Last Nav Ex training.

Ok. Navigation training is nearing its end. I feel good feeling that I could finally go back to my studies for A levels.

Mother's day and Mom's gone to Malacca. Wish I could have flown her there myself. She was against me flying today actually since its the end of the long vesak day weekend and people are bound to be flocking home from M'sia.

Anyway, I was to fly ALB today. Was supposed to fly JMV on saturday. but since it was down I had to wait one more day. for today 14.5.06 to fly.
Again, I had to drag the aircraft out from the Hangar. Sweating like mad even before getting into the cockpit. Its a good thing another mechanic helped me out. N200KM was in the hangar. Hmm. this means Mr Sriram is around.

Now, I was advised by Johor Tower that the visibility was poor because of volcanic ashes. I was thinking "This is within my capabilities and if it looks like the weather going IMC or IFR I've got a GPS to help get me back if I have to turn back."
So I decided to go ahead. The weather was fine other than the poor viz.

The mechanic pointed out something during my pre-flight. There was a hole in the nosewheel. I was following the checklist and have not reached the nosewheel yet. But then I checked and yep there was a hole. No air was leaking and the mechanic reckoned that there wont be a problem. I thought the same too. I was only going to do one landing anyway so I decided it was safe enough to go. If the air was leaking or if the nosewheel behaved funny when I taxied then I would terminate the flight.

I was careful to keep the weight off the nosegear while taxiing and during take-off. Very smooth take-off. The visibility was really not good. As I climbed to 1000. I could not even see most of Kulai which should be visible normally. My radio started behaving in a funny way. There was a log of hashing and garbling sounds in it. I had to ask Approach to repeat some of their radio calls. The hashing continued for the rest of the flight and my readability was 3 to 4 upon 5 throughout. 3 being readable with difficulty.

I decided to climb to 1500ft cause I wanted to see how responsive the 152 was. I snap rolled it to 80 degrees. Pretty good. So I snap rolled to the right in the opposite direction to over 90degrees. I think I was 10 degrees inverted already. The plane started to drop so I quickly snapped it back and pulled out. The plane lost about 300 ft in this maneuver. and gained quite some speed. It went to 140kts which was Vno speed in the Yellow Zone. Ok this is something that I should not have tried. But now i know something more about the airplane. It builds up speed real fast in a dive and is real responsive. Its a good thing I've got nerves there.

There were some low clouds at my height from Benut to Kulai. After evading a few, I decided to not take evasive action at the next one which was quite small. I could use a bit of instrument experience albeit not recorded. Whoa! When I went in, it was shear whiteness inside. I kept my cool and went on instruments. Its easy to see why many pilots crash when they go IMC. Its super easy to get disoriented in there without training. I was ok though. I was noted on my ability on instruments as a high point in my FHT.

But I was only in there a few seconds. Soon I could see ground again. But those few seconds were a very good learning experience Technically, its a mistake. But its better to make a mistake deliberately to learn than making a mistake by accident and losing your nerve.

Back to land. Did some steep turns before being allowed into the circuit. I gotta improve my lookout for other aircraft, I failed to spot another 152 landing in front of me. It was only through radio calls I heard that he was on the ground, and only then did I turn Finals.

'Keep the nose up!' I was telling myself. I was thinking of the nosewheel puncture. If it collapses, guess who'd be responsible? Everything went right though, I put her down very smoothly. and taxied off to park, waving to the pilot in 9M-WCF on the way.

Here it ends. Next week I'll pick up my logbook after the endorsement and it'll be after my As before I fly here again. Wait, maybe even longer because of NS. Well, I'll miss flying here. Its a lot less stressful and more freedom flying here in m'sia than in Singapore.

Solo Malacca Nav

Its been 2 weeks since I flew. I was supposed to fly 9M-ALB the Cessna 152. But it had exhaust problems and was grounded. MAN! I thought I had missed school for nothing. Luckily, 9M-JMV was available. So it was lucky I brought the Piper Checklist.

Had to drag the airplane out to the tarmac myself. Had a little help later from one of the engineers there.

Paperwork. I hate it. Again it delayed my take-off to 10am instead of 9.

This flight to Singapore was without a hitch. No problems whatsoever. Made a nice landing after N200KM. I met the pilot and owner Sriram. He has a blog that I read often. Nice guy. Wonder how the Maule he flies handles.

Noticed that 9V-BOQ wasnt at Bravo 7/8. Maybe Darshan took it to Tioman or something.
Had lunch att he canteen then I took off before the weather turned foul. There was Towering Cumulus clouds around.

No delays this time past Senai. Pretty good. I opened the small window of the Piper Pretty cooling. One thing I noticed is that if I stuck my hand out the increased drag would slow the aircraft by 2-4 knots. The flight to Malacca was not boring unlike the dual. WHy? I did steep turns to wake me up and get my blood pumping. Fun man. I also listened to the MP3 while landing in Malacca. Heh. The pearl harbour theme shows love for aviation and That music (sort of) guided me to a nice landing at malacca. I really kinda felt I was back in the 1930s landing an old crop duster. Although the radio panels and tall buildings nearby spoilt the illusion. :(

I took off at about 2pm local time. The weather was going foul with slightly poor visibility. Its probably gonna rain I thought. But I left it at that. After a while of sedate Straight and Level Flying, I decided to have some fun (Within limits of course!). I pretended that I haf an aileron failure and steered the plane using only rudders and elevators. It can be done I concluded. Then, I tried an overbank situation. I banked the aircraft to 90 degrees Angle of bank. Wooaaahh... The nose drops very fast... I lost about 300 ft of altitude. Makes sense though in a Physics kinda way. You bank to 90 deg...no more vertical lift component so the plane drops. I didnt use rudder so that is why. Compared with the last time in my C172 where I did 80 deg steep turns. At least there was some lift component so my nose didnt drop so fast.

Later, Malacca Tower called me to try and make radio contact with another aircraft 9M-RSQ. I called him several times but gotten no reply. I thought something had happened because at 2000 ft I should be able to contact him if he was within Malacca Tower's control zone. Later on, I found out he was on Johor approach frequency when I heard him after I switched over.

It started to rain at Batu Pahat. Then, I saw a very beautiful Rainbow. Wow... Work of God that. I had to take out my camera to snap a shot of it. Its beautiful. Gave a sense of euphoria it did.

The rest of the flight was uneventful as I cruised in for another nice landing although a little right of the centreline. Almost 3 hrs of flight time. All I need is 1 more hour to complete this course.

Malacca Nav

23 April 2006

Malacca Nav. Flying with Capt Muk. Then Brought Zhichen and Jonathan Soh as passengers. Lol. I must say that this nav trip was a little boring. Flying straight and level all the while.

Flying to Seletar...I made a mistake on the RT. Ahh embarassing man. Anyway the ATC did not let me descend earlier and I was high on approach to land. I wanted to go around buy Muk told me to continue e approach. Sure it was gonna be a safe landing buy I rather not use up so much runway. I rather a nice landing than one that i am not comfortable with. But anyway.

I hate paperwork. Caught up at senai and seletar for at least 1hr each doing paperworl. Manifests, flight plans... Wish I was back in the good old days of Barnstorming.

Flight to Malacca was incredibly boring. I was delayed at Senai by inbound MAS flights. Learnt to do the race-track holding pattern from Captain Muk. Finally got through but i was held up for 20 minutes at least. Money wasted.

Had a little turbulence when flying past the Hills of Batu Pahat. Muar is a beautiful town. That is all I got to say enroute.
Reaching Malacca it rained. I landed 9M-JMV at RW 21 of Malacca airport. Short runway man.

After that its pretty much another boring ride back to Senai. Why boring? Instructor aboard and I cant doanything but straight and level. If I was solo I'd probably do some steep turns to get my blood pumping and wake me up. Its easy to fall asleep on long flights like these.