements and on the phone to the Air Center owner etc before we were allowed to go home. Time for bed as I'm flying again tomorrow at 10AM EST. At least I wont be flying N2236B that's for sure!

Houston we have a problem

What a day! Today started as any other, got up read some of my books, went to school to pay the next installment of my tuition fees and drive back home to study some more. Tonight I am supposed to be flying over to the Kennedy space center to see the space shuttle launch (which I was really looking forward to).

I pulled back into the driveway, switched off the car and heard a strange noise, a bit like bubbling coming from under the hood. I opened it up and spotted the coolant reservoir was bubbling and boiling! Not good for something that is supposed to be keeping the engine cool!


Slightly worried I head over to the auto shop the some of the guys had recommended as the best place in the area to get repairs done. The repair shop had a look, opened the radiator cap and poured some coolant in, and some more, then some more and then a bit more for good measure. 6+ litres later the radiator was full of coolant again without leaks (good). They then went to check the pressure, first the radiator cap, nothing no pressure (not good) then the pipe that the cap connected to again nothing no pressure (really not good). The garage said they would need to replace the parts but they could fix it today and they would look into the strange knocking problem that have just started to get .


I was running out of time before I had lessons so the garage called their Mexican driver "Sanchez" to take me back home and then off to the flight school. This was a challenge as he only spoke Mexican English which wasn't easy to understand or to direct him where we were going. Sanchez is a bit of a chatterbox only stopping to breath and ask the occasional question. The problem was I barely had a clue what he was on about so mostly nodded politely and started counting car repair costs in me head!


A little while later I found out the shuttle launch had been canceled until Sunday due to a Fuel leak (at least I'm not the only one with a leak).


From bad to worse


After my lesson John (one of the guys on the course) kindly offered to take me back to the garage to pickup my now fixed car before the shop closes. We get there with 5 minutes to spare and the owner comes running out to me. He says to me "I'm glad your here, we have swapped the parts and the coolant system is fine but that knocking is not good news!" He shows me a diagram of the cars suspension and tells me that the left side is badly worn (for those mechanically minded it was the upper left ball joint, upper and lower left control arm, left sway bar and left tie rod end) the cost to fix it $2147!!!! I only paid $2000 for the car! I took my sickly car back home to think about what to do next. Its late so night, night... hopefully tomorrow will be a better day :-).

Blind, leading the blind

Mile stone 1 achieved, I'm now officially a pilot and have my American pilots licence and am technically free to go flying all over the states. Next month I have my hours building where I have to fly to gain 50 more hours recorded flight time so where should I go? Bahamas (2hrs each way), Las Vegas (17hrs each way), Key west (1hr ew) etc...

Next up is Instrument Training, for those of you reading this who don't know instrument training is basically training you to fly the airplane without looking out the window and flying on instruments alone (think driving your car with the windows blacked out). This is so I can fly through clouds and other poor visibility situations safely (and no I'm not allowed to use GPS or autopilot).

Today I was given my instrument Approach/Departure plates which until recently always seemed to complex to comprehend by any human as if written in a strange alien language (See picture on the right).

I also received my "Foggles" these are strange devices intended to obscure the pilots view of the outside world so they can only use their instruments as would be the case when flying through clouds etc (a bit like goggles but someone forgot to take the label off the lenses).

The other purpose of the Foggles is to make the wearer look like Geordie La Forge from Star Trek (the one with the visor) or some character from some other cheesy 80's Sci-Fi movie. I did take a picture of me wearing them for you to see but thought it looked so silly I didn't want to post it on the web, instead I got a google photo instead.

Hopefully I should start "flying blind" by Tuesday and spend the next 25 flying hours seeing nothing but the flight deck of the PA-28 (Left) and 10 hours in a new airplane called a Cirrus (right).

Back to the books for me now, I wish I could learn the same way they do in the movie the Matrix it would save so much time and money!

Books, Book, Books!

Today I went into ground school carrying my two bags of books that I needed thus far only to be told that another set are required!

Pictured to the left are the next set I require for the next 4 weeks. Then I was informed that these are the small sets of books and that for the next stage of the course (which breaks into 14 modules) there is roughly 14 times as many books all twice as thick! This got me thinking, you hear green activists complaining about how air transport is destroying the environment, its not the travel its the sheer amount of books and paperwork.

You hear that 240.65 square miles of rain forest will be destroyed per day, that's just to cover the production of my books and paperwork! Times that by all the people involved in aviation and it proves its not the airplanes damaging the environment its the paperwork.

Also no wonder most pilots complain of back problems; by the time they have finished all their training they have enough books to fill a large shipping container which they some how manage to cram into their bags and sling on their backs. Its a surprise most pilots can walk let alone get away without being semi-crippled with back injuries!

Look what happened when this pilot tried to carry all his books on the same plane, the moment he stepped into the flight deck the front wheel gave out!

OK enough ranting, I think you have the idea.