1st Nav training

I found out that I've got to take another person along in the plane. Some lady from Elite Flying club. Since Zhi Chen is already coming along. Well this means I'm gonna be flying the Piper at full gross weight. Ah well. Let's try it.

So me and Ang were picked up by Mr Lee Buck Choon and Dr June at Lakeside MRT. the trip to senai was pretty fast. About 40 minutes. Then we sat down for the briefing on Navigation. It took about 3 hours. Gawrsh... So many things: Dead reckoning, Flight plans, plotting maps alot of other things. As interesting Buck was...3 hours of classroom lecture is still enough to put a person to sleep (Not that I did).

After that I submitted my flight plan to the Tower and then went to have lunch before flying. The food was good but so damn many flies and it was super spicy. The chicken wing had a firebrand sauce or something. Wondered if I was going to get a stomachache in-flight.

9M-JMV had the same problem again. Bad contact with the starter and prop. Took a long time to start the engine. Nothing like the trusty Cessna 9v-BOQ. Finally we lined up on the runway. At full gross the airplane climbed real real slow. My goodness! Its a good thing Senai has a 9000ft runway. I wonder how on earth I'm gonna bring a full gross Piper or even a Cessna for that matter to Tioman.

Did a touch and go and we set of for Kulai. The route was first to Kulai then to SImpang Rengam and then to Batu Pahat on to Benut and finally back to Kulai and back to Senai. Not much to say about the Navigation flight except it went pretty well. Some points to take note of though.

There was heavy rain at Batu Pahat and the 2 mountains surrounding the place were covered with clouds. Now I know why CFITs (Controlled flight into terrain) occurs so easily. The pilot didnt think that thre was anything behind the clouds and flew too near the clouds and didnt see terrain until it was too late. Bang! dead meat. Small mountains kill you as dead as a big one. Interesting to see.

IFR means I Follow Roads.

Zhi Cheng should have listened to me and sat on the left side. The right side headset plugs were out of order and he couldnt hear anything except engine droning through out the flight. Poor guy fell asleep on the flight.

Turbulence makes you go up or down real quick I gained 100ft in a second after hitting turbulence.