FLy HiGh!!!

Tee Bee Niner

2009-12-16T06:07:00.000-08:00

After a few days of panic, before my COE expires on friday, I finally managed to snivel a couple flights from Republic of SIngapore Flying Club. I'm rather peeved actually with how my club's instructor for not answering my calls and smses. In the end, had to hit the panic button and call RSFC.

Not a bad choice actually, seeing that I get to fly a different airplane. The Socata TB-9 Tampico.
Beautiful plane from the outside, even the cockpit looks nice and advanced. Too bad I was late and had no time to enjoy and take in the view before flying. I was running from the clubhouse onto the tarmac. Flight instructor already had the plane engine up and running before I even reached the aircraft. Seemed like a scramble scenario from a fighter pilot movie.

Into the aircraft! Headsets on! Finally I get to shake hands with C.S Lee my instructor for that flight. He just landed a Silkair flight at Changi and rushed over to instruct and help me get my COE done. Bless him. So then, we carried on.
Pre-take off checks. Time to get acquainted with the new plane. Everything here is switches and electrical switches. Definitely a lot more advanced than the Cessna.
"9V-BOZ, runway available 1500 feet, backtrack RW21 clear for take-off!"
Ah! The sexy voice lady ATC! Her voice is so clear with feminine warmth that it jerked me out of my reverie with the checklist and proceeded to take off.
Take-off speed 65, climb at 75. Flaps up after 200 ft.

First thing one notices when flying the TB-9 is its unusual nose attitude. Its much higher than that of the Cessna. So much so that you can't really see forward of the nose at level attitude and at normal power. Its rather like flying on instrument. Ah, but the view from the top, rear and the sides. Good visibility all around. If you ask me, put a 200 HP engine on this baby and it'll be perfect. That way, lower nose attitude, perfect visibility all round.

Flying-wise, I personally felt that handling a new aircraft really put a lot of workload and I was behind the aircraft much of the time. I wasn't Aviating, Navigating and Communicating as well as I should have. But that got better as the flight went on. Flying with C.S was so much more relaxing than flying w Darshan. But no doubt both have their own way of teaching and both are effective.

Apparently, I have a v bad habit of taking my hands off the throttle to fly with both hands on the control. That did not go too well with Capt. Lee and he said so. Logic is so you can have power when you need it that split second. Similary he did not like the way I extended my fingers when I used the throttle. Reason: The mixture control is right next to the throttle and I could accidentally kill the engine by pulling the mixture accidentally.

So, level turns, steep turns and then Stalls. The TB-9 does not pitch over when it stalls and just falls like a rock while maintaining nose attitude. They've changed the stall warning to a continuous pulsing beep. Good! I hated the stall warning the last time I flew the TB9 eons ago.
It was a horrific loud shriek at the moment of stall. Does one's heart no good.
I felt I was rather sloppy at stalling. I lost 300 ft on the first stall. No good. 2nd time was better. 200 feet. And that's hte amount that should be lost according to Capt Lee. If you lose less means that you were cheating and did not stall. (Bet Darshan would argue with that seeing in the cessna we could recover below 200 feet.)

Lots of aircraft in Area Alpha. Choppers flitting around. SYFC flying about. They kept their distances today. Nothing interesting on that score. Lightning bolts seen from residual storm clouds around Singapore. Rather disconcerting.

Back to Seletar for recovering, PFL and boy the TB-9 is a heavy bitch. She sinks really fast. Its rather ironic, she looks sleek and sexy from the outside but she's heavy! Its like Catherine zeta Jones having the weight of Queen Latifah!
Apparently, the nose attitude is really different when it comes to landing as well. It seemed to me on short final we were about to fly into the ground. Boy my heartbeat doubled and I pulled up on the stick. Went on for 2 more approaches
1st
FI: "No no, that's too much nose up!"
Me: (In my mind) 'Too late, if I nose down now we'll bounce'
"BAM! heavy touchdown.

2nd
FI: " Too early a flare! Get the nose down!"
Me: (in my mind) 'Another 2 seconds and we'll be a dent in the runway. Thats early?"
BAM! Heavy touchdown.

3rd
Me: Ok, tell me when my nose attitude is OK
FI: This is ok, hold hold hold
Me: '(In my mind) This is crazy! We'll 3 pointer the aircraft!
Smooth touchdown.

All 3 landings were by the FI account was alright. Even the first 2. But a pilot landing in fear wondering if he's doing the right thing has fouled up already by being unsure!
We made a total of 8 landings. By the end I got the hang of it and made a rather smooth touchdown with a Stop and go.

4 important differences
1) Nose Attitude is very different
2) Nose Attitude does not drop during a stall
3) TB-9 uses a fin stabiliser and not an elevator. Therefore, its more responsive as the entire tailfin moves
4) Low wing acft and heavy. Sinks v fast.

All in all, a great flight. A great pleasure to fly with C.S Lee. I'll hope to do so more often next time. I still like the Cessna 172. Its more direct, straightforward and forgiving. No lies or pretentiousness. But I must say the TB-9 is a nice plane to fly

COE renewal [C172]

2009-12-16T05:59:00.000-08:00

Haven't flown in a while.

Had a couple 'solo' flights with my SFC flight instructor 2 weeks ago. Clocked 3 hours. Not enough. One requires 5 hrs to maintain his PPL in Singapore.
Those last 2 flights were pretty interesting. (Every flight is)
What was interesting is that I bounced the plane on landing. Something that only happened a couple times when I was still an SPL.
Oh and 4 sparrows decided to play chicken with the Cessna on take off upwind. My reaction was less that stellar having let my pilot hat collect dust for a year.
Me: "OH JESUS!!"
CFI: What?
Me: "DID YOU SEE THAT!? Those sparrows!"
CFI: Oh... carry on, turn left for 310."
[Flight continues.]

Other than that. All went well.

CCTS Evaluation.

2008-05-18T05:59:00.000-07:00

Waited for so long to get this flight. Last time I flew was February and it was the Area A evaluation. 9V-BOQ has been dogged with problems lately, engine starter needed replacing and last week the pilot seat backing fell backwards.

I spent at least 2 hrs of last night on Flight Sim X practicing circuits on RW 03.
Spent the morning mental flying before meeting TC for brunch at Dempsey.
Later, wouldn't you know it, but at 1530 the active runway was 21 not 03 as I had practiced for. Uh-oh.

Take-Off went smoothly. Felt a little rusty, after not flying for 3 months. The wind was quite strong today as I saw the windsock was more than 3/4 extended. The first circuit was low and I had to drag the plane in. No-go. Never mind, just the first try. I'll get it right next.

2nd approach wasn't so good. The height was right except that a sudden gust of wind blew me off course as i was touching down. I was using the crab technique and couldn't compensate in time. Not a very smooth landing as I touched down, lifted back into the air and touched down again. Luckily its not a bounce.
"Uh...You sure you've got a PPL?" Darshan says while grinning. Damn.

3rd Approach, I had it wired and so it was onto flapless. Pretty low for the 1st and the landing was also a 2 touch. I pulled back on the controls a tad too much and the plane lifted off and I was like "Whoa damn!" before letting OQ settle down again.
2nd Flapless was fine and then we switched to glide.

The wind was pretty strong at about 10-15 knots and Darshan made me cut the engine a little earlier. So I cut into final and then we were a little high so I put flaps to 20. Geez...still high and the nose is still not low enough. Maximum flaps!
Ok, so now we're going down fast and the wind's still strong.... Just nice enough! I was on glide slope and settled down towards the aiming point where I had aimed to land at 1500ft. Spot on landing! YES! Now onto low-level approach.

That was quite ok as well. Darshan said he had no complains after we landed.
Good to finally get back my solo priveleges. One interesting thing that happened during the flight was that on one downwind leg, an eagle flew head on towards the plane and pulled up and away in time to prevent a collision. But still close enough to see its eyes. Cool! I love those birds. As long as they don't foul up my engine or splatter onto the windscreen.

It really felt good to be back in the air after so long. I'm back! The aviator, adventuror, daredevil spirit. is still very much alive. And so am I.

With pride.

2007-06-29T18:55:00.000-07:00

I guess SISPEC isn't so bad a number after all.

When my morale is low, all I want to do is to get out of being a trainee and be in unit like MP, signals or Air force. I guess I still want RSAF cause I can be an ATC. I have experience in that. And its a shift job so I can go home after my shift is done. I want that!

Then again, sometimes when morale is high, I want to chiong swah and go to Guards.
I want the pride of wearing the Khaki beret. But the thing is I don't think I'll relish the pain. A trade-off is required. No Pain, no gain.

So I guess I will express interest in the Air Force and MP, but I'll still do my best so I will have a chance at Guards. And where they post me, I'll accept it.

Freedom.

2007-06-09T08:09:00.000-07:00

Flew my first sortie since March. I was solo after about 3 months of not flying. Boy did I feel rusty when I stepped into the 9V-BOQ cockpit. The moment you perceive the control panel, the brain starts cranking into gear and whirls. "Uh-oh what's this knob? Oh its the mixture control...and this is the throttle...ah the Master switch..." and so on and so on. It was like being reacquainted with a loved one you've not seen for a few months. Not to mention of the joy of seeing her when I stepped onto the tarmac.

Darshan was flying with another student in the other Cessna. I was right behind and then they rolled onto the runway and took off just before I did. Felt some sort of weird feeling watching my instructor taking another student up right before I did.
2 years ago I was in that position. Felt like a old hand now though I am not.

I was really rusty at first. Could not keep ahead of the aircraft. She was flying me instead of myself flying her as Darshan would say. I was actually furious at myself for flying so sloppily. You don't feel good flying bad. Slowly though, as the minutes past, what I've been taught about flying just comes back. I start to regain the instincts so familiar to me since I before I last sat on this seat.

The first landing was quite sloppy. But as I did more circuits they obviously got better. I even passed the no-power glide landing standards! Both times I tried it! Wow. That's instinct and skill. Luck may have something to do with it too. Can't explain the feeling that I felt while landing the aircraft. Only that feelings of excitement, fear and joy had crept over me each time I was on final approach all the way to touchdown.

I wonder why some pilots stop flying. Sure, while in NS I was detached from the aviation world with the exception of seeing airliners coming into to land at Changi. Yet, I somehow also felt connected to it by the action of keeping an eye on the aircraft as long as I can till it passes out of sight. Some pilots just stop flying after a period of time when they are separated from the flying club. Why? Its easy to forget the magic that the feeling of flight gives while you are away. But when one is at it again back at the controls of his airplane, it all comes back. The excitement, the stress, the fantastic feeling of controlling one's destiny even if maybe for just an hour.

7 weeks in.

2007-06-03T01:37:00.000-07:00

7 weeks in the army now.
Life sucks in there.
No freedom.
Brain is deterioting.
I like the soldiering.
I hate the regimentation.
I hate the politics.
I wish I could be a civilian again.

I don't care where I'm gonna be posted. Infantry, Guards, MP or whatever.
Its boring in there. There's no excitement that I thought there might be.
I want more missions. Instead of freaking PTs and SOCs which I so hate. I tear my hands each time I do the monkey bar or climb the low rope. I so despise the chao keng assholes. Integrity mean nothing to them. I;m glad I'm not like them.
But then again, my enthusiasm is waning. I started out full of fire and now after just 7 weeks, the bonfire is now just a candle flame.

On a lighter note. I learnt that cough mixture and wine is the perfect combination to get drunk. I had cough and after taking the codeine which the MO gave one night during book out. Wenbiao came over and we had a bottle of Trentham Pinot. After like 2 or 3 glasses I conked out.

End of Civvie. Start of Army/

2007-04-12T16:41:00.000-07:00

4 hours from enlisting.

Today, I will start serving my country. All I know is that I'll do my best.
Part of me is excited. Can't wait to face the challenges. Can't wait to learn and train to be a soldier. Yet, another part of me is scared that I'll screw up and be less than the man I think I am or hope to be.

I'll stand by my values. Honour, Courage, Responsibility and Loyalty.
As long as I adhere to these principles, I can't fail.

So help me God.

2007-04-09T08:42:00.000-07:00

I gave my body more punishment today than the entire Jan and Feb combined. I think I did about a 100 push ups or more today.Pretty little I know. But still at least I tried. As I will in NS.

I've decided. I want to be a Guardsman. Army Guards. The Khaki Berets. The Chopper troops. I've decided. If I'm going to fight. I want to fight with the best. After Commandos, Guards are the elite.

I used to think I want to join the Infantry. But I guess I rather be a Guardsman and get to go offense and kick ass than sit on my ass and get kicked. The Infantry I hear always get their asses kicked by the Guards. Armour or Arty wouldn't be too bad I suppose. At least they're specialised and get to play with the big toys.

I watched a video on MINDEF website about the 1st 100 days in NS. I felt pretty patriotic after watching it. Its really good propaganda. But I do believe in what LKY said. "If you who are growing up do not understand that we've got to defend Singapore. In the end I say we lose."

I do believe I'm serving my country. Not wasting 2 years of my life.
I do believe I'll do my best. Not go in there to chao keng.
I do believe I'll make a good soldier. Not a slacker.
I do believe I've got what it takes to lead and to be lead.

3 more days. Gotta go get my stuff ready.

3 days left....

2007-04-09T00:40:00.000-07:00

God... I'm feeling so freaking shitty. As far as I'm concerned. My holiday is over. I'm already in the army. I'm giving myself calisthenics everyday. I'm forcing myself to wake up early.

Got all my stuff I think. Gonna start packing up tonight. After that maybe tekan myself again. Or I ought to get Dad to do it to me. Nah. Bad Idea. I'd probably laugh.

Brandon's gone in today. TC, Sam and a few other's tmr. Dan and Elonn on the 12th. Next will be me. Hope I don't get shitbirds, non-hackers or ten-percenters in my section. Or if I do. Hope they don't get the whole section into trouble. Probably will though. Gotta do the best I can to keep me and my buddies in one piece.

3 more days. Gonna really workout. Working out later at 5pm

10 more days.

2007-04-02T03:17:00.000-07:00

It gets kind of depressing to know the life you lead is going to take an abrupt change in several days time. Losing the freedom that now after 3 months I'm so used to. Knowing that my ass will belong to the army. Knowing I'll be jerked around for 2 years. Knowing that I'm gonna suffer physically and mentally. Strange, I was wishing I was in the army during A levels. I guess I rather be in the army still than go thru A levels again. Now that's torture.

Part of me looks forward to the army. How many War movies I've watched, Black Hawk Down, We were Soldiers, Band of Brothers and the like. All these. They don't glorify war. They just show in dramatic detail the lives of the soldiers. The heroism. The pain. The comradeship. That made me want to be soldier when I was a little boy.

Now, huh! I dunno. I'm dreading going in. But I guess its the same with everyone else. Until one's in there and the realisation sets in that there's nothing he can do about it. That's when he starts to function and adjust. I hope it doesn't take too long for me. All I know is that I just want to be a good soldier and not let my buddies and country down.

I guess Dad's code of honour and patriotism has rubbed off on me.

scrubs.

2007-03-26T03:55:00.000-07:00

I think I'm going into depression.

My routine in the evening for the past 3 days has been the same.
-Drink Wine.
-Watch Scrubs and laugh till my gut hurts.
-Get in a lousy mood after scrubs ends.
-play another episode.
-Laugh some more
-Drink more wine.
-Brush my teeth after I get giddy.
-Laugh hysterically till I cry in bed.
-Pass out.

Yes. I think I'm going into depression.

Flight to tioman Part 2.: The circuits

2007-03-24T03:14:00.000-07:00

Sut and Me after landing. Darshan's in e background. I'm looking the O-so-confident hotshot flyboy. That's so gonna change in a couple hours time.

After lunch in tioman on the 14th, We headed back to the airfield. Me, Darshan, Jon and Zhi Cheng (Sut). Time to do my mandatory 5 take-offs and landings there. Sut would do 2 for experience.

Tekek airport has a duty-free shop that has plenty of nice wine in there. Cheap since there was no duty paid. Too bad can't bring back to singapore. I told myself I'd stop by to get one when I come back next week for diving.

Ok now in the aircraft and after start-up. I taxi out to the runway and Darshan insists that we make use of every inch we got since its a short runway. Ok...I won't forget to lower flaps this time before take-off. Flaps ten. Full Power! and holding on the breaks. Release breaks!

The aircraft jumps forward and accelerates nicely. I stare at the airspeed as it increases. 50knots! Rotate! I pull back on the stick and she lifts off the ground and we get closer to that hill infront of us. Finally, at 200 feet up, turn left and retract flaps and gain more speed. Now we're flying!

If only the landings could be as fun. we did at 180 degree turn and immediately flew right base for runway 20. Low level technique slow to 65knots. Tioman Info tells us there's about 10 knots tailwind out there. This is certainly bad news. I want my speed up. 65 to 70 I figured should be enough.

As we turned final at about 300 feet. Oops I turned a little late and ARGH the damn hill on the left is getting closer and Darshan screams at me to stay in control! Then I turn the control to the right but she's reluctant to respond! DAMN! CROSSWIND AND TAILWIND!Darshan manhandles the plane to the right. Ok that's the way to do it now there's the runway... and I put her down rather rough on the runway. Atleast I'm down. We wave to some watching local kids as we taxied past them. Take-off again.

Now. This next approach was one of the scariest I've ever made in my life. Everything goes well until the turn to final when suddenly the airspeed jumps from 65 to about 45 knots... 'WEAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" the stall warning snaps on! ARGH HOLY SHIT! I shout out loud. thoughts flash through my mind: "STALL!WINDSHEAR!GET THE NOSE DOWN!WE'RE DEAD!GET THE NOSE DOWN!" So I pushed the column and the plane noses over and now we're headed for the freaking ground at high speed. Darshan's presence and maybe God's saves our 2 collective asses. Darshan regains the control of the airplane jus in time for me to take over and land on the runway... OMG. I never breathed so hard or felt so scared in an airplane before, not even on that stormy landing in Senai. Sut and Jon must be getting good videos of this from the tarmac where i left them.

Somehow this sick thought goes through my mind which I don't forget: I wished that I was flying solo so if I somehow crash I'd just kill myself and not Darshan. And I could at least do my racetrack low-level approach instead of the right base approach.I hate the sight of flying towards those hills at such low speed. When you're fast you can turn on a dime. When ur slow the wind easily blows you towards the hill and you can't turn fast enough.

God I dunno how Darshan does it. Risking his life everyday flying with student pilots who could easily screw up. And he's been doing this for more than 20 years!
Now, with his experience. I should have realised that I'm as safe as could be. But I was having none of this epiphany at that time. Morbid thoughts start. "Hmm...those hills look real hungry today." "If I somehow make it through this alive I'm gonna have a cigar..." "Hmmm...I wonder which picture will be used in my funeral..." "Argh I don't wanna die on this damn island." Those random thoughts flashed through. Ridiculous I know. But they just did.

As a result, after the 3rd take-off I was breathing so hard and nearly hyperventilating. I was actually contemplating to give up flying the last 3 approach but the thought extinguished itself as quickly as it got there. Whatever I may be...I'm no coward. I'll die doing this if I have to.

"CAPTAIN COLIN CHU!" Darshan booms and chuckles, "You are finally working hard!"
I was initially furious when I saw him chuckling having fun at my expense.
Turns out it was a hidden compliment. Seems prior to this everything in flight training that was thrown at me I handled coolly. Which was true. But...man this tioman landing is one bitch of a task to master or even do.

BUMP! We hit a turbulance from the ridge lift. The plane ascends 100feet in 3 second and the plane shudders. I fight to get back to 500 feet and turn and look at Darshan with a frightened wide-eyed look. I must have looked really comical or funny because Darshan burst into laughter, which in turn, relaxed me as well cuz laughter is infectious. "Ok I'll show you one approach." Man...He's skilled. Cause the next approach was beautiful. I've got to come back here to tioman at least a few more times before I can even hope to make such a good approach.

4th approach. Wind still 10 knots tailwind and crosswind. This time, I got in control and managed not to overshoot final that much. The landing was ok. I was muttering "I think I got this wired...Ok Darshan I think I got this wired..."

The last and final approach...Hmm...I think I manhandled her a wee bit too much.
Now, one thing about airplanes that you have to understand is that they, just like girls, don't like being manhandled. I wrenched to prevent her from overshooting final and instead we were headed towards some coconut trees to the right of the runway so me and Darshan were both on the controls shouting "I HAVE CONTROL!" But anyway, we managed to get her lined up and I did a rather sloppy landing due to the lack of time to position. At least we're down.
Sut and Jon showed me the video and they were pretty shocked at my less than stellar touchdown and approach. I was too to be honest. That's it.

After I got off the airplane. I took Sut's camera and headed off to the grass patch where he took the pics and vids from. I saw a Berjaya Air pilot and went over to him immediately and shook his hand. "I dunno how you guys can do this approach every day man. Well done! You guys rock!"

Sut didn't do too bad from the view of the ground. but it seemed there was also chaos in the cockpit. Anyway, after his 2nd landing... I ran, still shaken mind you, to the airplane to embark on the final leg back home.

HOMEWARD BOUND!

Flight to tioman. Part One.

2007-03-14T08:08:00.000-07:00

I knew this would be a memorable flight. But little did I know that the challenge of landing in tioman wld be more than what I bargained or hoped for.

I jumped out of bed and rushed off to seletar after breakfast with Mom and Dad. After clearing Customs and all with Zhi Cheng, Jon and Darshan we immediately went to the aircraft for pre-flight.

Here's a catch about flying overseas: We have to wear Lifejackets. Its not only uncomfortable but real hot as well. Anyway, we took off shortly using a shortfield technique. (I forgot to put flaps till Darshan reminded me. Uh-oh guess I was still sleepy.)

I have to improve my flight navigation. I forgot all about danger areas and plotted a route right thru one. Uh-oh! Darshan gave me flak for that. 7 out of 9 lives left he said. LOL! Anyway, we flew towards Kota Tinggi and then Kampong Sedili Besar. Darshan gave me all sorts of distractions to teach me how to calculate our posit. He also taught me how to use the VOR. Cool. One more insurance in case I ever get lost.

After reaching Mersing VOR, we turned 020 degrees heading direct for tioman. Wow. My first over water flight. The sea was beautiful...as was the clouds. As I was starting to get mesmerised, Darshan snapped me out of it by asking "What do you do if there is an engine failure now?" I was like.."huh? head for the island there!"....
then he said "Start looking out for ships! So you can fly alongside and ditch. For now that island with the beach will do."

You know...Christopher Columbus must have had this undescribable feeling when he saw land after many weeks sailing at sea. He must have had this feeling when he found the New World after many weeks at sea. Well, in my case...suddenly out of the clouds, the large island of Tioman came into sight and I felt the feeling I think Columbus felt so many years ago. Or maybe even like those like Amelia Earhart, or Charles Lindbergh

One thing about this flight was that I expected that I was supposed to be instructed. I thought this was an instructional flight. Instead, whenever I asked questions to clarify what i'm supposed to do. He would reply "You are the Captain. You are in command so you decide." I felt since this was my first time to tioman, I thought he'd explain how to do the approach and land here. But nooo... Samae answer.
Fine, I thought, be that way. I can handle this!

I started looking around for the runway. YES! Spotted it and then as the whole runway and airport came into view, I was suddenly not so confident anymore. HOLY COW! hills on all 3 sides and the sea is on the other 1 side. And the runway was sooo short! Oh wow. This is gonna be one hell of an approach. I was at 1500 feet so I descended to about 800 and made teh base turn to final. DAMN! Too high! I cursed and shouted "SHIT! GO AROUND!" Full Power, flaps up and climb away from those darn hills and that mountain in front of me. Ok I was too high then. So I'll go low this time. Whoa, 500 feet and then descend to 300 feet adjacent the runway and ok base turn to final...Good Lord! we're low! Yes! I can make it! There's the runway....touchdown! NOW BRAKE before you go through the mountain at the end of the runway! YES! made it. Oh Cripes. I forgot to retract flaps while braking. Darshan reams me out for that.

Whew! What a approach. I was sweating bullets all the way down man... Ok... We've made it. Zhi Cheng and Jon took some pics and vids of the landing as you can see. Then, we headed via jeepney to this restaurant at Berjaya beach for a scrumptious lunch of seafood. What a view of the beach. Beautiful scenery.

I'll continue next time.

Wine and Dine.

2007-03-10T18:57:00.000-08:00

I had one of the best dinners in my life yesterday. My God! Good service. Good Ambience. Good Food and Wine. Best of all, good company. Life is good. Vida es Buenas!

16 goodwood avenue. Couo Bistro. Wenbiao, Brandon, TC and I went there after going to the Uni open house. First we went to this wine cellar for Biao to go pick his Riesling. Turns out there was only one type of Riesling there but I encouraged the buy cause its German and most German Rieslings are good stuff. I was really tempted to go buy a 1998 Chateau Laroze. But I decided I'll save up first before getting that.

We actually wanted to eat at this place called Sebastien's. But one look at the menu and corkage charges and the price of the in-house wine was enought to make us lose our appetites. Each bottle costs liked minimum 120 bucks! :(

Then we walked on in hope of going to a better (and less costly) place. But Biao and I had already sworn to each other we're gonna have wine with good food tonight. So we came to Couo Bistro and had a look. The head waiter was really friendly. (he later introduced himself as Rudy.) I saw several good wines and the prices were quite reasonable. Plus Rudy let us use the private table in the VIP room with a pond inside. WOW! All of us were for the place.

Basically, for the appetizer, we had tappas which was full of excellent seafood like escargots, soft shell crab and goose liver and calamari. To top it off, Rudy waived the corkage charge for Biao's Riesling so we had the wine to go with the seafood. Its the first time i've had Riesling and I must say I loved it! That's it man! Sauvignon Blanc has been ousted from its throne of my fave whites. Riesling is now the King of Whites for me. Brandon said he doesn't appreciate whites while Me and Biao were discussing the nose and palate of the wine.

Now the Entree. Brandon had Lamb rack, Biao:1 Medium Rare beef, TC: roasted chicken and Soft Shell crabs with spicy noodles for me. Then the best wine of the night. I ordered a Borthwick Pinot Noir. And WOW! Its one of the best wines I've had. The taste is so hedonistic. OMG! It goes even better with all the entree's we ordered. Each of us had a try of everything. The atmosphere was very relaxed. This is life.

After we finishted the main course, there was still a little Pinot left. And we took this picture. Guess who's tipsy?

Yes... TC! He got so comical and started playing with my camera pouch. LOL! Then, Wenbiao was saying..." Eh guys. This is not enough. We ought to have dessert wine."
I was enthusiastically agreeing and so was Brandon. Only TC was protesting cuz he feels drunk. ("nooo....I need to go home..") Brandon suggested we had dessert to go along and we ordered a Cheese platter.

Rudy brought the wine list. But....only Moscato dessert wine. Me and Biao had it at my house once and it was not that excellent. (We only wanted the best tonight.) So...we started looking through more wines. Then I spotted this Chilean Emiliana Merlot. I know Merlot goes very well with Cheese.Wen Biao started grousing that he didnt like Merlot...then
I said "Hey man...here's my chance to change your mind about Merlot."
And that settled it. MERLOT!

I seem to have very good taste for wine. The Merlot was excellent too. Although the Pinot Noir was still superior. The thing is that I had the best sip of the night with Merlot after eating one of the slices of cheese that had a rotten smell but lovely taste. After swallowin the cheese I had a sip of the Merlot and Dios Mio!! The Merlot's strawberry and grapey flavour was enhanced by the cheese. I'll remember this combination for life. After we finished dessert, we all talked a while and then all of us started feeling really drowzy and tipsy. The wine was kicking in. We actually had 3 bottles among the 4 of us! I never expected to have that much. In fact I was telling Biao that 1 bottle would be enough! But Noooo...the wine was excellent.

Rudy introduced us to Oliver who's the owner of the place. All of us agreed this is definitely the place to come to next time with that special someone next time. The wine and food was worth every dollar.
Although I'm probably gonna be flat broke next week. But...It was worth every dollar.

2007-03-08T07:53:00.000-08:00

Hmm, to think I blogged about life being boring this afternoon. Sometimes, prayers do get answered. I've got adventures lined up the next week!

Darshan finally returned my call and booked me a navigation flight to tioman for next wednesday. Sierra HoteL!!! I'm way excited about this. Its gonna be my first over-water flight. Need to wear life jackets and stuff. Haha. Time to see if my navigation skills are good enough to find the island. I won't be using GPS. I can't wait to shoot the approach to land at Tioman. its like flying into a valley with 2 hills alongside. One of the most challenging approaches in south east asia for GA pilots. Its likened to being what Kai-Tak is for airline pilots. The more challenging it sounds the more i'm savouring the chance.

Next, at fencing lessons today. James said there's gonna be a intra-club team tournament on thursday. Its gonna be fun that's for sure. Thought after the way I fenced tonight, I think this tourny will be my first where i go home without medals. I totally sucked. My foot hurt and I felt so off balanced today. I hope my team members are good. Cause this is one tourny where its a team-effort. I don't know who's going to be in my team yet.

Alright! I can't frigging wait!

2007-03-08T02:13:00.000-08:00

Life is getting real boring. I'm suddenly wishing I'd be going to the army soon. At least I'd learn or do something fun. Life is falling into a humdrum. I need to get scared shitless again.

What can I do before NS. Tioman. Scuba diving. Trouble is Dad won't let me go alone. Dan's gonna be in HK and Biao is in Army. TC is my only hope. Trouble is that his parents may not allow him. argh. Why can't i go alone?! I'm not gonna get kidnapped or eaten by a tiger hiking on tioman. Besides, I had a dream a couple nights ago that I was Wu Song. Maybe a good omen.

I'm getting a feeling of machismo. Just went to this web on shark diving. Not Cage diving. OPEN WATER diving with hammerhead, bull and tiger sharks. Whoa. Exotic locations like Fiji, the Bahamas and South Africa. Waaayy cool. But diving with these sharks face to face with no cage? Hmmmm....sounds real fun.
Its gotta be more exhilarating than that shark dive in the underwaterworld I did few years ago. These are the only few pics I have left. The rest were lost when i reformatted my comp last time.

Surrounded by the big ones. A White tip shark, Eagle Ray and a giant groupa.

I had no idea the sharks looked this mean. Can't believe I was in the same tank with it.

Amazing creatures. God I pray that you protect these awesome animals so that they may be around for future generations to see. Amen.

Oh wait, I also pray that i never would look like food to these buggers. :D Amen.

Quotes

2007-03-04T05:12:00.000-08:00

I live for that exhilarating moment when I'm in an airplane rushing down the runway and pull on the stick and feel lift under its wings. It's a magical feeling to climb toward the heavens, seeing objects and people on the ground grow smaller and more insignificant. You have left that world beneath you. You are inside the sky.

— Gordon 'Gordo' Cooper

You can always tell when a man has lost his soul to flying. The poor bastard is hopelessly committed to stopping whatever he is doing long enough to look up and make sure the aircraft purring overhead continues on course and does not suddenly fall out of the sky. It is also his bound duty to watch every aircraft within view take off and land.

— Ernest K Gann

Couple of quotes I found. Strikes a chord in my heart. I guess i have lost my soul to flying. And I thank God for it. Amen.

Late Harvest mania!

2007-02-22T07:32:00.000-08:00

I'm becoming a wine lover. At jon's house, we gambled a little for fun on black jack and I won about 12 bucks! Heh and after that his mom opened a 2004 South african Pinotage for us because by then there was only like me brandon and jon's family left. A 75CL bottle is just right for 5 of us. And I liked this. I always thought the Pinot grape types are v volatile. Sure it tasted tannic (sour) after it was opened but as the wine breathed a while the taste got much better. I think I had about 3 glasses. We watched "The Godfather" while enjoying the Pinotage.

Yesterday, I went out to look for wine shops with Dan. There was this sign at our estate saying 200m to a wine lover's paradise. So we followed the signs and came to this shop at Himiko Court Condo and it was CLOSED!!!

Then, we continued walking to Henry Park where I knew there was a wine shop already. Nice! 1st thing that happened was the owner's dog came up to us. V nice. I dunno the breed but it looked like a retriever with short ears. Then, I asked him to show me ice or late harvest wine. Then he recommended me some that were cheap and good. I bought this Chenin Blanc Late Harvest wine. Its grapes were grown in India. I didnt know India made wine but turns out its from one of the best Vineyards in India. And it was on discount at $19.90 Why not? But its only 375ml. Only enough for maybe 2-3 people.

Today, I went to Plaza Singapura to look for more wines. Lol. I stumbled onto a Wine fair promotion in Carrefour. Puh-leez! I thought they'd have good stuff. Except that most of bottles on promotion were mediocre stuff. They decorated Beaujolais Noveau like as if its a v good buy. PLEASE! Wait till the buyers try it. Or better yet! They try to keep in to mature. That is so gonna ruin their day when they find it undrinkably acidic and soured.

So I went to the cellars and that's where the good stuff was. Penfold's Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 vintage. That's what Uncle Tony wants for his Wedding and here it is I found it at last! Then I think I spent at least 45 mins in the cellar before I found a Chilean Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc! At even better price! 18 bucks. Heh... I guess i like Late Harvest because its sweeter and they're usually expensive. Heh 2 bargains in 2 days. Cool!

Now I got to find some way to enjoy it. Next is to find a BYOB restaurant and invite someone to enjoy the good stuff with me.

Oh and Wine helps unblock blood vessels. I didn't know that until today. I do know they help prevent Alzheimer's.

CNY

2007-02-19T07:37:00.000-08:00

I played tennis with RaeWen and her bowler friend Cherie on the 16th. And I had to disappoint RW again cuz WenBiao suddenly had to draw guard duty. Lol. Gave me lots of amusement laying a giant guilt trip on him. Hahaha!

Surprisingly, I played quite well(I Think). My forehand is getting better thanks to some training from the Biao and the use of his racket. My racket is head heavy and packs too much power. His racket is more compatible with me as it is head light. RW and Cherie ran me ragged though. Its quite tough playng 1v2 especially since they're quite good. Ah well.

See how much running I had to do?

Thx Jean for the pics.

Chinese new year eve. Had the reunion dinner at 3rd Uncle's house. Highlight of the day was drinking the wine. White Zinfandel's turning to quite a good wine to taste. Wonder why the books say the quality of the grape isn't that good. Oh and I seem to have some sort of animal attraction I found out. Summer the female jack russell kept coming over to me and attempting to hump my leg. LOL! Even when eating the dinner! She kept going underneath the table and attempting to hump my leg! Dad and the other uncles tried pushing her away but she kept coming back! I was just too stunned to do anything LOL!

Chinese New Year we spent at Grandma's house. Jeanne (My niece) kept pestering me to play taiti with her and Lauren. Then after that the annual gambling started. Its just for fun and the fun is not in winning the money but in just being with the family. My cards went south though. Lost about 18 bucks. Haha but who cares! I lost most of the money to Dad. I was the only one in teh table to never gotten a blackjack!

Today, Had Lunch at Aunt Val's house. Then in the evening, to my Godfather's house. He's real nice. We opened a bottle of Red Rose Wine. Very nice palate. There was an oak and slightly fruity flavour. Not only that. This wine isn't v tannic so it does not get more sour the more you drink. V nice. The dinner was excellent as usual. Godma's cooking always satisfies!

A Flyer's Prayer

2007-02-06T01:04:00.000-08:00

When this life I'm in is done,
And at the gates I stand,
My hope is that I answer all
His questions on command.

I doubt He'll ask me of my fame,
Or all the things I knew, Instead,
He'll ask of rainbows sent
On rainy days I flew.

The hours logged, the status reached,
The ratings will not matter.
He'll ask me if I saw the rays
And how He made them scatter.

Or what about the droplets clear,
I spread across your screen?
And did you see the twinkling eyes.
If student pilots keen?

The way your heart jumped in your chest,
That special solo day-
Did you take time to thank the one
Who fell along the way?

Remember how the runway lights
Looked one night long ago
When you were lost and found your way,
And how-you still dont know?

How fast, how far, how much, how high?
He'll ask me not these things
But did I take the time to watch
The Moonbeams wash my wings?

And did you see the patchwork fields
And moutains I did mould;
The mirrored lakes and velvet hills,
Of these did I behold?

The wind he flung along my wings,
On final almost stalled.
And did I know I it was His name,
That I so fearfully called?

And when the goals are reached at last,
When all the flyings done,
I'll answer Him with no regret-
Indeed, I had some fun.

So when these things are asked of me,
And I can reach no higher,
My prayer this day - His hand extends
To welcome home a Flyer.

— Patrick J. Phillips

Beautiful prayer.

Saw this flying in M'sia.

Angels on our Shoulders.

2007-02-04T18:05:00.000-08:00

I just had an argument with TC. Maybe that's why I'm having the impulse to blog and release some steam. He's building a Rebreather(RB) that allows one to breathe recycled air underwater. Now I'm blessedly ignorant about RBs but I do know enough that there are many fatalities that occur with RB builders and users.
He has built a prototype RB and when he posted pics in a forum, he was flamed for being overenthusiastic and ignorant and naive by the experienced RB guys. He was pretty mad about that. I read the posts and agreed that perhaps he was overenthu and naive. Ignorant, no. I believe he did his homework. When he asked why? I told him simply because he hadn't been so close to the edge of death unlike the fellows of the forum and that's why he took those comments lightly. Comments like (How much is your life worth boy?)

Then, I suppose he got a bit pissed that his gd friend (ME) did not stand by his side and accuse him of being naive as well and said. "How do you know I've nv been close to the edge?" Innocent comment right? I took it as a written backhand. I took it as "Don't underestimate me. I have been." That got me agitated.WHAT DOES HE KNOW? My written retort was as follows.

"BUT, have you been THAT close to the edge? Where 1 minute's difference, 1 extra moment, 1 extra knot of wind, 1 extra or less knot of speed or less than 50 feet of separation is the DAMN difference between you being stone dead and staying alive?! IF you have then you can criticize those buggers and me all you want and I won't say a thing."

I've written about that experience in a objective way in Jan 2005. How it happened and that's it. I've never talked about the innate feelings except with fellow aviators cause only they know what I'm talking about. I've had more of those experiences. The incidents usually happen and end within seconds or maybe slightly longer.

I don't think about it when I'm still flying because I'm too preoccupied with flying the airplane and getting down in one piece safely.

I grin a little to myself moments after the incident happens or maybe curse a blue streak and think that I'm blessed and I've dodged Fate's bullet.

I then think I'm one lucky bastard and start laughing about it after landing, say a little prayer of thanks and then try to talk about it to my buddies or fellow aviators. They pat me on the back, say "well done!" or "lucky boy" and they buy me drinks and then everyone laughs about it.

Its ONLY LATER. Maybe a few days or weeks or months later. I started thinking deeply about it, reflecting and replaying the entire sequence in the head. From the moment the insructor says "OK Colin you have control" and he bends down adjusting some instruments. Then, suddely, I happen to look to the right and a Piper Warrior grotesquely and maybe even magically appears in front of my eyes. So frigging close I can see the pilot. So close I can tell he's male. So close I can see him looking straight ahead and I know then and there he never saw me. Then just as suddenly he's gone. I shout "Jesus! Darshan! Did you see that?!" and receive a grunt as the instructor looks behind and sees the other plane going in the opposite direction behind. Darshan was calm or at least he appeared to be. That helped me NOT to become unglued. Then the lesson continues as usual.

Then, I ONCE AGAIN think that I'm one lucky sod. But then again, being Catholic, I KNOW it's not a flukey coincidence that I am alive. I know there was an Angel on my shoulder. That the committee assigned by the Almighty to keep my sorry ass out of trouble was working OT. Then I start wondering why and what was it I did right that I may preserve this relationship.

Next, I realise that had I not been looking in that direction at that exact time. I'd never have saw him as well since he was climbing from below. I would never have known I was that close to the edge. It was as if God wanted to let me know and make me realise my mortality up there.

Then, I start thinking that what if IT had happened. Two airplanes clipping each other's wings at about 200 knots closure speed. (that's more than 350 KPH) That Piper warrior would have clipped my right wing with his right wing. I'd lose the ailerons on the right side and both airplanes would roll uncontrollably to the right.
Both our airplanes would have gone into a death spiral and I would have hit the ground mumbling "Hail Marys" or maybe I'd be fighting the airplane all the way till it impacts thinking I had a chance and not accepting I'm dead.

Or maybe even worse, both airplanes collided head on. All 3 of us would have been instantly dead and we wouldn't even know it. My instructor looking down and adjusting instruments wouldn't have even known why he was strumming harps. Me having flown only 6 hours wouldn't have seen that bugger coming from underneath and I too would be wondering why the hell I'm dead. At that speed. We'd be instantly dead.

And next, I realise that it was that close. A variable of factors turned out favourably that ends up in our survival. Had there been 1 more knot of wind blowing from the right, Had there been a 1 to 2 degree angle of deviation if the level of the wings, had I been faster for a 1 or 2 knots and he slower 1 or 2 knots, had there been a slight postioning error of my hands on the control column and had there been a slight deflection in any of the ailerons or rudders on each of our part. Things might have been different.

FINALLY, the truth HITS like a punch in the gut. There but for the Grace of God I'm alive. Nothing more. Not because of skill, not because there are people I love and people that love me out there and their love kept me alive like in novels because that's bullshit. Then the bile comes up. We've seen it in movies where people puke after harrowing experiences. Its true. Except I didn't actually vomit alot. Maybe just a spittle but the bile came up.

I still think its amazing that I've had no scratches or scars to show. But that's the thing about flying, you either die or you stay alive and kicking. Unless you crash really nicely and you just get a few scratches or broken bones. But with regards to the incident. Its a Dead-or-Alive situation.

Sidetracking a bit, I wonder what was on my instructor's mind when he knew of the incident. He must be cussing out my stupidity and ignorance at not seeing the other aircraft while he trusted the plane to me. If we were spiralling to the ground I can just envision him taking the crash axe and bashing my skull open before we impact. And he'd be justified doing that and yelling
"YOU faaarrrkkeeeerrrr! I TRUST YOU WITH MY PLANE! AND YOU GET ME KILLED! Faaaarrrrrrkkk!"
Somehow hearing him say 'faaarrrkkk' in a low keyed drawn out tone always brings laughter and tears to my eyes.

My point? TC if you read this buddy. I don't want to see you as a damn statistic. I know how it feels to be that close being a headline "Dumbass student pilots collides airplanes. Innocent Instructor dies. No survivors."
Best listen to those fellows and be really careful. Take a class. Don't get complacent. Don't let enthusiasm override judgement. At least in the air if you get killed. You die fast. Airplanes kill you quick and clean. Underwater and using a RB, if something goes wrong, you die slow and horribly from oxygen poisoning.

But please don't think that flying or diving is v unsafe. Its as safe as it can be.
I love flying. Its my one true passion and up to this point in life, my one true love. Everything in life that's worth doing has risks.
Even walking on the road may be riskier than flying or diving. So if its so safe, why did that incident happen?

Pilot error. We're all human. We all make mistakes. The trick is to not make the mistake that kills you. Unfortunately, this one innocent mistake nearly did. Fortunately, this tip of the arrow did not strike home. (I got this from Ernest K Gann's book Fate is the Hunter.)

Pilot error on the part of that other airplane. His stupidity and complacency nearly costs us all our lives. HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN LOOKING OUT FOR AIRPLANES WHILE CLIMBING instead of sitting down there thinking he's invincible and untouchable while flying (Ok this is an exaggeration maybe but its exactly what's on my mind now.) I heard from another fellow pilot that the guy was chopped and booted out for that mistake after my instructor filed a report. But I feel sorry for the guy. It probably was an innocent mistake and he cant fly because of that now. He has my utmost sympathy. But as my instructor said. An innocent mistake can still kill. and he had the bad luck to make that mistake. I have made other innocent mistakes like forgetting to lookout before turning later in my training but I was lucky enough to get away without any incident except maybe a tongue lashing. Now I'm that much more careful after thinking this through.

This brings to mind a statement made from what I read somewhere in a book.

"In spite of everything I done wrong, I survived. I was shot with luck. All you sinners take note that when the chips are down clean living and prayers pays off."
----Lt. Jake Grafton, USN

"I'd rather be lucky than good" --- Capt. Clarence "Flap" Le Beau, USMC

Tennis!...after like 1 year plus?

2007-02-03T07:13:00.000-08:00

Yep. After I took up fencing i couldn't play tennis. Haha. Instructor says it will interfere with training. Because tennis must lock wrist and in fencing, using the wrist is of utmost importance.

Trouble was on Thursday, I got a hard blow by Bliss when I fenced her. She's a darn national fencer, I didnt know that. HAHA. Wham! I charged her and she charged me and her blade found the mark and mine missed. So...Double Whammy since I had a lot of forward momentum and hers too. Lucky her blade didnt break. DIdn't really feel the effects of it till friday morning. Wake up and I couldn't twist without feeling pain in my ribs. No way I'd disappoint Jean, Raewen and Raehui though.

Jon was to be my partner. It was supposed to be WenBiao and since he couldn't bk out. I asked Jason but he had church choir. Too bad Jon had a dodgy knee.

Haha 2 rusty injured fellows against 2 rusty ladies. (Rusty meaning tennis skills)
Well, We got trashed. Man enough to admit. But I must say, I think with a bit of practice, I won't be such a whipping boy anymore. OK Honestly, it was a little humiliating. They were kinda quiet, Rae wen and hui, so I thought they were real serious or sth. So it was quite humiliating yeah I know I havent played in a year but its still rankles. I WANT A REMATCH! But seriously, they're good, really good.
Could tell that they went easy on me when I took them 1v2. But they broke me pure and simple.

OK I got to learn some card games besides taiti and blackjack. I learnt speed from Jean recently and I learnt Bridge today. Ok I was a little no wait, very confused initially. But I got the hang of it after a whilem though I outbid myself and made myself look stupid. Hahaha. YES I don't mind being comic relief. Hahaha hope the next time I meet up with them, there'd be more laughter and chatter around. Then me and Jon taught Jean Blackjack and In the middle.

All in all a fun day. The Shee twins seem like nice people. Perhaps need to get to know them better first before they'll actually become more bubbly as jean said.
Well, that's true.
Church tmr!

Into the darkness...

2007-01-28T01:45:00.000-08:00

After the last weekend kayaking and raiding fishermen's nets I was ready for something different. (We didnt steal anything. Just haul up their nets in the middle of the sea to see what's in them. Although me, TC and Brandon did think of it when we found 5 crabs in one of them cages. But hey, everybody's got to make living.)We did bring back 40 or so mussels after stopping by a kelong. Boy did they taste good! Good haul. Have to go back there again sometime soon.

This weekend. the 27th. Wenbiao's bday. His first open water dive at Pulau Hantu and I went with him. Should be interesting since Singapore's waters is reputed to have very bad viz. My hopes weren't high but I hoped we'd see something.

I was diving with divemaster Carla (think she's a Brit) and a recue diver trainee Sharon. I was informed by Carla that she would pretend she was out of air to see Sharon's reaction and told me not to panic or interfere. Ok sure.

The Viz was bad. I think max 1.5 -2 metres. We descended to like 9-10 metres before hitting the seabed and around the 7 metre mark it got v dark. Quite disturbing actually the feeling because I nearly got disoriented. After my eyes adjusted it was ok. Saw some crabs and small fishes. I was grubbing around the sand looking for something nice and I saw this scallop shell. Cool Souvenir. I thought. Nth inside the shell so I took it and stuffed it in my wetsuit.

Then, Carla started signalling out of air. (Gawd! I forgot the warning and nearly rushed to offer my air I saw sharon coming.) Carla then started struggling at sharon and tearing at her spare regulator mouthpiece. Oscar worthy performance. Sharon reacted well by stopping and "calming" Carla before offering her air. That was basically it for the 1st dive.

2nd Dive. The moment I descended for about 3 seconds from the surface. I lost sight of Carla and Sharon. It was as if they vanished in front of my eyes. The viz was that bad. Ok , I thought, no need to worry. Just get to the bottom and search them out in 1 minute. I carried on descending and then it got darker and darker and finally it became pitch black! Oh Geez! I can't see nothing. Its like being struck blind. I looked up and its still pitch black. Uh-Oh! I'm in trouble. Should I wait for them to find me? Or go up. No way they'd find me in this darkness unless they bumped into me. Best go up. And I found them on the surface.

WE tried again at the anchor line to go down. I suggested we go down and see how it'd be like at the seabed whether it'd still be pitch black. So I went first descending using the anchor rope. Same creepy feeling of going blind slowly. Then pitch dark again. Then, as I stayed there waiting for Carla, morbid thoughts started circling my mind.

"Hmm, if some predator or Shark wants me for dinner, here's their chance, I can't see can't hear and cant move from this line."
"Maybe I ought to pull out my knife...."
"Nah if I stick myself or Carla with that I'm in deep shit."
"Nah no sharks around"
"Hey who's hand?! Oh its Carla"

That's when we ascended holding hands. What an experience. I've dived more than 10 times and never seen pitch darkness in the water before. So we had to abort the dive.

Afterwards, biao wanted to go to Harbourfront to get some clothes. But I walked in there sopping wet and wearing booties. What a sight I must have been! Biao had the decency to change and wear sandals. As I said " Hey its ur birthday. I'd gladly embarass myself for ur amusement on ur bday."

All in all an interesting day.

'07

2007-01-19T05:49:00.000-08:00

Let's see. Its been a long time since I blogged. First entry of the new year.
I probably won't blog again for a while again. Maybe in a couple weeks. So I'll try to make this a long one.

Let's see, the Army rejected my application to go in early. Hey, why did I wanna go in early some of you ask? It what guys who suffer a heartbreak do. We want to go in in January. We wanna get away from the city and seeing couples all around. We want to invest our energy in serving the country instead of moping around drinking shooters every saturday night and shooting the shit with the fellows. At least that was the way things were going through my mind when i impulsively entered CMPB to apply for early enlistment. Seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

But that was after Christmas. its history now. I can laugh again (Well most of the time. I just got back today from my first love. Flying. It was great. After watching Flyboys. I rememebered how long since I'd last flown. The feeling of being in the air and controlling my own destiny(through the Grace of God) is just fantastic.

I got to thinking. Why do people write blogs? Where did the good old fashion journal go? Blogs can be seen by anyone. I don't tell many people about this blog for this precise reason. All you who see this are just scraping the surface of the REAL me. Most parts this blog is about flying but I do blog about life sometimes. Maybe its time I started writing a journal. Yeah, I'll do that in the army. Its gonna look like this..I got this inspiration from Call of Duty
Example:

21st April 2007
Barracks, BMTC School 1

Its been a tough day. We went for live firing and SOC today. We did ok for firing. SOC was tough and I nearly collapsed. Johnny slipped on the Jacob's ladders and broke some tooth. Chow was crap as usual. Outfield next week. Sergeant Tan says that we may be able book out early this weekend to rest up. Excellent!
Hope that the outfield will go alright. As long as we in the platoon support and help each other and our buddies, we'll be fine.

Rec. Colin Chu
2nd Platoon
Cougar Company.

Not bad eh?

Z Gala

2006-09-04T09:12:00.000-07:00

Z Gala. The annual fencing tournament. This would be my first time participating in this tournament. Pressure is on. It would be fought by age groups and experience levels. I'm in the Novice 16-20 group. The bad thing about being assigned by age group is that all the opponents are good. There are no push-overs in this group.
Every single bout and every point has to be fought hard for.

First was the Poules. We get split into smaller groups of 4 to fence for ranking.
I lost 1 match and won the other two, 5-0 against garrett and 5-2 against zhunwen. Lost to 3-5 Greg. Guess I was overconfident there. So in the group of 8. I was ranked 2nd. So i get to face the 7th ranked guy in the first elimination round.

Garrett again. Easy meat I said to myself. Cause i defeated him 5-0 earlier with
surprising ease. He did put up a better fight this time. but I still beat him 15-7.
He charged me at one point and I was too stunned to do anything and he got me. Cool move. Ok I am thru to the Semis.

Next opponent would either be Jasper, the fencer who I feel is the most skillful among us or Keith the left-hander. I think Keith would be the tougher opponent because he's speedier than Jasper. Their match was a good one to watch and Jasper was the victor.

As always Jasper proved to be a tough opponent at the end of the 1st interval, The score was 10-10 although he went ahead at first. After that, I sort of had him figured out and the score went to 14-10. The last point I gambled and gave a yelling charge and amazingly I scored a nice hit. Yea! Now I'm a finalist and I hoped I'll face Greg instead of Andre.

No such luck, Greg lost and there goes my hope for being Gala champion this year. Andre is the very guy that trashed me 5-0 a couple times when we last faced off.
No matter, if I'm going to lose I'll make him fight for every single point. Honour.
I'm imagining myself as a knight. If I have to fight, I'll fight and go down with honour. I will not run. I will not give up. I'll make him FIGHT for every point.
Only thing missing from my mind game is that there's no fair damsel waiting for me. Oh well....

Amazingly, I did better than I thought and I lost narrowly 14-15. Now I felt kind of disappointed because I could have won it. It was the closest final in the whole Gala.

This battle has shown me the power of determination and how fighting hard no matter how hard the odds are can do. The silver trophy sits proudly in my cabinet now.

Dual Check.

2006-06-05T23:57:00.000-07:00

Flew with Darshan yesterday. He seems ok. I mean Zhi chen said he was coughing alot lately. Guess he was just down with sore throat or something.

Nervous time for me. Did all the pre-flight stuff under his watchful eye. I felt like I was taking the FHT all over again. Then during taxi he said I was taxiing too fast. Lol. No sense wasting time on the ground methinks.

The takeoff was smooth. But 9V-BOQ seemed a little sluggish. The controls not as responsive as I remembered it to be. I had to pull harder than last time on the yoke to lift the plane airborne. Doing circuits today.

Ah... Most of my landings were ok. Except the 1st and 3rd one. The 1st was deemed ok by Darshan (By him not saying anything). But I felt it was a tad too hard as the aircraft shuddered a little after landing. The 3rd was bad. I failed to flare hard enough so the landing was a 3 pointer meaning landed on all 3 wheels. On the last approach, I ballooned, but somehow manage to put her down quite nicely.

I have improve my Low-level circuits if I am ever gonna make a safe landing in Tioman. Runway is real short there. Will die if crash into the mountain. My low levels were way off. But the last one after seeing a demonstration I did good. This was on 5.6.2006

Fencing today was good. I won all my matches. I'm now a thinking fencer. Too bad James didnt see this. Won Jasper, bro and Adam. Honestly, Jasper and my brother are the only ones that give me a challenge in this class. Now Jasper said he is going to Sabre. Damn. I will go saber too next time. But for now I'll stick to foil.

Indy and Adam fenced like robots or so I told them. You gotta be a thinking fencer. You gotta follow through on your attacks instead of just smacking the other guy's blade. You gotta be unpredictable. That's what I told them. Both of them appreciated the comments but they've gotta work harder to apply them. Indy has potential though I think. He can beat me someday. If I let my guard down and underestimate him.

"At the end of the day techniques and smoothness can only do so much. All it comes down to is how you act in the fight. You've got to think and use the openings the opponent gives you. You got to be unpredictable. Skills can only do so much."

Randomness

2006-06-01T08:29:00.000-07:00

Ok. Enough on just about flying. I need an outlet too I guess. So I shall start blogging about my boring life. LOL

Ahhh volunteered at St. Luke Elder care Centre today. I was sooo reluctant to get outta bed and go. I mean What could I conceivably talk to the old folks about? Befriend them? Hell I'll try. But but but...what ON EARTH do I say? I'll bet some of them would rather watch TV and talk to the other old folks rather than a young whippersnapper like me.

Surprise surprise. It wasnt so bad after all. I actually managed to smile alot and made friends with quite a few of them. I mean although I had to lie to one to interact with her. She was a retired teacher and I didnt know how to talk to her so I just said I had an ambition to be a teacher and asked her advice. Hahaha. Well.... Not really a lie I guess cuz I DID have an ambition to be a teacher at one time. That was before I left my heart up there in the sky. Another elderly man who spoke good english told me about WW2 days and how there is no such thing as honesty and its every man for himself. I dunno I cant say I agree. I truly believe in niceness and honesty, courage and valour. All those stuff. Maybe he'll say I am naive but so be it. Nice man though. Played bingo with those men too.

We're all gonna be old someday. I guess it tough. Knowing that your body fails you and all is really tough. I just hope that I won't end up as immobile as some of those old folks. I hope that if I do live to be old, my kids would take care of me and not THROW me into an old folk's home against my will. Hope everyone of us will have that fortune but I guess that aint possible. Ah but I may not mind being in an elder care centre like that next time for a while. Its really good social experience for the elderly who otherwise sleep their days away at home.

Fencing! I'm one badass fencer. I thrashed Jasper and my bro before the lesson. No mercy man and then I became a stupid arrogant goon. I totally toyed with bro and he won me. Agh! I deserved it. Must be man enough to say that. Lost to bro again and then jasper afterwards during the lesson. The only thought I had was to avenge my loss. I did after the lesson won jasper and bro. Then a Z grade 2 friend Ernest challenged me. Gawd he's lightning fast. I didnt have a prayer man. But I did hit him till i lost 5-4. pretty close score.

Flying tomorrow. Finally I get to leave the earth and its troubles behind again. Too bad there's gonna be trouble in the air. Darshan's flying with me... Aaaaagghhh!

Last Nav Ex training.

2006-05-14T05:17:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-10T07:06:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-10T06:20:00.000-07:00

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.

Solo Nav and cheating death

2006-04-15T03:39:00.000-07:00

Ah the same cheesy, shit-eating grin came up on my face the moment I went airborne. The feeling of solo flying is always good.

Same thing, Fly to Kulai then Benut then Batu Pahat then Simpang Renggam then to Kulai and then back to Senai. Took out my camera and began snapping. After that I practically enjoyed the scenery, toyed with the GPS and started relaxing. No problems in finding checkpoints.

Then, I decided to have some fun. Gs and -Gs. Its real easy. Just pull the plane into a nose up attitude then shove it back down fast. gives u -1G or more easily. My camera floated up and I floated up. Not enough. This time i pulled the plane up into a 2G climb then shove it back down. Wah!! everything not strapped in the plane went flying. The first aid kit flew out of the shelf, the fuel drainer, my maps, camera and my bag. As for me, I smacked the ceiling with my head. Ow. Fun! I also put more power during cruise flight and had ground speeds of over 100kts. This would make my journey faster. This is one thing I did randomly that probably saved me from accident. Why? You' see.

Then, coming back and asking for rejoin to land, Johor Approach says "Be advised strong winds 060 at 25 knots." I was like "Holy shit! That's way too much! How am I gonna land?!" Another plane a Police Cessna caravan. was in front of me. Both of us decided to give it a go. I thought since he had a larger plane, if he could make it, there's a chance i can make it too. I told Johor App that if I could not make it I'd hold west of the airfield. But Cpt Muk came up on e radio and said to take RW34 instead of 16.

Seemed that the Caravan went missed approach. I decided to go RW34. While on Right downwind, I knew why I could not hang around in the air anymore. Bloody thunderstorm sweeping across the area. The large grey curtain looked like a solid brick grey wall of rain. I only had time for ONE approach before it was over Senai. If I failed to land, chances were high that I may crash as I would have gone IMC. Either that or try to divert to Singapore. The wind was 050 at 18knots at this time. STill very strong and beyond tolerated limits. But just maybe I may make it. So then again, Chances were high that I may crash.

Excellent!.. I was thinking... First time solo on the C152 and first time I am solo in such strong wind conditions. Lucky me.

The aircraft was shaking like crazy on the base leg. I was both praying to land safely and cursing my luck at the same time. No way to crab wind too strong. Have to slip. I have not done slip landings before. The plane was still shaking and bumpy. I felt sick and excited at the same time.

OK about 80kts and real low...Gotta drag her in...still shaking really hard ..Wish I was in my C172 its sturdier...Ok line up ..keep it there, Cut the power NO! she's sinking fast...put back power...ok...roll right keep her from turning Right Wing low now....rudder left to line her up with the runway....ok that's it..easy easy...God! I'm left of the centerline...No time to correct...Just get her down on the runway....easy...c'mon colin! easy... Jesus Help me....Power down slowly...Ho! one wheel touched down.;...get the other down....YEaaaaahhhh! I'm down...I made it!!!

I felt really high and euphoric. Cheated death again. I was thinking its a good thing I was wearing my lucky red shirt and lucky underwear. Perhaps, they may have helped a little in the luck factor... I mean I was lucky to get the C152 down in one piece.

What an experience. Capt Muk said I should not even attempted to try RW16. He landed 16 and he landed nearly at full power. Shit...He could have easily crashed. What about me man? Maybe I could have made it, maybe not. Anyway RW34 was a little better but not by much. Still could have easily crashed or run off the runway. Not bad at all.

First Solo in a C152 , First Nav Ex and First attempted slip landing. Now i've read about slip landings before but never actually attempted it before. Who knew the first time I did it would be for the purpose of saving myself from accident? Now that I've done it successfully, I think its a pretty good idea to learn it well.

Funny thing. I did not go cruise power of 2200rpm all the way. I put in about 2300 to 2400rpm at times to speed up my journey. Why if I hadnt, I probably would not even be able to land and be caught in the thunderstorm. The difference was about 5 to 10 minutes of travel time. Thank God I did what I did.

Perhaps this would not be such a big deal if I was more experienced. I'm just over 80 hours in my logbook. Anyway, this is a new experience and if I find myself in such a situation again. I'll know what to do.

Ok... Flying's not all smooth sailing but the fun of it is sure worth it.
Its good to be alive and in one piece.

C152 2nd Nav

2006-04-15T02:59:00.000-07:00

Its real hard to book the Piper. So I decided get a checkout in the C152. Its the little brother (or is it sister?) of the C172.

Flying with Capt Muk. This guy did not really gave me a good first impression. He's former RSAF. I was told I would be flying with him as Buck's license has lapsed. I was thinking "Oh God....flying with an air force zoomie. He's gonna be like DeWitt and do funny things and flip airplanes and other funny things." He also struck me as a guy who's gonna be looking for my mistakes in order to say me. But as the day wore on, i found he's ok actually. Pretty professional and nice. But he's still strict somewhat. But he's ok. Found out he's Catholic too. He taught me how to use the Garmin GPS. SO he's ok.

Cessna 152. 9M-ALB. Flies seem to be attraced to it I dunno why. Problems in the beginning. After start up, Parking brakes got stuck so had to call Mechanic to fix it. delayed for 30 mins. So after that take off.

This plane is rather similar to the C172. But, very sensitive. The brakes, the elevators, the ailerons. All very sensitive. u can load Gs very easily. ALB has a 160 hp engine (or is it 150?) and is quite fast. Heavier though. She even has a fuel pump. I was a little blur in the beginning but towards the end, was quite proficient in the general handling. Landing was ok. But the airplane really has issues as the gear really swerves easily. Dangerous to people who may overcontrol.

2nd Nav was pretty much like the first. There's GPS to help here though. I did not get lost. That's all that has to be said. Muk was quite chatty in the cockpit. I was feigning attentiveness a few times when all I wanted to do was to fly and admire the scenery. I acknowledged with grunts and "Uh-huh I see Ok" But when things like flying were concerned I paid full attention. The landing was flapless and was quite ok. Next would be solo Nav.

1st Nav training

2006-04-04T08:59:00.000-07:00

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.

First Solo in the PA28

2006-03-23T07:36:00.000-08:00

After I rested I went out to the dispersal to wait for Andrew to come back after his flight with the German guy I think his name is Ed or something. Anyway, I had a good look at most of the planes at the Dispersal and hangar. The Ultralights, there was the Robin 2160 aerobatic acft, the Cessna 337 Skymaster and more C172s and PA-28s.

When they came back I preflighted and then we took off for circuit work. Did more normal landings, then shortfield take off..pretty much the same as the Cessna. But on one takeoff... HORROR! the fuel pump switch was OFF! I missed it in the checklist. Not much of a problem actually because the engine itself has a pump. But the problem is that if it fails, my engine would cut. A piper from MFA crashed because of this last year. Hell, I'll make sure this doesnt happen again. (See, I learn from mistakes.) This is one reason I like the Cessna 172 better. You don't have to worry about fuel pumps and switching tank because the Cessna uses gravity fuel flow and can select both tanks at once. With the Piper you gotta switch tanks every half hr to prevent one wing from becoming heavier than the other and if you forget to switch the fuel pump on while changing the engine quits. Hmm.

Had to orbit to the sides of the airfield due to inbound MAS 737s. Don't wanna get into the way of wake turbulences. Did some steep turning while holding. Then we did a glide. Andrew showedme how to sideslip. Actually I sort of self taught but I wanted to check if I did it correctly and yeah I did. Just cross control and dive while maintaining speed. Pretty fun and good way to dump height.

Finally, Andrew said "Ok do a flapless and for full stop." I was thinking "yeah! ok I think i still can make it for fencing lesson." Then, he said "OK I think I can clear you to fly solo on the Piper now. Do you want to?" I thought he meant another day so I said "Hmm ok...." until the words sank in.

Me: "HUH?!! You mean NOW?"
Andrew: "Yes. If you want to."

I was rushing for time to go fencing and here I was offered a chance to go solo. Which pilot worth his salt and guts would turn this down?
Me: Haha Ok I can't resist. I'll make just one circuit then?
Andrew: "Ah you can make more if you want to."
Me: "Haha its ok I'm rushing one's enough. Just like a first solo."

So there I go. I dropped Andrew the CFI off at the dispersal and went up. I did the take-off like the way AOPA Flying training magazine recommened. Let the plane take-off itself. So i held the control column just aft of neutral and throttled up and it was beautiful. For a Cessna when you rotate its pretty gentle so not necessary but I tried it on the C172 too and its just as beautiful.

The same big cheesy shit-eating grin I had when I first soloed in Singapore appeared on my face and I felt so damn good. Then, because of an inbound 737 I had to hold and so *grin gets wider* I steeped turn 60 deg figure 8 and basically rocked and rolled my ass off. HAHA. I still remembered when I rocked and rolled in the Cessna, Wenbiao and Dad got a little sick.

The landing was pretty good. then after that I sat in the plane while Andrew and another engineer pushed the plane into the hangar. I actually wanted to help them but the engineer said "No need, You solo liao. You the king now!" HAHAHA! the same feeling of euphoria everytime I soloed took over me. Yeah!

It really feels good to know you have made the grade. Andrew is a examiner as well as a Chief Flying Instructor. He said I did very well and he didnt expect me to land so well in a low-wing Piper because I flew a high-wing Cessna. That's high praise coming from a guy like that and it feels really good and my spirits soared.

Darshan (My PPL instructor)should be proud. I did him proud. When flying Andrew piped up and said "Darshan is very good instructor." Yeah he is and yea my flying has proved it. Hopefully So will all others trained by him.

This flight almost seemed like a first solo. Well it is in a sense, my first solo in a Piper Warrior. THe timing was the same as my first solo with 20mins.

Aircraft: Piper PA28-161 9V-JMV
Time: 20mins

Piper Warrior II

2006-03-23T06:40:00.000-08:00

Today I went to get a conversion in a Piper PA-28-161 Warrior aircraft in preparation for my Navigation trip. Its been an interesting day.

First going into M'sia, met an elderly couple who were real helpful. Ahmad was the man's name I think. They told me which buses to take to Kotaraya. After that, met this Indonesian at Johor customs who took me to Kotaraya bus terminal. Instead of taking a bus there, we walked. He taught me how to be streetsmart in Malaysia. Very lucky to have met good people like them.

After I got to Senai by shuttle bus, I had a hard time finding the container box where the flying club was located. First person I saw was my instructor Andrew Law.
He looked about 55-60 and was quite jovial. First he briefed me on the Piper Warrior, then after that he said it might be difficult to checkout in the PA28 in just 2 flights. Well, if I could not, then I'll go back to the Cessna for my Nav.

As we walked to the aircraft, he invited me to have a look at other aircraft like the Cessna 152 and Pitts arobatic aircraft. Egad! the 152s cockpit is small and the Pitts even more so. Certainly, I can tell that Andrew loves flying and planes. He seemed kinda excited when near them.

I was kinda confused with the checklist though. The layout of the Piper is different from the Cessna I'm used to. Took some time but finally we got started and took off with Andrew doing the RT. I was not too impressed with the Piper at the take off cuz I had to PULL real hard to lift the airplane up even after rotation. Don't seem to nice to me. I like my takeoffs gentle and artistic. We flew to South of Gunong Pulai and did some general handling there. Slow flight was ok, Incipient stall. Then, Steep turning was the best. Its my favourite maneuver. Too bad only did 45 degrees when I like 60 because of the Gs.

The area is pretty nice and spacious compared to Singapore. The majestic mountain Gunong Pulai was a humbling sight. Andrew said another Piper Warrior had crashed on top of the mountain last time. No survivors. We flew pretty low from 100 ft to 2000ft over the towns. After that we did PFL. One thing about flying in Malaysia is that if you had an engine failure, you'd feel better because there are lots of landing areas to choose from like open fields to rice paddies. I judged it pretty well. I would land right on my selected area had I Continued. But on the Go Around. I kinda forgot how to retract the flaps. I was yanking at the handle but it wouldn't budge and the Piper CANT CLIMB WITH 40deg flaps and I was only abt 300ft high. But Andrew then retracted for me and I saw that I forgot to press the button before pulling it. Its kinda like a Car's parking brake.

After that we did some circuits. 3 normal landings. Pretty much like Cessna landings but except the Piper sinks rather than float like a Cessna when power is cut. So one has to carry power into the roundout and flare all the way to jus before touchdown when u slowly cut the power. I did ok except for maybe one near 3pointer.

I took a break while Andrew went up with another guy.

Self learning.

2006-03-06T05:27:00.000-08:00

Well, That's exactly what I did this flight. When what you wanna learn is probably something the instructor does not want u to know. You've got to learn yourself.
You just gotta do it high enough so you don't kill yourself by augering into e ground or stalling from a high speed pull-out.

Best buddy Wenbiao was my passenger today. Brave fella. Considering these maneuvers i have not done before and are risky to some extent, he agreed to go along with them. I needed his permission. If i tried anything other than SOPs ( Standard Ops) with a pax on board, I would be breaking my pilot code of conduct (Bushido).

Good pilots explore the envelopes of their airplanes. That's what I did today.
I learnt how to side-slip. This is a maneuver that can help get the airplane to lose altitude in a hurry. If I was high on final approach and I had no flaps, Side slipping can help. I did flapless side-slipping. Slipping wth flaps would have to wait till I get the technique right. I did it at about 3000 ft for descend to 2500ft.
normal descend rate flapless at 70 kts is abt 300fpm. With slipping, it can increase to about 500-800fpm.

Then, I did a dive from 3500ft and intend to pull out from the dive at 2700ft I set the 'hard deck' or simulated ground at 2500ft. So if I could not pull out and decended to 2500ft or below. I'm dead.

The dive was exciting. Airplane went to 120+ kts and you can fill the wind howling and my blood pumped faster and my voice went up an octave. "Altitude 3000! 2900! 2800! PULL OUT!" I started pulling out at about 2750 ft and was level at about 2650+ ft as shown on the altimeter. Conclude that a successful pullout from about 30+- angle of dive requires about 100ft. I would give myself at least 200ft or alot more in real life for insurance.

Some pilots kill themselves in a pullout from a dive close to the ground because they yank the controls up like king kong. What happens then? The plane stalls and prangs the ground. The pullout also tested my abilities and the envelope of the airplane. How much should I pull. I pulled out in 100ft. If i pulled harder could I lower the height loss to 50ft? Perhaps or maybe I may stall and bust the 2500ft hard deck. (If I had stalled. No worries just lower the nose and I'll be flying once more. except I would be at <2500ft which means I'm below the hard deck and dead already.

I let Wenbiao fly the plane a bit. He'll get his PPL someday. Made 2 landings, 1 was good and the other wasn't so good. Gotta practice man.

I'll continue to learn more about flying, and the skills. I know that my survivability has a pilot has increased today. Even though the exercises were slightly risky. Good pilots must know the envelopes of their planes.

"He who demands everything his airplane can give is a great flier. He who demands an iota more is a fool."

2006-02-24T05:43:00.000-08:00

But what I could never tell of was the beauty and exaltation of flying itself. Above the haze layer with the sun behind you or sinking ahead, alone in an open cockpit, there is nothing and everything to see. The upper surface of the haze stretches on like an endless desert, featureless and flat, and empty to the horizon. It seems your world alone. Threading one's way through the great piles of summer cumulus that hang over the plains, the patches of ground that show far far below are for earthbound folk, and the cloud shapes are sculptured just for you. The flash of rain, the shining rainbow riding completely around the plane, the lift over mountain ridges, the steady, pure air at dawn take-offs. . . . It was so alive and rich a life that any other conceivable choice seemed dull, prosaic, and humdrum.

— Dean Smith

babbling

2006-02-18T08:57:00.000-08:00

Every flight I've been doing now is the same thing. Go to the Area for general handling, circuits. Yet every flight is something new. Sounds contradictory. But I guess that's how I feel.

Flown with ZC a couple times and this thursday I've got another flight with Gil Tay from SYFC. Boy...that guy has everything I want man. Perfect eyesight. Flown in an F-16. Going to some aviation college in America.

They say Christians are born to carry a cross. Cross meaning burdens. I think I'm already carrying my share. Lost my dream to become a fighter pilot and that is hurting enough. Not to mention other things. I guess I ought to be grateful for what I have though. But the thing is that I want to live a life that's worth living. So many people are living a life of drudgery and routine. Is that worth living? I'd like an adventure...flying is one. Being an airline pilot is one that can get me the satisfaction of responsibility as well. I hope I can be one. God Willing. I'm giving my best shot to improve my eyesight. At least I am doing something instead of just hoping for rules and policies to change. Better to be doing something.

Navigation course commencing soon. I know I can handle it. Hope I make the right decisions. Hope I can handle anything that comes at me. Hope I don't screw up. Hope God is with me. Hope God is with me if I fall. Hope the plane is well maintained. Hope I can handle the emergencies. Hope I don't do anything stupid and get myself killed.

Nav trip with another guy flying on friday. Me as pax. Can I trust that guy? Yeah I can. But I won't feel as safe as when I am the one flying. There's a saying. "It worth it. The final smashup is worth it." Well, let's hope there isn't but if there is to be a final smashup. I rather be the one who did it instead of someone flying me into the smashup.

Holy cow what the hell am I talking about. This is getting morbid. Hell no more such thinking man. Gotta start being positive.

1st post FHT flight.

2006-01-16T05:13:00.000-08:00

I took to the skies again on the 21st. First time since my FHT. The CAAS took a pretty long time to process my PPL. Well...Must say that I was pretty excited and eagar to show off because Dad and my bro was with me and althought they've flown with me before, this is my first time as the PIC or Pilot in Command.

Pretty uneventful this flight;(Which is a good thing!) Uneventful in the sense that nothing unexpected came up, except maybe the delay for recovery back at Seletar. Went up to Area Bravo. That's above 4000 ft and Dad got some pretty good pictures. Then, I started steep turning for the fun of it and Dad got a little sick...Good thing he did not throw up (No prize for guessing who's cleaning the plane if that happened.) My bro enjoyed it I think.

Made a nice standard approach landing.

Post PPL

2005-12-06T06:40:00.000-08:00

Well now.

Now I have passed the flight test. PPL is now in my hands.
Question is. What do I do with it?

Answer to that is easy: Fly

The thing is that the learning does not stop there. The more I learn, the safer I will be in the air. The more things I learn, the less chance that something unexpected catches me unaware. So I've got to keep learning and start complementing that limited bag of luck and ever increasing bag of experience with another bag of knowledge. With the two bags of experience and knowledge, I won't have to use up my bag of luck that fast.

Flying is not just about soaring up into the sky and feeling the pure magic of flight and enjoying the excitement of just being up there. There's more to it.
In fact, the darker side of flying is that every pilots' aim is to make it to be an old pilot. That's just it. Survival. Every pilot knows this. But some take it more seriously than others.

I take it seriously. I know myself as a pilot. I lean a little more towards the bold and aggressive side of piloting. Another friend is more passive as a pilot. Let's look at the extreme end of one side of the gauge. One end is a very passive, indecisive pilot who is unable to make decisions and panics at signs of trouble. The other extreme end is a very aggressive and reckless pilot who takes risk despite of the known consequences.

As one can see, moderation is needed in the key traits of pilots. One cannot be too bold or aggressive but must be sometimes take the mild approach to problems

To know myself as a pilot increases my bag of knowledge and experience. Knowing all the emergency procedures will increase the bag of knowledge. Flying more often will increase the bag of experience.
LAstly, Praying more will increase that bag of luck.

Flight Handling Test 19th November 2005

2005-12-05T06:51:00.000-08:00

191105 FHT day

Proud moment with CAAS examiner Jerry Lim H K

Today is the day. The day I have been waiting for to come for almost a year
Not that it has been an easy path. After countless scoldings,lectures and demonstrations from my instructor Darshan Singh Gill, I had finally reached the FHT standard.
And so The day I take my flight handling test for my entry into the family of pilots has come.

I was a nervous wreck in the morning. I said loads of prayers.I asked Him to be with me,
to keep me safe and not let me screw up. Why was I so nervous? It seems the day
before I didnt do so well in my FHT profile practice. Let's just say that my airmanship was
not up to standard so I got reamed out really good that day. Kinda made me upset. I thought I botched it totally and DSG wld cancel my FHT. He didn't but said he was confident I could pass as long as I did not do anything stupid and impulsive or made up my own rules.

So when I reached the club. I started mugging through the notes about technical aspects of the Cessna 172 and about the loadings and performance data. Talk about being tense. I was EXTREMELY tense. Not a good thing. DSG noticed and so he told me to calm down and said no examiner loves or hates the student and does not come to fail the students. Well I knew that. Still could not help feeling nervous.

So finally the examiner Jerry Lim H K came. Given his reputation, I would have expected a very serious, tall, lean and professional looking man (Or a 800pound gorilla that i have to say "YES SIR!" to all the time. Instead he was a chubby balding and very jovial person. He's one of those types that upon talking to him you would like him immediately.One thing about Jerry is that he understands student pilots. He puts them at ease before starting anything

I was anxious to start the test so i immediately started puttering about the
aircraft performance. But instead, he started chatting with me about my life. Which school? How is your family? So you love flying alot? Questions like these. It really calmed me down and my respect for the man grew.

When we got down to the flight preparation stuff. I was calm and professional. Explained about the performance data and loading and why we could not overload the acft and etc etc. Took about an hour. He also emphasised that he wanted to see me as an aircraft commander. IE: my leadership and judgement. "Ok Colin So you are the commander of this ship. Well, the airplane is your ship. You are the aircraft Commander and as AC, you are responsible for your ship and the souls on board."
(Wow. Aircraft commander. Sounds very professional.)

During the preflight, everything went really smooth. I did mpt skip anything in the checklist. Jerry did not follow me as closely as I would have thought, but hey I would bet my bottom dollar nothing escaped his eyes.
I ran my hands across the smooth skin of 9V-BOQ. Told her to take care of me and I would take care of her. I did not feel silly doing that. I guess I've developed feelings for her. and yes, I call the aircraft 'her' instead of 'it'. I'm sure she feels the same way about me.

So, when we started the engines, taxied out, everything was textbook. Though I sorta forgot to turn the fuel from left to right. Oops. I don;t think he noticed, but if he did, he did not bring it up. Jerry also adviced me about my options. I could do circuits first then Area work. But he said it was up to me as i was PIC. I decided that circuits first will be better so i could observe the weather at Alpha while doing circuits first. I received praised for that. runway 03 in use.

So here we go, he told me to do flapless, glide and low-level shortfield. 3 circuits first. PFL later. Flapless went ok. I recited the mantra of the various checks and did them sincerely. Fuel on BOTH, Mixture Rich, Carb Heat COLD Ts and Ps in the Green and etc etc. Then, as a good PIC would advise the passenger of his intentions. I said I would not fly below 200ft above the sewage building and stay above 100ft above the road. The landing was ok and on the centerline.
Low level was textbook as well although I turned a little early on finals. I agreed earlier that since this was practice i would break cautiously and not try to stop the plane in 500 ft. Here we go on final and into the flare. Back pressure slight back pressure and with a firm squeak, the main wheels touched. WAIT! Brakes! Finally, 9V-BOQ stopped in a respectable distance. Not bad at all.
Next was the EFATO for Engine Failure After Take Off. Jerry pulled the power to idle to simulate engine failure. Now it was up to me to glide this baby down to save my arse and those aboard. Speed to Best glide! Landing area selected! Fuel OFF! Mixture LEAN! Ignition OFF! Electric Switches except MASTER OFF! Flaps as required!
Harnesses seatbelts tighten and BRACE! All these within less than 10 seconds and I recovered before 200ft.

At first I thought glide would be hard to do due to a cloud cover at downwind about 1400-1500 feet. But it turned out ok, even though i had to fly closer to the runway. and we started. Ok. Runway, Distance Height, Speed. I kept glancing from the Runway to the instruments and back to the Runway. Mantra: Runway, Distance, Height, Speed.

BEAUTIFUL! It could not have turned out more perfect. My judgement (and luck) was there. Shit Hot! Jerry was impressed. He said "Beautiful!" After which I thought I would get to make a nice textbook landing and then he said "Runway obstructed." My reaction was immediate! "Going Around!" Very nicely done in my opinion. Thanks again Darshan for honing my skills.

We proceeded to Area Alpha after those 3 circuits. It was tough distinguishing haze from cloud. Jerry said with experience I would be able to tell easily soon enough. He was really relaxed, that fella. That gave me good vibes. I recited the pre-aerobatic HASELL checks as we established in alpha and climbed to 3000ft. No aircraft reported in the area. Good. Less stress. But still I had to look out as you
never know if a bugger decides to come in. Or there may be a NORDO (No radio) Aircraft about.

Clean, full-flap, incipient stalls. These were the 3 he told me to do. Clean stall: Power OFF! then back pressure maintaining altitude as the speed decayed. Finally STALL! She could not strain against gravity anymore and she nosed over as I pushed the yoke and applied full power to recover. Lost less than 100 feet (about 70+- to be exact). Quite remarkable. For the Full Flap: Power 1500 rpm, 20 deg flaps then
Power OFF! 30 deg flaps! STALL! Push and full power! Retract 30 deg to 20 deg flaps. Then climb back. Lost a little more than 100ft this time. Not bad of a full flap. Incipient Stall: Power to 1500rpm then 20 deg flaps. Maintain altitude till stall warning. JErry told me to turn left for some reason "WAILLLLLL!" The Stall
warning sounded and as I was turning left, I put full power and did not lose height. Cinch! Next please.

Steep turns. Now this is my favourite. I just put the aircraft on a noted heading and put 2400 rpm and upon reaching 45 degrees AOB, I gave 2 strokes of the trim and the plane stayed at 3000 ft with only tiny occasional fluctuations. As the plane turned, The G forces felt like a invisible hand pushing me back into the seat and
my eyeballs felt heavier. This is a great feeling. YAHOO! I only did 1 turn instead of the figure 8 I was supposed to do. Guess Jerry felt it was enough to see 1 good one.

Slow Flight was a little trickier. Had to maintain 65 and 60 with 10 deg flaps respectively. Fly straight heading and on his instructions turn left and right for each. I was skipping my attention from the Airspeed Indicator(ASI), altimeter and the horizon. Sometimes, the altitude dropped and I put some power and vice versa when the plane gained Altitude. Important thing was keeping the needle on the ASI on
65 or 60. It went fine maybe with a little fluctuations. Practice makes perfect. (Wrong. Its PERFECT practice makes PERFECT.)

Instruments next. Recovery from Unusual Attitudes(RUA). Jerry twisted the aircraft
here and there, though not as dramatic as Darshan, but the stall warning was sounding. Uh-oh! I think Jerry got pretty excited too, cause he yelled "Recover!" I yelled in reply an even louder "RECOVER!!!" and my finely honed instincts and skill took over and we were back in straight and level flight. We did this a few more times with some instrument flyings which were easy. Just do the same as normal and keep the ball in the centre. And during the RUA the exchanges of "You have control, RECOVER!" and "RECOVERING!" or "I HAVE" (meaning I have control).
It was really fun and cool. Jerry was really impressed with my instrument flying skills.(Gee I wonder why? maybe because I used to have trouble looking out and always stayed on instruments HAHA and HAH!)

So that was the end of General handling part. My airmanship was good there and let's hope it stays that way. I kept looking out and scanning the skies. All the while aviating, navigating and communicating. Jerry advised that we could rejoin at 2000ft due to cloud base at 2500 but it was my decision. Well, I decided too fly a while and look and see if i could well I decided too that 2000 was better. Why? he asked.
I said 2000 the visibility is better although the clouds from 2500 has shifted, there was still haze near the clouds. Yep he accepted that answer. We had to hold in the area for about 5-10 mins due to a inbound arrival. Well, I flitted around all the while looking out and so called showing airmanship haha.

Finally PFL. Well, we commenced on downwind. Not my idea there. This time my judgement was not so good. He commented "Hmm We are rather high don't you think?" I replied "yeah, so i'm gonna extend but i dun wanna overshoot so i'm gonna turn"
I did something like a minor S-turn on final. Ineffectual as he pointed out after the flight. So I said I was gonna go around. "No need, just land." he said. Well, I guess i sorta made it. just barely according to Darshan who observed the landing. But I didn't think so. Well, I have my own standards don't I?

That was basically the end. Taxi back, shut down, walk around and go back for debrief. His comments upon shutdown. "Ok Well done." Man, I felt I was floating. I knew I made it then and there. Now, he asked why I did not sideslip when High. I said the POH forbids it due to high sink rate. Well, I learnt that in emergencies
I could do it and uncrab before 300-400 ft. If I really had an engine failure and I did it he said I would have made it. Well. He's right. That's something I learnt. In emergencies Pilot judgement dictates the actions. Another point i need to take note off is not to keep pumping the rudder too much as it may wear out the cables
faster. But I feel that this makes the approach more stable. SOme poor approaches I made early in the training was because I did not move my legs. But I guess I am overdoing it now. Point noted.

The oral part of the FHT was the only part that was not as good as the others. I did not know the answer to a couple of the questions. But I guess that is minor. I will learn. I will keep learning. the PPL is a license to learn as well.

So ends my FHT. This is probably the best birthday present for Darshan
this year. Jerry wished me well in my future flying career and wished me another well done. I took a picture with Jerry Lim. and got a hug from Darshan, and memories that will stay with me my whole life. I have made it. I am a Pilot. More importantly, I am an Aviator.

So... Thank You God for looking after me out there.

Day before FHT 18th nov 2005

2005-12-04T05:05:00.000-08:00

Had to fly with Darshan today for a checkride. God...I was so stressed. Bottom line was that this flight did not go as I'd hoped.

Skills wise. Everything was good.
Airmanship wise. It was all fucked up.

Failed to notice aircraft 1 or 2 times. Just plain missed them.
Descended in control zone My excuse was due to cloud. (this is not allowed. Must maintain altitude in Czone)
Live helicopter circuit and I drifted into the chopper circuit.
Did not follow checklists to the letter. (Ok...I think this is minor but still...It was a big deal to DSG)

These were some of the mistakes I made. Really got screwed in the debrief. I think the debrief lasted longer than the flight. Nearly broke down again. I was like thinking oh Shit...No way I can pass the FHT. My conversation with Darshan after the debrief went like this.
Me: "Hey Sir...If you want to cancel the FHT. Go ahead."
DSG: "No.. I am not going to cancel. Why?"
Me: "I mean i really screwed up today. What if I do the same tmr?"
DSG: "You will be fine. JUST keep a lookour and do not make up any rules of your own."
DSG: "I taught you everything that you should know. I've taught all these students *points to the alumni board* everything I taught you and all of them passed first time. If you follow what I taught and do not make up 'colin you's rules and you will be fine."
Me:" Yeah ok"
DSG: " Remember, if you fail =. It means I have failed also."
Me: "Hell. I won't fail. You are the best around. OK man see you tmr."
DSG: "Ok. Oh and leave the girls alone tonight, you can go do whatever with them after you get your PPL."
Me: "HEY! WTF! I don't do those things! But yeah ok I'll get enough sleep."

YEah.... Went home did some mental flying and studied the technical stuff, load sheets, performance sheets and logs.

Before going home, me and Zhi Chen went to Cine to get A birthday present for Darshan. His birthday coincidentally was on my FHT date tomorrow. Got him a Zippo with his name engraved.

Subsequent Solos

2005-12-03T06:26:00.000-08:00

These were what I've been so stoked about since the start of my training. I've been buggering Darshan about letting me do my subsequent solos since July. His reply was always "I'won't send you when you are not ready. And at the moment you are not ready." Man...this puts a damper on my mood always. Hell of course I understand that now. I had a hot shot attitude that needed to be tamed.

After my airmanship was satisfactory, I was sent on my subsequent solos. My first one was just a 20 minute hop of circuits and I had to land as the weather moved in.
Good judgement on my part if not I would be stuck up there in IMC conditions had I continued. Not conducive to a long and happy life had i been stuck in IMC.

The next one was another circuit pattern while it was raining. COOL! it sure was fun. and quite intimidating as it had a wet runway. Skidding accounts for some acft accidents. But I guess I knew that i would not be in that statistic. Did Normal, flapless and glide approaches. Did em well. Less stress without the bugger on the right aboard. Naturally performance was good.

Area SOLO! WELL! I was kinda nervous at first. But hey, its what i've been waiting for. Initially I was ordered to Area Bravo by ATC as Area Alpha was saturated with airplanes. But afterwards 1 acft left and I could go in. 3 other aircraft operating in the area with me. Wow....Gotta be careful and I was. 3 cessnas and I had them in view almost all the time. Wish darshan could have seen that. I did my Stalls, Steep turns and slow flight. After the 3 other planes left the area. I took out my handphone and took a couple photos and videos. Guess I aint supposed to but hey I wanted some memories of the experience. Soon returning from the area, I entered the pattern into a PFL with like 4 yfc acft in the circuit. Not good.

Things were not good. I had to go around on my PFL approach cause a piper was on final. Then, I went around again due to another piper. My nerves were already strained. Next approach the wind was crosswind with like about 10kts or more. I was applying almost full right rudder and the plane still drifted left. Luckily I went around or I might end up running off the runway. Scary. THe final approach. I HAD TO GET DOWN! My nerves were about to snap. This is the first time I had to go missed approach 3 times! My ego was bruised and my confidence battered and I lost the will-o-wisp focus that every pilot needs to do a great landing.

On to final....crabbing into the wind. God the wind was strong and still crosswind from the right. My acft nose was pointed at the control tower and my plane was flying almost 30 degrees sideways. Into the flare, the plane was still crabbing. Oh man...as i kicked the left rudder to straighten the aircraft, I think a gust of wind blew, cause my aircraft drifted left of the centerline and I landed kind of sideways while going straight. At that moment, the plane sort of started yawing to the right at touchdown speed and the plane felt like it was gonna tip over. "OH MY GOD!" That was my thought as my asshole slammed shut and I stomped on the left rudder to regain directional control. I was already prepared to brace for impact as in my mind's eye I could see me being pulled out from the plane tipped over on the side by paramedics.

I did the right thing. Had I stomped on the left brake instead, I would have certainly tipped over. God saved my arse again. Cheated Death again. These were some of my reflections after this. That little episode I did not tell Darshan as I knew full well I screwed up. I should have positioned myself to the right of the runway and flared higher to get my speed lower on touchdown. This habit of flaring too low or high sometimes would come back to haunt me on a dual check

I went to Area Bravo on my next solo. Pretty much did the same G/H stuff and finally my slow flight was near perfect like my steep turns and stalls. I practically flew hands off on slow flight. The landings were much better and less scary.

And then, on the next dual check I botched ONE landing. Flared too high and damn near had a freaking hard landing until darshan took over. That's the end of solos until I brushed my landings back up to safe and FHT standard.

The days that followed saw me flying duals with Darshan on Circuits practice. I was flying approaches too low for Darshan's comfort. Well, I guess i had a kick out of it (HOT SHOT ALERT!) but I guess better fly safe and stay alive than fly low and get killed by a downdraft or something.

Soon, I flew 'Solos' with a 'Ghost' on board. I needed solo hours but i guess Darshan felt that instead of me wasting money on duals, better to speed up the process by doing a PIC under supervision way. Maybe another reason was that he did not feel like sending me solo yet. But if it saves me money I ain't complaining. But I guess I was more competent now. My glides and PFLs (My weak points) were improving with every sortie but still not quite there yet.

Finally, I did a full FHT profile solo on my own. Everything went fine except I did not make it for a glide and had to go around to do itagain. Stalls, Steep turns slow flight were good. God I love the feeling of Steep turns. Stalls I like the feeling at high altitude and NOT low altitude. I know I would hate stalling at Low Altitude because it may well kill me. (Stalls and Spins below 1000ft have killed thousands of aviators.) My landings were finally good. My approach was not too high or low. I felt I was ready for my FHT. Next day on 181105. I had to go thru a checkride with Darshan on a FHT profile to see if I was ready.

Consolidation

2005-12-03T06:13:00.000-08:00

I am back after a very long absence from blogging. Ever since BOQ went down its not been the same. Anyway. I will try to cover everything basically all the way from 10 July to November 18th in the next few posts.

Basically its been one hell of an adventure. Flying from 2 times a week before to almost everyday after promos ended.
My memories of this time is something that I will treasure for the rest of my life.
Lots of Joy, Sweat, blood and tears. Sometimes I fly well and of course i do have my off days.

Its been consolidation on my basics. CCTS, General handling. I've learnt lots of tricks from the internet. Like How to maintain a 45 deg steep turn with just a couple strokes of the trim. SOme I learnt by experience like maintaining slow flight
with the trim makes slow flight real easy. Lots of Instrument flying with unusual attitudes make flying exciting. Recovering from Unusual attitudes is lots of fun. Mostly instinct in my opinion. In short, my General handling was good and Darshan was not worried about this.

What he was worried about was my airmanship and lookout. (Perhaps it was not as bad as he made out to. But I guess he wants near perfection. I should know.) I sometimes fail to spot aircraft until they're like quite near to my aircraft.(Darshan says I should spot them while far away.) "YOU"VE GOT TO LOOK FAR! TO THE HORIZON TO THE END OF THE WORLD!" he roared on one occation i failed to spot a college Cessna 152.
I really screwed up then. Kinda broke down during the debrief. I was angry at myself and how i failed to notice that 152. COuld have caused an accident had i turned and cut in front of him. That was a big lesson to me.
Well....let's just say that My airmanship did improve and finally i got my subsequent solos.

Well, I'll continue on my Solos in the next post

CCTS (revision)

2005-07-09T08:27:00.000-07:00

Did CCTS today. Man I'm definitely not FHT standard yet. I need to buck up. Really got chewed up by Darshan before and after the flight. I was told I am v impulsive and that's dangerous. Yeah I guess...Risk taking and all that jazz. Its true. I've gotta watch myself. But I was imagining that I was Maverick getting a chewing up by Stinger in the movie TopGun. Yeah I felt like that. Felt kinda Deja Vu. Dunno why. Maybe I should be called Maverick instead of Blazer. Nah Mav sounds too cool for me.
Anywayz...Knocks is the other nick...becoz of the damn wing KO incident.

Well Gotta take note of winds and such. And my RT is damn pro now. Must be even better now. And I hope that sonuvabitch Chris Chua dies. He's a menace to aviation and all. Liar, backstabber and untrustworthy. If he becomes an SIA pilot or sth I rather fly in a plane which is piloted by a blind man. Bottom line is that me,Lox are way ahead of him as pilots. Even in Skill...that guy is nothing but a fucking winchman...not even a chopper pilot as i tot.

4 POB

2005-07-04T00:02:00.000-07:00

1st time flying with 4 people on board.WenBia ride on july 2nd.
I think they got more out of the ride than they bargained for. So damn cloudy again. Dodged clouds like nuts. Again my area knowledge being tested again. At least I kinda did better this time but dammit my speed control was the dogs. I forgot to tighten the friction on the throttle so I kept increasing the speed unconciously.

Well....I think I did better on this one than the last. Biao and bro said it waso and my bro came for a so comfy to sleep in. Wow.....tt's some flying on my part... I mean I thought i was jinking and turning a tad too much for passengers already and still they were so comfy.

Well...i'll be going for 'post-mortem' for my past few flights...i'll bet i'll get scolded like crazy for sure.... standards have gone way higher.

A MFA plane crashed the same day we flew. The Piper suffered an engine failure after takeoff. Pilot crash landed beside a hawker centre or market near the airport. Good Job. He had nerves there. Well trained. Hope this won't happen to me but if it does I hope I would have the nerves and daring to do the necessary to get me and the passengers out alive in one piece.

CAAS still taking their fucking time abt the 9V-BOQ maintenance thing. Bastards. reject the drawings twice. i'd like to kick that idiot CAAS guy George Foo up his ass.

Flying in the clouds.

2005-06-20T04:47:00.000-07:00

Today has been the most taxing flight for me. Information overload and blurness gave darshan a lot of reasons to tell me off.

I taxied towards the wrong taxiway. Argh...Then the weather was crap at Area Alpha. And I was too impulsive. I chose to climb to 3000ft by trying to look for a break in the clouds. I felt like a fighter pilot man. Obviouslt Darshan wasn't too happy about that either. Then I had little knowledge of staying within the area. Lots of things to be improved on including my parking skills. They were nowhere near as good as it was during the pre-grounded days. I'm just rusty i guess.

The scenery at 4500ft at Area Bravo was ...well... scenic. Amazing. Breathtaking. It was like being in a city of clouds. wish i had a picture to show of it.

Well...My circuit pattern work for Runway 21 was not too good either. Gotta improve man. and Fast.

9V-BOZ

2005-06-13T05:06:00.000-07:00

I got 93% for my Nav exam. W00T! But dammit 9-OQ is still down cos the stupid CAAS won't allow any work to be done on it till they're 'done' with their investigation. Some investigation; they didn't even call me or Joshua.

Today, something new. The TB9C Tampico. Callsign: 9V-BOZ. Belongs to the Republic of Singapore Flying Club. Lucky Darshan is a part-time instructor there too. So I get to fly it too. This would be my first flight on the Tampico.

The cockpit looks pretty sophisticated. Warning lights and the cool looking control column and throttle. The cockpit doors are also lift-open types. Pretty troublesome to pre-flight though. Lot's of buttons to press and check and including the circuit breakers.

Taxiing the plane was tough. The rudder pedals requires a lot of strength to press down. That in itself already makes handling the aircraft difficult. The radio transmit button ain't user-friendly either. At this point. I was not too impressed with this aircraft.

Its only after the takeoff I started feeling better. But DAMN this bloody aircraft flies cruise straight and level in a nose-high attitude. Engine underpowered. Flies at 2400 rpm cruise. No wonder Darshan said "French f***ers" when I asked who which country manufactured this. Up to area Alpha. Climbed to 3000ft and did Steep turns. After 2-3weeks of not flying I could not help but give a "YEEEOOOWWW!!! Damn FUN man!" What I forgot was that I was not maintaining altitude but climbing as I was pulling the plane up to feel more Gs. Darshan's reply: "Fly the plane ACCURATELY! That's real fun!" STalling was not so fun. The plane could not stall again! I was almost beside myself. This was a low wing aircraft! It should stall easily. But when I did stall. the airplane was like at 20kts and we plummetted 300-400ft. 'Nice feeling.' Finally I got it right after a demonstration. Then return to Seletar for PFL.

This plane drops real fast without power. So must 2400rpm on downwind till base then cut to 1500rpm plus put takeoff flaps setting then finally to fully retract setting. After this...Landing is a cinch. Easier than a Cessna. That's why we Cessna pilots are super Shit Hot when it comes to landings. We're that damn good cause the Cessna ain't that easy to land.

Its easy to make friends with aviation people. After parking. A Singapore Flying College C152 came rolling past. I waved to it and the pilots inside gave some sorta salute back. Cool!

TB9 Tampico
Pros:
-Sophisticated and sporty look
- Better flight deck visibility due to low-wing.
-Easy to Land. (Low wing = Little float)
Cons:
-Flies at nose-high attitude (Lousy forward visibility)
-Fuel Pump means must keep switching tanks
-Rudder pedals hard to operate
-More troublesome to pre-flight
-Some instruments are on the right side of cockpit so must look all over the place.
-Flaps hard to operate
-Sinks fast without power

Cessna 172
Pros:
-Good forward visibility
-Instruments all infront of you
-Flaps easy to operate
-Better gliding characteristics
-Fuel can be used from both tanks at the same time.
Cons:
-Harder to Land (High Wing = More float) [But this makes us better pilots ;P]
-Hard to stall
-High wing causes lower flight deck visibility.

Both aircraft are Fun to fly.

Nav exam, Steep turns Slow Flight and PFL

2005-05-27T05:39:00.000-07:00

Navigation exam again today. Think I should pass this time. Met Kiren, Jiawen and Jolyn as well as some other YFC peeps there. They too are taking thier Nav and Met.
After finishing the paper, Went to the observation deck to watch aircraft landing. pretty nice watching SIA jets taking off and knowing that I hopefully will be doing that in 10 years time. God willing.

Headed to Seletar and was at 9V-BOQ at abt 2.30pm. My whole preflight checks took a whole 30 mins. So we taxied to the holding point at about 3 o clock. Damn the airport was real busy today. We were delayed another 30 mins at the holding position along with some YFC PA28s. WHile waiting and watching the Dash-7 and Lear take-off and YFC Pipers landing....Talk cock with Darshan. Things like these "Oooh that YFC girl's voice damn cute." and other monikers went around the intercom.

After Airborne, Proceeded to Area Alpha to do Slow flight. Pretty ok But must watch my height and speed as well as heading. Must improve on my height maintenance skills. Steep turns next. Man That was FUN!!! Feel the G forces. But I really have to work on my maintaining my height for that. I kept losing altitude as the turn got steeper. But nvm I sure will work on that. After that returned to Seletar for PFL.

My PFL was slightly better than the last one. I landed just over the target spot. Must get that right next time. My last normal circuit was not very good. Rather shaky on the landing and I rounded up too late. Must remember to take note.

Points that Darshan told me to pay attention too.
1) Aviate Navigate and Communicate: I could only do 1 thing at a time. Must learn to multi-task by being ready for the flight. Mental flying and read the materials before next flights
2) Area Knowledge: Must learn to familiarise myself with Area Alpha.
3) RT: Learn to respond correctly, accurately and Immediately after being called. Pay attention to RT even when doing other tasks.

Next flight Sunday. Gotta prepare those stuff

CAAS exam and CCTS flight

2005-05-13T06:02:00.000-07:00

Navigation and Meteorology. I think I flunked at least one paper. I hope somehow by miracle can pass tho. Hope to get my PPL without failing any paper...but tink must change to without failing more than 2 papers. At least I made more friends from the YFC.

Went to Seletar alone after that. Ate at the canteen and found out the RSAF Colonel that lives at my block also is no longer RSAF. Col. Peter Lim is now flying with ST. Hehe might be another job I'll look out for in future. Corporate Pilot. hehe I still think SIA better. Oh yeah...SIA having internship for JC students enf of the year...Must go for it.

Did the whole pre-flight myself while Darshan sorted a new guy(Ryan Yeap) out. Took off. This time RT spot on. Sounded damn professional. Take-off was good...Visibility damn clear(CAVOK). Could see all the way to the CBD area. Great scenery.

Seletar Airport is rather busy nowadays. More executive corporate as well as tourist aircraft coming to Seletar. Air Macau's Boeing...Berjaya Air's Dash-7..ST's Lear 45 and a private AN-2 Colt( THis is a frigging old Russian Biplane). That Biplane is real slow on the climb and approach. Yeah very interesting aircrafts. They were all around today.

My skills on circuit were a little rusty on the first run...was too near the runway on downwind...hey wad can one expect? (It was on Runway 21 downwind) I am not familiar with doing circuits the other way from RWY 03. But then after that...the landing a little off centerline...But still not bad. 2nd Normal circuit was better. Distance between rwy and downwind was further and better. tho i went crosswind a little longer. Landing was good... Landed on the centreline...Pretty good.

Subsequently, did Flapless, Glide and Low Level. Flapless was not bad...have to improve my speed control. Glide....Judgement is nearly there...Low Level...Must improve technique and speed control.

All the landings were great... Nice soft touchdowns on centerline.
Now I feel the satisfaction of coming back into flying after 2 mths.
The full exhilaration of what I have missed. I am pretty sure this is what i wanna do the rest of my life.

Back after 2 mths

2005-05-12T04:58:00.000-07:00

Wahoo...My exile's over...I've got back my wings and yeah i get to soar the friendly skies again....then again not so friendly. Rain like siaoz todae...lucky can fly tho...visibility cleared up.

Took off from runway 21...climbed to Area Alpha. Yeah man back to the place where i can just flit around. My handling was quite good...better than i thought it wld be after 2 mths absence. When we were climbing from 1500 ft to 3000 ft. I spotted a Cessna 152 just below us..about 1000 feet below.

"Hey Darshan... Aircraft errr...9...9 o clock Low!"
"Negative Contact"
"There! He's right there...Down there climbing...Damn...THERE! Below us! To our left!"
"Ok Contact I see him. IS he on converging path as us?"
"Er...Dun think so...Nope he aint gonna converge."

Yeah it went sth liddat. My sharp eyesight is still there. Spotted more aircraft and choppers b4 Darshan. Thought he did catch one b4 I did...but just a split second before I did.

OK Stalling...Full Power off stall was no problem. The approach stall was sucky...I just couldn;'t make the plane stall even though I was yanking on the control column like King Kong....Well at least I know this girl wont stall this easily. But dammit it might lead to my demise in the Flight Test. So dammit she has to stall for me. In the end... I got it somewhat. By that time no more time to continue so we headed back home.

Did my first PFL todae. Engine failure at 2500ft (Simulated) PRetty easy...Altho I misjudged since its the first time doing it on runway 21. Went in high and landed way after the threshold. I thought of doing a DFD (Dive for the Deck, but decided that it might be a wee bit dangerous so nixed the idea and go in high...the runway was upsloping so the plane touched down before i washed off all the speed. Not a bad landing tho.

I think I did better than I expected. But the same can't be said for my RT...argh my RT was f***ed.... Help! RT will be in less than 10 days time... Oh and Must go Mug for NAV and MET exam tmr.

Nav and Met

2005-05-02T00:21:00.000-07:00

Argh! I hate studying for these 2 subjects. Very tedious. Man and there ain't no flying until May 11. Guess I should be studying hard for JC work but dammit I have to juggle both.

I just can't wait till MAy 11th where I won't be earth-bound anymore. Dunno but I just feel like writing. Kinda puts things into perspective. I kinda miss shooting the shit with Lox and Mad Dog...

Yeah man, I just got my new Seiko watch as a reward for my 1st Solo from Dad. Woohoo!...

Well I just gotta focus , pray more and hope I'll pass my Nav and Met with at least 80%.

Keep the Faith

2005-04-24T06:29:00.000-07:00

Mad Dog told me again and again to forget this dream. His uncle, dad and all... and they have the right. His uncle is an SIA Captain.

Man, the emotions that flowed through me that instant just now while on the phone was more than I could handle. I JUST had to say "Hey man I call u back later." After hanging up. I felt a mixture of emotions that were so strong. Anger, Bitterness, Fear. Here was a man who had everything I had ever wanted telling me this. Man, If he were in my shoes I'd bet he'd be singing the same tune as I am. But don't get me wrong, He's a great friend...Honest and trustworthy. One of my Best Friends ever.

He keeps telling me I have brains. TO be absolutely honest. I RATHER not have this much brains but had the ABILITY and EYESIGHT and HEALTH as he does. He says I can use brains to make lots of money...BUT HE IS ALREADY RICH AND PEOPLE WITH BRAINS DO NOT NECESSARILY MAKE IT! Moreover, I rather fly and take a minimum wage. That's how I feel. Stupid and Naive and Immature as it sounds.

Me? Give up? Lose Faith?

No way. Didn't Jesus say that if one had faith the size of a mustard seed, he could call a tree to uproot itself and throw itself into the sea? I am keeping the faith that God can help my eyesight recover and soon I will hopefully have less than 300 degrees of myopia both eyes. I think that is a reasonable request for a lifelong dream. So I pray and hope that this would happen for me. That I would be able to live my dream because we only live once and I want life to be meaningful. Because all I know is that without this...Life is rather meaningless. Yeah, i know it sounds pretty shallow and narrow. But that is how much I love flying. Because we only live once.

Bottom line. I will not give up no matter the odds. My eyesight will improve enough for me to get into SIA and maybe they'll change the rules in future that will allow me in. But I'll just pray that I can just become an SIA pilot in future. So God Help me. I am keeping the faith. You have done wonders for cousin Jason and others. So Lord please...Help me here. Amen.

Meant to fly.

2005-04-23T17:59:00.000-07:00

I was meant to fly. Of that I am sure. But I know that I was meant to fly for life. I wanna fly for Singapore Airlines or Silk Air. I was thinking through it all. That's what I want in life. I am willing to go through all the sacrifices that come with it. The Jet lag, strict Captains, rigid training and the like. Now there is hope...if I can somehow get my eyesight to below 6/60...I would be able to go in. And I know I will not fail or get chopped when I am in.

So now...I pray to You Lord...that you would allow my dreams to come true. I can't do this without your help Lord... So...Help me please. Amen.

Shattered Dreams....{Will Never Give Up}

2005-04-11T02:20:00.000-07:00

Maybe God did not meant for me to fly B747s....B777s or even A340s.
Maybe God did not meant for me to fly F-16s....F-5s or even A-4s.
Maybe God did not meant for me to fly Apaches...Super Pumas or even Hueys.

But I know God had meant for me to fly. Even if it aint gonna be the hottest planes in the business... I have chased my dreams...the best I can...I have accomplished that dream of flying... Now i want to earn my Wings. Maybe I can't become a Fighter pilot or an Airline pilot....But as long I have my Wings...I can fly Cessnas, Pipers, Socatas... As long i have my Wings...I will be in the family of pilots.
For that I am grateful...... and hopeful that somehow..the rules in the near future would allow me to fly Boeings...

As long as I am alive...I will not give up. I still have that dream to fly airliners or dogfight...Somehow maybe a miracle might happen (When it comes to God, Who knows?)

My promise that no matter the odds...no matter how impossible...I still will never give up. But then...for now I think I better aim in another direction...I do have other dreams yupz...

screwed

2005-04-01T05:51:00.000-08:00

I am so damn pissed man. I have a total of 18 hrs 15 mins of flight time. BECAUSE of a ******** screw up by both the CAAS and Darshan abt his FI flying license....Me(Blazer), Chris(Mad Dog), ZhiChen(Loxodon) and Jeff(Doc) and many others have our flight time since jan 7 void for our PPL...it can onli be counted valid after we get our PPL...WTF...Lucky Darshan sae he will reimburse...If not I would have sued. My RTP oso must be delayed until late May.....F*** F*** the CAAS...F*** them six ways to Sunday.....Bastards...Wasted all my time.

Went to visit Chris at the hospital today because of his Op on his foot. Kept him company for abt 4hrs plus haha. Got some sweat absorber for headphones... He said he'll talk to some other instructors at yfc or RSFC and ask them if they wld be able to help. Then i wunt have to spend this April on the ground. Its real frustrating to be unable to fly away from problems. Well...Its just being unable to fly tt bugs me.
Its like...ur standing at the fence blocking you from just walking to the airplane you love so much... That beautiful girl(plane) just sits there waiting for you to get in and take her up. Frustrating man.....

At least I have experience of flying liao...and i get to reduce cost at the expense of my time. In my opinion it aint a good deal...Time is Money. maybe more precious than that.

Procedures.

2005-03-18T03:23:00.000-08:00

Again reached seletar at around 845am. Waited for Chris, I wld be sitting in for his final RTP b4 his RTP test today. Pretty ok. This lesson. I learned new things, I think I wld be ready to take the RTP soon. But I gotta send in the Application ASAP man.

Darshan really has something against the air force. Each time Chris made a mistake, Darshan wld say : "Typical Air Force bullshit." or "You see....This is what the Air force does." Then he said "See, this is why Civil Pilots are way better than the ****** from the airforce." LOL! ITs funny really. Then after even more mistakes... Darshan used the "Flying = chasing women" tactic. Gawrsh!...Wonder what tactic of teaching he uses with female students. After much scoldings to either of us, we finally got it done.

Went to Chris's house after that. Nice man, So many RSAF stuff. Gave me quite a few things. Cap, Stickers, an ultra cool (Classified item) and after that we went for lunch at his clubhse. Hehe. Good meal. Wah but he's a big spender man. He went back to Seletar for his RTP exam while I returned home to check out the items he gave. haha.

Hope he faster help me get the sweat absorber for the earphone. Or even better Nomex gloves. hehehe.

RTP again.

2005-03-17T05:27:00.000-08:00

My plan for todae was actually to just go have my RTP then go to have my haircut and go check out the Republic of Singapore Yacht Club at West Coast. Well....What happened? I SPENT THE WHOLE DAY AT SELETAR! Argh!....Well not that bad actually...Darshan, Loxodon and Mad Dog plus Blazer(me) 4 of us are great company haha.

RTP basically I did ok ok...made mistakes here and there...must improve...Same for Lox i guess. Wah but he read damn slooow lehz... monotone haha... I think I prefer Mad Dog's RSAF way of saying. Slow but crisp and cool. Not monotone. BUT! I think i still like my own way... hahaha...

After finish with Zhi Cheng. I had a nap in the clubhouse. Waiting for Chris u see... THen sat in during his lesson. LOL! He made one damn funny mistake. He said sth like "Taxi for take-off" (Take-off cannot be used accept by control tower and by acknowledging take-off clearance.) Guess what Darshan did? He stared and then took the marker and wrote:

TAKE OFF MUST NOT BE USED
But My name is Chris Phua and I have to fuck myself

I was burst out laughing instantly....Gawrsh...that's damn funny.....Chris was like "uuhhh ok sorry:" Other than that his RTP went quite smoothly. Well, be going over to Seletar again tmr. Cuz my sat lesson was cancelled so haf to go tmr. Argh.

I got 85% for my Airlaw and Lox got 80%. Yesh Beat him this time.

Airlaw exam and RTP

2005-03-13T07:13:00.000-08:00

Had my Airlaw exam at Changi last friday 11th of March. Pretty ok i think. Should be able to pass. Not sure abt Lox tho. But think he shud pass too. Then the next day go for RTP.

Saturday. RT practical. Did it with Chris Phua the RSAF Chopper pilot. He's a cool guy. Callsign Mad Dog. But its kinda hard for him to switch over to civilian aviation. So he kept making mistakes during the RTP and kept getting scolded by Darshan... Kinda funny tho. Then after the RTP syllabus one which was abt circuits, joining procedures and lights and stuff....It ended but Chris suggested that I do another with him in the afternoon. What the hell I had nothing to do anyway...so I agreed.

This time Chris did the x-country while i observed. I learnt a lot. And I wunt get charged. Cool man. I was appointed to be Chris instructor b4 the actual ground began. Man kinda daunting. Me, a student pilot, instructing Mad Dog, a guy who has logged hours in the Marchetti, Piper Warrior, F-5, F-16 and has over 1000 hours in the UH-1 Huey chopper. He kept making lots of errors tho with the position report. Forget to mention the altitude.

After that Darshan's turn to instruct and conduct the imaginary x-country. I gave chris some hints during the practical as i was beside him while Darshan hid at his table. That's the way its supposed to be. Not being able to see the examiner during the RTP exam. Darshan kept screwing Mad Dog with incorrect instructions and emergencies. LoL very funny siaz. After finishing RTP, Darshan told Chris to be the instructor and my turn to do the x-country. I think I did it a lot better than him with less errors haha. Must not get too full of myself...Pride comes before a Fall.

After that, Chris asked me to go Suntec with him to see the IT fair. Why not? At the bus stop. We saw some YFC ppl who had finished their joyride. Jin teng was with them haha. Later at the MRT. Saw this damn tall girl from that batch with her fren. I made a comment about her height to Chris and he immediately approached her and said " Hey My fren interested to noe u." I was like "WTF!" Nvm went to tok a bit abt flying with them Newbies. Chris joined in too. Then in the MRT Chris said that another woman beside me chio.... Revenge time. I did the same just b4 we alighted. Hehehe Blazer scores now. Mad Dog immediately ran off.... Guess the lady must be flattered...hahaha

Met with Chris's RSAF fren Brandon "Yogi the Bear", Wonder why he got that tag....
Then Chris started telling Yogi abt the incident on the train. Guess I gained maybe a bit of respect. At least I could 'shoot the shit' with them haha. Great guys. It helps that my attitude also clicks with theirs. I feel a bit sad that i may not be able to become one of them tho...I might not be able to join the RSAF with this eyesight. Hope Chris can find a lobang for me. I know for sure SIA does not accept. Well, maybe i might become a flight instructor. Then again i can be like what everyone around does...fly a desk...become banker or lawyer... Man I dunno...shit what am I talking abt?!

The IT fair was real crowded...After that Yogi got separated from us and Mad Dog and I went to eat at the Pizza Place at Raffles City. Nice food. It great to gain a friend like him. He's quitting the RSAF to become a Airline pilot. He offered to give me his flight suit and Squadron Tee....haha.

Oh well another RTP tmr...no flying for 1 more week. Sianz....

Ground school.

2005-03-07T02:11:00.000-08:00

No flying today for me. But Lox did fly tho. Seems that he screwed up big time and made the cardinal sin of stalling on a go around. Man o man. That's something I don;t ever wanna experience. Mind you stalling at less than 200 feet could result in a fatal accident.

Ground school. Airlaw we did up to qns 65 of the mock paper. Lox was not prepared man. Slowed me down as he got so many mistakes Darshan had to stop and drum it into his head. Buahahahaha.... After Lox made common sense mistakes...Darshan started berating about castrating and circumcising him...( I was bent doubled over with laughter by this time.) Then. I made some mistakes too den...Darshan said the F-word in a damn funny way...It went in a slow drawl "Faaarrrrkkk laaaa." After which he continued with threats of circumcising or castrating us.(Joking of course.) (ROAR!) This 'lesson' deterioted into a laughter lesson. goodness me... An example here.

Lox: "er...answer bravo."
Me: "Mine bravo too."
Darshan:(After glaring for 20 seconds) "Arrrrhhh Faaaarrrkk laaah. I'm gonna really circumcise both of y'all...."
(Me and Lox doubled up in laughter.)
Me:(Spluttering in midst of laughter) No no...hahaha....you already circumcised and castrated him remember?"
Darshan: Ahh...In that case I'll send him for a sex change and you will get circumcised instead."
(Darshan chuckling then laughing away...Me and Lox roaring in laughter and hooting at each other.)

Basically that was why we only got to Qns 65 when there were 240 qns to cover. Oh well... Its sick but hey Darshan and Lox had a close shave just now...Its one way to relieve the pent up stress.

Now the not-so-funny part. The plane has to go into maintenance for 2 weeks for a propellor overhaul and change of instruments. After Darshan gave the news, I started moaning, griping and cussing immediately while Zhi Cheng just gave a grunt. C'mon I can't help it. 2 Weeks without flying........Its gonna be torture.

Argh... I'll go study Airlaw for the exam on friday.....den...I shall vent my frustrations by imitating Darshan. "Faaaaarrrrrrrk laaaaa."

CCTS and simulated Power Failure

2005-03-06T03:27:00.000-08:00

Samie old Circuits again today. Except, almost all my landings were pretty good and on centreline except one. That was when a gust blew me a little off. Did Glide and Flapless well enough in one shot so can move on. During the Low-level, the approach was damn perfect...den Darshan said "Go around!" I was like damn reluctant....but haiz....did the go around and Oversped. That is, I exceeded the climbing speed of 70 kts when i climbed at 80 kts. Darshan was quite peeved. Guess I must improve the accuracy.

After that, while climbing after a T n G, Darshan pulled the power off and said 'Engine Failure.' Well, I wanted to ditch at Seletar Island, but Darshan said i should have gone for the mainland. Well nvm... But Seletar island seemed a nicer place to ditch....more suitable too...the mainland had lots of Kelongs (Er those wooden poles in the sea)

After another T n G, E.F.A.T.O Engine failure after take off. Instinct took over. Adopt glide speed. Fuel Off! Ignition Off! Switches Off! Harnesses Secure! Then i decided to dive the plane a bit...cause we were going into the straits of Johor of i had continued with my nose high to maintain glidespeed. That irritated Darshan so he reminded me of the glidespeed...In all honesty and with all due respect....I'd rather land a little fast on the grass than go into the drink. But oh well just listen to him for now.

Darshan was pretty pleased to see my judgement improving especially during the Glide landings when i always made it to the run way smoothly. And that i knew when to go around. Must keep this up man. So I can go back to Area Alpha quick. But den, Still a lot of things to practice in CCTS. So just continue for now. Hey at least its still flying.

Screwed by Weather!

2005-03-03T17:43:00.000-08:00

Argh. Wasted one day without even logging an hour of flight time. I woke up at 9am and left the hse at 0930 for Seletar. Reach there around 11am. Wait for Lox till 1130. THEN!!! After we reach the club to get keys for the plane. Den run to the plane and start checks. BROM! Thunder! Then it started Pouring. So....Hide inside the aircraft for around 1hr 45 mins. Inside, me and Lox talked abt Secondary school experiences and cursing the damn weather. Finally, Our bladders dictated we sprint the 200 metres from the aircraft to the terminal. Wah Lau! Lighting and Thunder leh. We were on open ground somemore. I had the morbid thought that "What if lightning struck either of us while running." So i was crouching and running at the same time. No wonder i reached the terminal like 10 seconds after Lox. He was staring at the way i ran. Must have been some sight.

Then went back to the clubhouse with an umbrella. Then this ******* truck zoom pass us on the narrow road causing me to stumble into a puddle of water. ARGH! Jeans wet, Shoes wet. Socks Wet. Darshan was positively laughing at us when we went into the club. So we did some studying for our Airlaw. Then! 345 the weather cleared up and Lox went flying with me in the back. Hahaa we first went to the East camp parking lot then i got to pose for pics with 9V-BOZ which is the RSFC's TB9 Tampico. Hooray. Darshan said he will get us checked out in the plane next time.

Zhichen's glide landings were erm...exciting...he did S-turns cuz he was too high. Oh well not bad. haha. At least i got to get in the air. And hey that's fun.

Flying on Sunday. Can't wait.

Haze

2005-02-27T06:29:00.000-08:00

I thought i would be grounded when i reached the airport. The weather realli looked hazy and the visibility looked as if it was less than 2km. But hey, somehow i guess it worked out and I got to take off.

Then halfway doing landings...the weather deteriorated when i was doing runway change procedures. Couldn't see anything but grey at 1500 ft. Scary man...but the truth was that i felt really calm while flying as i had faith in God and my own flying abilities as well as Darshan. Amazing what a little thing like faith can do. (well maybe not so little.)

Now, accuracy in the circuit is the main focus. What I thought was right last time became wrong. I could not flare when i want or according to my own judgement but only by wat the AIP sayz is right. Oh well, fine. Accuracy leads to better, safer and more skilful flying anyway. haha.

In the end, Darshan told me to go for one more touch and go. But i called for landing during RT. Talk about disobedience. But the weather really went to shit and I knew we would have a hard time landing if we had to go around one more time. So...i called for landing. Darshan then tried to call the tower to amend it to T n G. But the tower told Darshan its better to make a landing. hehe. Guess my judgement is improving.

Man...O lvl results out tmr!!! and i gotta study for airlaw. exams on March 11.

2005-02-24T22:58:00.000-08:00

This is the transcript for the radio transmissions between me and the ATC for the first solo.

" = ATC transcript
9OQ pronounced as Niner Oscar Quebec.

First Solo (ATC transcript)

"Seletar Ground, 9V-BOQ request taxi clearance for First solo, Detail 5 endurance 3 hours POB 3, Over."
"9OQ, confirm your POB 3?
"Uhh...correction POB 1. 9OQ. Sorry."
"Roger. Taxi to intermediate holding position Whiskey 3, Runway 03, QNH 1013."
"Whiskey 3, Zero-Three, 1013. 9OQ."
"Repeat, Intermediate holding position."
"Uhh..Roger, Intermediate holding position Whiskey 3. 9OQ."

"9OQ, clear to holding position Whiskey 3."
"Clear Whiskey 3, 9OQ"

"Niner-Oscar Quebec, changing to Tower."
"9OQ, Contact Seletar Tower at 118.45.
"118.45 Niner Oscar Quebec."

"Seletar Tower, Niner Victor Bravo Oscar Quebec request line-up Runway Zero Three."
"9OQ. Confirm you do not require backtrack?"
"Confirmed. Backtrack not required. 9OQ."
"Roger. Niner Oscar Quebec Line up and Hold."
"Line up and Hold. 9OQ."

"9OQ, Ready."
"9OQ, Hold position."
"Hold position 9OQ."

"9OQ Surface wind 040 10 knots. Clear for take-off."
"Clear take-off. 9OQ."

"Niner-Oscar Quebec. Downwind for Touch and Go."
"Niner-Oscar Quebec, confirm not full stop landing?"
"Negative...uhhh...correction 9OQ downwind to land."
"Roger, Niner-Oscar Quebec you are number 1."
"number 1. Niner-Oscar Quebec."

"Niner-Oscar Quebec, On Final."
"Niner-Oscar Quebec, surface wind 030 10 knots. Clear to Land."
"Clear to land.Niner-Oscar Quebec."

"Going Around! Niner Oscar Quebec. I am too high!."
"Roger, Go around Niner-Oscar Quebec."

"Niner Oscar Quebec turning left for early downwind."
"Niner-Oscar Quebec."
"Niner-Oscar Quebec Downwind to land."
"Niner-Oscar Quebec Number 1."
"Number 1 Niner Oscar Quebec."

"Niner-Oscar Quebec, On Final."
"Niner-Oscar Quebec, Surface wind 040 11 knots Clear to land."
"Clear to land. Niner-Oscar Quebec."

(After good landing on centreline.)

"Niner-Oscar Quebec, Whiskey 2 to vacate."
"Roger. Niner-Oscar Quebec, Whiskey 2."
"Whiskey 2 Niner-Oscar Quebec."
"Niner-Oscar Quebec changing to Ground."
"Niner-Oscar Quebec."

"Seletar Ground, Niner Victor Bravo Oscar Quebec request taxi to parking bay Bravo 8."
"Niner-Oscar Quebec Taxi Approved."
"Approved. Niner-Oscar Quebec."

(End)

Oww!

2005-02-24T02:37:00.000-08:00

Lets just say today was not a good day. I suffered injuries both physical and ego.

It started off well actually. Flying with Loxo in his plane. THen there was this new female ATC controller i nv hear b4. Man...She has a very sexy voice. :P Lolz.. Too bad she was relieved after abt 10 mins tho. Hope she is on duty the next time I fly cuz her instructions also veri clear and easy to understand.

Loxo's touchdown wasn't too smooth. But i still think its pretty good considering his approach was veri veri smooth. Then, after landing, go for lunch and then do our RT practical. Man its gonna be a very difficult test to pass.

After that it was my turn to fly. And this is why i had a bad day. I was adjusting my sunglasses on my spare specs since the usual one was at the optician. Then...i didn;t see where i was going and the next thing i knew was that i had been knocked out for abt 5-10 seconds. Why? I had apparently walked into the flaps of a Beech Super King Air. I managed to stagger towards the Cessna to lean on it....Ouch...I think i may have gotten a concussion. That was when a laughing Zhi Cheng came up...telling me how funny it was how i crashed into the wing...how i lay down there...and how i staggered....grrrr...call it retribution since i laughed at him the other day for bumping his head against the Cessna's wing.

With the pain...i continued to fly tho. Luckily i didn't do too badly for the 1st few landings. Not the best but still ok. Then...during the flapless i did sth stupid. The wind blew me off the centreline. I reacted by pressing full right rudder and the plane went into a slip and i counteracted by full left rudder. Bad idea. The plane went off course and Darshan had to take over and we had to go around. Damn...Next time i know better.

Another time was cuz of my foolhardiness. (That bump must have affected my judgement.) I ballooned on purpose and decided to put power in like i saw Darshan did. Until i rmb that i forgot how much power to put. I put too much power and the plane went off course again. Diaoz....Call it "Ge Kiang".

Then we did radio failure procedures. That was fun...flying pass the tower and rocking the wings. My last landing was a pretty good one. Altho it was not on centreline. Still acceptable tho.

Feeling veri dizzy now...Must go put ice on the balaku.

Low Flying

2005-02-21T05:16:00.000-08:00

I was late meeting Zhi Cheng and Darshan at the club. Luckily they hadn't left for the plane without me yet. So I did the pre-flight with Lox. He was flying first. So i sat behind in the back took some videos and pics plus i got to relax and enjoy the scenery and feeling of flight without being in control. Can say that I trust Lox with the plane already though he scared the hell out of me when he stalled on one of his low flight circuit landings. Yikes...BUMP! The plane fell all of 5 feet onto the tarmac. Lucky for the seatbelt.

After 1 hr. It was my turn. I accomplished the normal circuits easily (very familiar liaoz). The flapless in 2 attempts and the glide on my first attempt. Hahaha. Then,came the Low flight circuit. Boy o boy that was hard. flying realli low and slow. then landing with 60 kts speed with 30 deg flaps. Damn easy to stall. I bounced the plane on one approach. The short field take-off was ok. Pretty fun stepping full breaks with the plane on full power. Then u let go and the plane zooms away. WOooo!
Must improve my shortfield. out of 3 tries I onli did 1 good one. The other 2 were not so good. But hey, it is my first time doing that.

Next flight must wait till Sat. Wonder when will i be able get back to Area Alpha.

Glide and Flapless [Flying into the sunset]

2005-02-19T05:59:00.000-08:00

The visibiliy was not good today. Pity though since Weber went for his joyride todae. I had to also wait for Darshan as he went flying with the RSFC's TB9.

When we were finally airborne, yikes, no reference point on the Malaysian side. Lousy visibility. I made both of my normal circuit landings well down tho. Then Darshan demonstrated the Flapless approach. Going in low just over the trees was frigging exciting. I did the flapless ok but i did balloon a bit b4 touchdown. Still relatively soft tho.

The Glide landing was hard. Its really all about judgement. I would have liked to have gone in high but, hey i thought of trying to go in low and slow so i extended the base leg a little. But hey ended up without enough altitude and airspeed. So if i had continued the glidem would have landed short of the runway. I knew that i wouldn't make it becoz we were skimming the tree tops. Oh well, next time I'll stick with my earlier judgement. Go in high and put 30 deg flaps if necessary. Then the visibility got even worse and we were forced to land.

Flying with Loxo on Monday. Ought to be fun.

Post-Solo Consolidation.

2005-02-17T03:53:00.000-08:00

Argh today didn't go well at all. I think i have been jinxed... In school during PE i kept making mistakes during soccer...which led to 1 goal conceded to be my fault...then i tio 20 pumping for goofing off..... and a few other thing i dun feel like recalling....

Flying same...i had to rush to the airport with Darshan waiting in the acft...late...then the landings didn't go too well....the first landing was ok...but darshan sae i nv round up enuff...but hey it was on the centreline and wasn't too hard. True that i didn't flare enuff....the rest were not so good....oncei dragged the plane in cuz the plane couldn't lose the speed. Another few times were because the plane couldn't seem to descend even tho i flare damn hard.... But all the landings were considered safe tho.... Well the main prob is the seating...i accidentally lowered the seat and hitched it to some angle....which did not suit me and kept quite abt it...

Haiz...It did seem tt i was jinxed tho...but oh well i shall blame it on my complacency after the solo. Will do better the next time. I wanna go on to Steep turns..hehe

First Solo

2005-02-12T05:47:00.000-08:00

After the 1st Solo.

Mixture Rich
Carb heat Cold
Magnetos BOTH
.....
My heart was thumping realli hard as i was doing these checks b4 taxiing to the runway. I was really nervous being alone in the cockpit for the first time. I made an error in transmission to the Seletar Ground as i read the old info and forgetting that the Persons on Board was 1 and not 3. (I read 3.)

After getting permission from Ground to taxi behind a Learjet to the holding position i had to wait and do my power checks. After watching the Lear take-off. I called tower to ask for line-up on runway 03. then...the tower asked me if i need to backtrack...I was like thinking "Huh? Only one person on board lah. Plane so light sure no need backtrack to the end to take off rite?" So i replied no need. I was however wondering if the tower was screwing around with a first solo trainee cause they never asked this qns b4. Loxo had warned me about this.

My suspicions were confirmed when i was made to wait for a damn long time on the runway. Think ATC was waiting for me to get impatient and shout at them. hahaha but nope it gave me time to pray. Well i already prayed while taxiing to the runway. Managed to say 1 Lord's prayer, 1 Hail Mary and a stanza from a Flyer's prayer.
Then came the clearance. I opened the throttle all the way to full power and soon AIRBORNE. A very big cheshire grin spread across my face. IT FEELS SOOO DAMN GOOD! This shit-eating grin lasted all the through shutdown.

I became extremely calm after the take-off. Yet, I was at the same time excited. So its a good thing cause i knew exactly what to do. However turning on downwind i gave an error in radio call haha...I tot it was touch and go when it was supposed to be landing. Made the correction quick and right tho. My approach was a little high and I was debating with myself whether i should make the 30 deg flaps landing or whether i should Go-Around. Well, I chose Go-around. hahaha why? gives me more solo air-time to enjoy :P

The 2nd Circuit was good. No errors whatsoever. I turned left for early downwind after the go-around. Then the approach was good. Steady as She goes. I said the 1st stanza of the Pilot's prayer during the 1st downwind and the 2nd(last) stanza during the Final of the 2nd approach. Everything was ok...then shucks...wind came in...i got blown a little off the centerline...NO WAY! i'm not settling for anything less than a good soft landing on the centreline.....

"C'mon baby.....Hold steady...C'mon girl...don't balloon..."
"C"MON! baby....YEAH!"

And yep i held her airborne long enough to maintain direction control enough to make a real soft touchdown on the centreline. Nothing is more satisfying in flying than a good landing.

After that...Taxied back to Bay Bravo 8...shut her down...said a silent prayer of thanks to God who was my co-pilot for my solo.....got down to receive congratulations from Dad and Darshan. My First solo was over. But there will be more Solos to come. I landed but my heart was still up there. I can't wait for more! My first solo flight will forever be etched in my memory. Truly this is a special day.

First Solo: 12/02/2005
Aircraft: Cessna 172N 9V-BOQ
Pilot: Colin Chu

There are many prayers for pilots. This prayer sort of came to me when i was reading the bible. I referred to Psalm 23 for help and sort of replaced words and added some. So perhaps its not too original. But it is comforting and soothing. This helped in my calmness during the first solo.

A Pilot's prayer.

Lord, Though I Fly through the valley of the shadow of Death.
I shall Fear no Evil. For You are with me.
Thou art my Co-pilot, thy guidance and thy love comfort me.

Lord, Even as I Fly through the stormiest skies,
I shall Fear no Evil. For You are with me.
In faith that Your guiding hands shall save me.
That You will lift me up on Eagle's wings.

Amen.

Pre-Solo

2005-02-12T00:53:00.000-08:00

Ok...I knew this flight was the pre-solo..i had to perform well enough so Darshan could see i was ready. Dad came along for the ride haha. With Camera ready of course. Dad is a photography freak haha.

Take-off went fine...Everything went as per normal. I made a total of 2 touch and gos and 1 landing. The first was not so good...30 degrees flaps cuz i was high and i sorta landed to the left of the runway. Then...i tried to turn to the centerline. Should not have done that since the plane was still at a high speed. Might stress the tires. Lesson learnt. 2nd T and G was ok...the 3rd which was a landing was good..direct on centreline.

After vacating the runway...Darshan made some radio calls which asked us to go to Bay Alpha 1 instead of the usual Bravo 7 or 8. I knew that it was time for me to solo.

Heart pounding, Mind buzzing and Hands shaking I parked the plane and that's when Dad shook my hand and gave me an assuring look and Darshan who gave me the 'I know-you-can-do-it' look. With quick good lucks. They were out and heading to the tower with me alone in the Cessna 172N Skyhawk.

She will take care of me. She would feel good in my hands and do as I will her. She would respond so sweetly to my gentle touches on the throttle and yoke. That empty seat beside me is not quite so empty for...God will be my Co-Pilot. Amen

CCTS 7 [Early morning run]

2005-02-10T18:30:00.000-08:00

Had to wake up really early todae and i forgot my pass. So had to go back and take. So I was a little late in meeting Darshan at the plane. Still he wasn't too bothered except he seemed in a hurry to take-off...it was only after the plane was lined up at the runway before i had control.

The RSFC's Tampico was up with us today doing circuits as well. I was still feeling the adrenaline rush from rushing to the plane. During the approach ...I did almost everything right. 65 kts airspeed, 20 deg flaps, centreline approach, rudder control. The landing was quite soft too...so yeah a good landing. The 2nd approach was even better! It was all perfect...my landing, although not exactly on centerline, was soooo soft that it could hardly be felt. A feather landing...Man that felt great. The other 2 landings i made were average i guess haha..prolly because a strong wind picked up...Still not bad tho.

Actually, i had made a total of abt 7 approaches but only 4 landings becasue i had to go around 3 times...once was no choice...got plane on runway...but the other 2 Darshan's instructions.

I was making another almost perfect approach with 30 deg flaps and I was already lined up with the centerline...it was gonna be another feather landing...then suddenly Darshan said "Go around". I was like pretty annoyed...I know its for practice for my going arounds. But i just can't help but feel I was screwed out of a good landing....TWICE!!! Oh well... The go around was fun tho.

Did a practice orbit and Darshan demonstrated a tight Orbit. Orbiting was fun...which meant doing a 360 level turn. the tight orbit was better...although it was darshan doing it. But! we went to like 60 deg bank thus the force of gravity was double 2Gs. hahaha i love the feeling of getting pressed into the seat by an invisible hand.

I have to salute the ATC. The airspace was quite clear the first 20 mins. But after that it was REALLY busy. 1 CASA, 1 Cessna 172(me),3 YFC piper Warriors. The radio chatter was very continuous. But it was fun to hear all the exchange which included mine.

Darshan was saying tt the plane may have to go into maintenance tmr...i was like NOO!! I was gonna solo tmr and the plane has to go maintenace...Well if that happens...haf to settle for RT Ground practical den...haiz. but please....let the plane be airworthy...so i can at least go for my solo b4 maintenance...

CCTS 6 [Route to Solo]

2005-02-07T06:24:00.000-08:00

After 1 Whole week of not flying. This is like a liberation. Finally get to slip the surly bonds of Earth again. And Hey hey hey...I get to be the passenger this time. hahaha. I made arrangements with Loxo(zhi chen) and Darshan. i would be the passenger seating behind and when Loxo was flying and vice-versal. That lucky ass soloed liaoz. Well he's 3 hrs ahead of me anywayz...so its onli fair if i solo 3 hrs or less later.

Its pretty fun seating in the back snapping pics and being able to enjoy the sensation and scenery of flight. hahaha. Loxo's landings were ok i guess with a pretty hard landing with his last circuit. I actually bumped upwards, lucky for the safety belt tho. I must say that i was wishing that it wld be quickly my turn to fly tho. No pilot prefers to be in a plane piloted by another other than himself.

After landing, Loxo and I switched places. He took the pics and relaxed while its my turn to do circuits. Route for my solo. I had some compliments from Darshan for positive RT actions hehe. (i learnt my lesson.)

I made abt 4 landings todae (6 total landings, 2 by darshan.) Pretty strong wind todae. VERY windy...the little Cessna was blown easily of course. hahaha lucky i got positive control on the approach. I must say i did pretty well todae... the 1st 2 landings were pretty smooth altho not on centreline. Darshan said they were good tries. the 3rd was not so good but still a soft landing...but it was drifted quite some distance from the center. the 4th one i ballooned but managed to touch her down ok. Made a mistake in contacting ground tho. but haha minor error i guess..but will take not of that.

WEll..Route to Solo...1 more lesson for consolidation after CNY on fridae...then the next dae....shud be solo liaoz if i can keep up my performance now. Dad shud be going up with me for my pre-solo flight haha. hope he doesn't get airsick.

RT test results.

2005-01-31T23:24:00.000-08:00

In school, queueing for Chicen rice...suddenly my HP rang...Turned out to be darshan.

"Colin?"
"yeah Darshan, wad's up?"
"Its about your RT test...(Stern tone)"
*silence*
"uhh-yeah? how did i do?"
"Hrmm...Colin...your RT test results are in....(sterner tone)"
*silence..*
"Ok, You passed...80% Congratulations..."
"I did? oh okae...thx...Cya on Sat."
*hangs up*

"WHOO HOO!!!"

Well, I must be thankful that i passed tho...i didn't realli mug tt much for it hahaha. Loxo got 84% tho...cuz i didn't do one qns...o well....betta luck for me next time i hope.

CCTS 5 [Learning from mistakes]

2005-01-29T01:19:00.000-08:00

Made abt 6 landings todae...Dammit man i get veri excited and jumpy when the plane goes damn near the ground....lolz so i always try to muscle the plane and thus i always balloon... Darshan onli showed me the right way at the end. He told me to RELAX...Okay...So i was relaxed and focused on a ref point. I did everything right the last time round...Take-off, downwind, RT, Final approach and Flare. Everything went damn smoothly. EXCEPT the last part. The touchdown...I was sooooo relaxed...and thus i wanted the plane to settle down itself...Nv pulled back and the plane bounced on touchdown...Whoops! After landing, Darshan looked at me and said "I said relax..but i didn't mean relax until liddat." I onli gave a sheepish grin in return. But the most impt thing is that I can do the landings liaoz. Next week, I must be able to do everything right. If can, I wld be able to solo maybe in the subsequent lesson.

Met Brandon and Zhi Cheng(Loxodon) at the club afterwards. Bran wanted to sign up for SYFC. So me and Loxo brought him there. Too bad, he nv bring his prelim results. So cannot sign up this week. So next week then...We had a pilots' day out. haha went to eat Jalan Kayu best roti prata and discuss abt out past sins and mistakes in flying. At least we hadn't made the cardinal sin of stalling on Final yet or running out of fuel. Then go Clementi and play pool. Bran and Loxo seemed to get along quite well. Cool... We went to play pool at clementi after that. I lost to Bran cuz i hit in the black ball. I won Loxo tho...pretty impressive considering i haven't played pool for a month and Loxo is a Pool shark. haha

2 hr 45 mins left to the bet. I haf a feeling tho that i wunt be able to make it. Cuz Darshan wld prolly wanna rehearse emergency procedures first. Oh well, there's still hope tho.

RT exam

2005-01-28T04:54:00.000-08:00

Radio/Telephony Exam. I mugged a little(abt 1 hour) yesterday nite then go watch TV. So, can't say tt i was too prepared for this.

Met Chris(RSAF guy)at the burger king at Terminal 2. He was retaking Human Performance and Limitation for the 3rd time. Oh well, I hope i wunt haf to tho when its my turn to take. Made friends with a couple of YFC guys taking Meteorology too. Finally Zhi Cheng(Nickname: Loxo)came. We started to really discuss abt the qns tt may come out and Chris got kinda bothered hahaha...Damn stressed up that guy. I feel sorry for him...having to take the paper in a separate room. (his name wasn't in the sitting plan.)

I thought the exam wld be like sit-on-sofa-and-do types. NOT! I got the same freaking feeling i got during the O levels. Go exam classroom. Papers already neatly on my assigned table. Invigilator. Turns out that many Singapore Flying College students were there. They're training to become commercial pilots. Man their uniform looks veri smart. They're friendly and helpful too cuz one of them explained to me things and I was chewing a sweet thruout the paper courtesy of another guy.

Paper was not at all easy. Many qns very chim. But I think i should be able to pass la. 25 qns, left 1 blank, 3 not sure. Hope can pass tho.

After that, slack arh...Only went back to skool for ODAC and 1 GP lesson. hehehe...no time anywayz...reached skool onli at 1140. oh well.

Tmr must get landings right...I wanna solo soon.

CCTS 4

2005-01-27T02:57:00.000-08:00

Today's flight was really short. 30 mins elapsed flying time with only 2 landings with 3 approaches.

First, I had to take off from runway 21 this time not 03 so i a bit blur abt where to go...Unfamiliar rather... Then, it was taking off downwind...very unorthodox procedure....dunno wad the ATC was playing at. Therefore, the takeoff took very long cause no upwind force to give more airspeed. Many many planes in circuits todae oso.

After turning final for runway 21...The atc said runway changing back to 03. So had to turn around for standard downwind. This i was familiar with...But i ballooned on the flare and rnd up...so had to go around...Whoops...pulled back too hard on the stick and flare too high... at least my ruddering was corrected liaoz.

The 2nd approach was ok...Only that i was so focused on the landing part i forgot abt RT...Forgot to radio back the clearance to land...shit..nv happened b4... But my landing was so-so...not tt hard but not too soft either...At least i did it myself. no assistance.

3rd approach ok...RT wuz ok .....but i flared too high ...i made a mistake by lookng at the runway instead of the horizon(Human instinct)so Darshan had to correct my speed b4 i stalled...but i tink i did the touchdown myself...abt same as my other landing todae.

Taxing back tt time...i request instructions and then the Ground radioed back to watch for a Learjet taxiing...i saw it liaoz it was infront of me...so i just acknowledged with a "Cleared 9-OQ" Darshan scolded me for not reading back the "Taxi behind Lear" Instructions. Plz lor...I know wad to do liaoz...and yet kena scolded...wth...Never mind... Lesson learnt: "Always read back instructions even tho they seem damn obvious."

Then after tt got ground school to prepare for my RT exam tmr. Ok lah...i got 92/100 for my mock paper. not too bad...but i was hoping for maybe 98....For the actual exam tho i need at least 70% to pass. Hoping for 100% tho.

I tot i had to walk my way out of seletar (4km) after missing the last bus. Lucky i managed to hitch a ride from a van. Nice people the 2 men on inside. Very friendly. Heng siaz...i got a lift to Yio Chu Kang MRT...Guess I can count on hitch-hiking next time i miss the bus ;)

An Airman's Grace

2005-01-22T23:19:00.000-08:00

I found some realli great poetry about aviation and flight online. Some are really touching and well meaningful to say the least. So I might start putting up some poetry after every achievement I made in training. This is for my first unassisted landing.

AN AIRMAN GRACE

Lord of thunderhead and sky
Who place in man the will to fly
Who taught his hand speed, skill and grace
To soar beyond man's dwelling place
You shared with him the Eagle's view
The right to soar, as Eagles do
The right to call the clouds his home
And grateful, through your heavens roam
May all assembled here tonight
And all who love the thrill of flight
Recall with twofold gratitude
Your gift of Wings, Your gift of Food.

— Father John MacGillivary

CCTS 3

2005-01-22T01:25:00.000-08:00

"Use your legs. Use the rudders to hold the plane Straight and Level..."
"Yeah..yeah I got it. Uh..we're low power up."
"Ok I leave it to you this time."
"Ok."
(Plane comes up on runway)
"Ok...Ok.....*grunt*...Yeah!!!..."
(plane touches down)
"Good try Mr Colin...Next time though let the plane sink first. But if you can keep this landing consistent you will have the standard."
"Ok...Thanks...I think i get it about the ruddering now."

That was my last landing. I made about 4 landings today excluding the demo by Darshan. The other 3 weren't very good...same problem about ruddering and i kept unconciously pushing the left rudder while descending so the plane kept drifting the left. But I finally got it right on the last one. It must have had to do with the fact i did a small prayer before taking off haha. I'll make it a habit.

Now I am a little more comfy with Radio communications. I can understand what is being said most of the time now. Depends on who is speaking actually. Like for example, There are abt 5 to 6 controllers in Seletar Tower. 1 is a female and the other 5 are males. I prefer the female controller best because she speaks very very clearly and you can understand what's being said without straining. A couple of the male are about the same also but the other 2 i have to strain to hear what they are saying. The older one especially speaks very fast and i have ask him to say again sometimes.

Well, I've got a bet that i will solo in 5 hours (4 now.) This would be the motivation I need to make consistent good landings on the next flight.

Here's an interesting quote i found online.

"Flying is the second greatest thrill known to man.... Landing is the first!"

How true...

CCTS 2

2005-01-20T04:48:00.000-08:00

"Niner-Oscar-Quebec, Downwind for touch and go."
"9-OQ, your are number 3."
"Number 3... 9-OQ"
"Ok, number 1 on final, number 2 turning for base. Pre-landing checks."
(30 seconds later)
"Number 1 just took off...shit..i lost number 2...W-where'd he go?...No wait i see him. Ok turning for base."
"Ok Mr Colin...turn for final...you are high...reduce power...ok ok..now you are low..increase power..."
"Ok ok...here we go...I can make it...Power Off! Ok flare...shit...wind...Yeah...ok"
(plane touches down)
"Don't Push the control forward hold it as it is! You want the prop to hit the ground?"
"Uh..sorry..ok flaps up...here we go... here we go...yeaaaahh..!"
(Plane lifts off.)

Well, yeah that's one part of the conversation in the flight. While landing and taking off haha. Basically, today is a repeat of the previous lesson and it will keep going on until i'm proficient at landing enough for my solo.

Conditions today was so-so only. The sky was clear but then very windy. I did Circuits along with 3 other planes from the Singapore Flying College. They are Cessna 152s. They were like doing the same thing as i am...so well yeah...4 planes within 1 Nm flitting around in a circuit. So kinda brings back the NMAC memory for me. So i was like super alert, kept looking around for planes and i spotted most of the planes well b4 Darshan did haha. Got once we had to Go-Around and then this C152 was jus climbing from take-off i was like "He's on our blindside...Keep an eye on him Darshan..." hahaha. Well...This look-out thing is becoming a good habit ;).

Well...I'm still practising my landings and will be for a few more lessons. Still not able to rudder properly haha. So...I still got 4 more lessons (i give myself 3) to succeed to land proficiently and consistently. Oh yeah...I got my security pass haha no need to go show those police guys my IC and let them search me liaoz..:) and my headset works great too. Flying on Saturday at 12pm...yeah must get it right this time.

Oh and er... Its pretty exciting doing a 30-40 degree turn at 800 ft. Just like a roller coaster. yep... Not just the landing. haha

CCTS

2005-01-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

Wheee...Practiced Circuits today, that is Take-offs and landings. hehehe...I was again pretty confident entering the plane, of course with resolutions in mind to keep alert and always lookout. I wasn't anymore affected than that by the incident last tues and that's the way it should be. I also feel more at home in the plane. YEAH!!! Sierra Hotel!

Take-off went smoothly...I did pretty good according to Darshan; managed to maintain heading and look-out. Then, at 500 ft turned for crosswind and then onto the downwind at 800 ft. Pretty good scenery of Seletar island and the HDB estates of Yio Chu Kang and Jln Kayu from 800 ft. The BKE is oso another good landmark to note where to turn.

The headwind was strong. About 17 knots headwind from 030. The plane got very bumpy descending at 60-70 kts. Sometimes have to increase n decrease power constantly to maintain descend rate. The flare and hold-off was the problem though. Wrestling the plane while low and slow is no easy task. Plus, the human nature wants me to control the plane using my hands on the yoke. But the proper way dictates that i use the rudders. So got problems la. But Darshan said every student has this prob and that subsequent lessons will rectify it. I think i did pretty ok tho. I even made most of the last landing tho it was a rather hard touchdown.

Circuits ain't easy. But its probably the more exciting part of the training, not to mention the most important. I was sweating through the first half-hour hahaha... Not so familiar with landing procedures yet then.

The good thing is, that i will be doing CCTS until i become proficient and then, it will be time for my 1st SOLO....woohooo!!!

I hadn't any idea that Juliet(the SFC adminstrator) was a SYFC graduate. She was wearing her YFC flight suit. Cool man...I might get myself one and sew the SFC insignia on hehe. She already got like more than 70 hrs liaoz...Man she must be really the best of the best in the YFC to graduate. (Bet i could be the in the best of the best too if given the chance at YFC). Anywayz, she was griping about parents asking her stupid stuff like "Is flying dangerous?" She wanted to roll her eyes and say "I'm still standing in front of you. Does this answer ur qns?!" hahaha i understand her feelings. If they think flying is dangerous... why drive a car?...more ppl die from car accidents than air crashes.

"Take-offs are Optional. Landings are Mandatory."

Reflections

2005-01-12T04:18:00.000-08:00

I've been doing a lot of thinking ever since the landing yesterday. I kept on replaying the events of what happened yesterday, from the near miss to the part when landing when we nearly got hit by this bird. Come to think of it, its not my fault. I did everything right up to the point when tt Piper Warrior flashed past. That really screwed up my mind and the rest of the lesson went crappy. A good pilot wouldn't have been so affected. Now i know this. But at least i had maintained coherance and not become unglued. And...Darshan said i did ok. He wouldn't lie about such things and he did not seem too bothered by the near miss when i told him. If he doesn't think about it why should i dwell on it. Guess this is the meaning of the Phrase

"A good pilot plans his course, double checks, presses on and doesn't look back."

Lesson Learnt. Now my resolutions when flying.

1)Always keep a careful lookout. Sincere lookout and Scan.
2) Check instruments while keeping a careful lookout
3) Take initiative.

Well, Now i have to prepare for the R/T test on 27th Jan and then my next flt on Sat. I have to get back on. Many pilots have given up flying after meeting experiences like these. But I can't do that. I won't. The sooner i get back in the cockpit and into the air...The better it will be for me to put this experience behind.

Close Shave!!!

2005-01-11T05:35:00.000-08:00

I really thank my lucky stars and God that i'm here to write this. Today suppose to do stalls then the Area Alfah crowded with like abt 4 YFC planes. That's a lot for a small basic training area. anywayz... We were doing stalls and stuff. Then sth happened... Darshan keep telling me to look out...Well...ok...so..i look left then centre then right. then this YFC plane crossed my vision. It had to be less than 25 metres away from my plane...I was like "WTF?!" Never felt so scared in the cockpit before... Seems the guy was just at our altitude and climbing from below... Wah Heng siaz...Thank God...Thank God... Thank you...

The thing was that me and Darshan never even saw that guy...Man that guy must be blind not to have seen us. Hope he gets grounded. They sae YFC ppl damn bo chup wan...Now i know the rumour is true...Well some of the YFC not all at least.

Then, when it came to the stalling part...I was already damn shook up...Just couldn't do it properly. But Darshan said i did ok tho... DUnno i felt my performance not up to standard...

The landing he did it this time... Cuz i think i was already damn green which is why Darshan handed me a puke bag...LOL...And there was this bird on the runway...Another close shave mind u. It only took off after we were so near it and it flew in front of the prop...Darshan seemed not to noticed then i shouted: " There's a ****** BIRD on the RUNWAY!!!! That was when the bird finally evaded us. Thank God for saving that bird's life (and the propellor)

Well, Every pilot will have at least 1 close shave... They will get it during the time they are overly-confident. I have to admit that i was very confident going into the flight. Well, I'm now in stage 2 which is the "Very careful stage"... So no more of these things shud happen to me. Unless I suay until like wad. But I believe and I pray to God that it wld not happen... And Thanks to RSAF pilot Chris...I dun think i'll be pining after the RSAF liaoz... With wad he sayz abt the chickenshit ways of the RSAF.... hahaha no thx...

"The trick is to fill up the bag of experience before emptying your bag of luck."

Well, the experience bag should be heavier now...Hope the luck one is still good to go. I still wld have to reach the 3rd stage which is the final stage for all pilots to reach in becoming a safe, competant and Good pilot.

Stalls + Touch n Go

2004-12-29T19:42:00.000-08:00

As I write this...my heart goes out to the victims of the Tsunamis... man it happend right after xmas too. Why? more than 80 000 ppl dead just like that. Why O Why? Only God knows why. But He has a plan.

Because of the Tsunamis, the weather these couple of days was crappy...I couldn't fly on Tuesday. Oh well i got to be thankful tho. Zhi Chen, a buddy of mine at SFC also could not fly for abt a week liaoz. Think he should fly today.

So... at first when I went to the club, thought could not fly...and it nearly came to pass... The clouds started to move in as we pre-flighted. I did the whole pre-flight this time :). Darshan gave me a choice: Either don't fly today, or go up and just fly around at low level to practice. I said go up and practice. We actually needed to go up to 3000 ft to do Stalls.

I did the take-off again...yeeehaa...! But when we reached circuit height, Darshan decided to bend the rules a little. We went up to 3000 ft and did stalling and slow flight. Man that was scary. The stall warning was screaming and then the plane dropped like a stone. When it was my turn tho i did the stall ok with one prob...I could not maintain heading...So have to practice more next week.

Then, the fun part. Touch n Gos. That was landing practice. Landing on the runway and taking-off. He did the demonstration and told me to do it. I bet my heart-rate had doubled that instant. So this conversation took place.

Me: "Er...I'll be honest, I'm kinda nervous."
Dar: "I should be the one to be nervous, My life is in your hands. But i'm not nervous."
Me: "Since when you did you have so much confidence in my ability? Thanks anyway!"
Dar "Turn for downwind, Just do your best."

My approach was ok, then the touch-down...I swear...My heart was really pounding and i was at 200% concentration. I did the touch-down ok but i kinda forgot to raise my the nose a bit more to relieve pressure on the nose wheel...so it started rumbling. Darshan was kinda peeved. Then the take-off went smoothly and went for another downwind to land. I was really wishing i had some beef jerky to chew then....Next time I will take at least one piece up to chew b4 landing.

Approach was fine. But, this time according to Darshan, i touched down on all 3 wheels...Ok, But the landing felt good to me....Then, same mistake, let the nose wheel down too fast. This time Darshan shouted: "Pull back on the *fucking* stick!"
Lol, i nv heard him cuss b4. But hey, he told me every student had done that. Oh well must rmb next time. Training means making mistakes and learning from them anyway.
Darshan told me that i was not supposed to do Circuit and Touch and Gos yet. Haha, Guess that means i'm doing well enough for him to allow me to land. :D
School gonna reopen le...Can only fly on Sats then....:(

Its my decision...[Merry xmas]

2004-12-25T01:29:00.001-08:00

Cool! Christmas party at Carlton hotel. hahaha..i won a couple prizes by dancing and with hand coordiation and agility. hahaha...

Well, i had a long talk with Gary.(My cousin's husband) Seems he too wanted to be a pilot when he was younger and he could have been.(He has Perfect eyesight) He told me to think carefully as fighter pilots have a live-fast-short-career that most pilots retire at 44 unless they reach the rank of Colonel or above. That also all pilots including airline pilots have a career of 6 months at a time. Which means they have to have their medical and if there's a hitch or bug somewhere...they're grounded. So...he told me to think carefully as that's the reason he didn't go through to be a pilot.

Well, i have a lot more obstacles than he does. I got my eyesight to worry about. I have to find a way to somehow correct it before i go NS or i may lose the chance to be a fighter pilot. But what Gary says makes sense though. Not all jobs are fun. But he'd rather stability than fun. Agreed i share the same thoughts. But i thought a pilot's high pay would provide stability with a fun job. Guess i can't have the best of both worlds.

I really dunno... Family would mean more to me than career...I want my kids to grow up with a father who's always there for them...not just sometimes there or even not there at all... And my wife...man i'm thinking really far ahead.
But there's this RSAF pilot happily married with a child in my block... i think i'll look him up soon and have a chat with him.

But then, I've always wanted to be a pilot ever since i was young and ever since that USAF Thunderbird flashed by me less than 100 metres away when i was 6... And I'm well on my way to getting my PPL.. I am a pilot already in that sense. So i've achieved my dream of flying...But do i really want to be a career Fighter pilot?
And will i even be able correct my eyesight b4 NS?
I've got a year to think about that. Well, i trust God that i will make the right decision for myself and for my future and current family.

2004-12-22T23:39:00.000-08:00

Did some more Descends today as well as revision of climbing. Man, i was really keen to make up for my performance in the last flight. So before the take-off i was pretty nervous... My knees were knocking when we were waiting for out turn to take-off. Dunno if Darshan noticed. But then, i made my first radio transmissions and i did the take-off today. I was 'Stone Cold' calm when doing those things...oh well, the mind is mysterious.

I gotta remember to coordinate my leg and hand movements. I keep pushing the rudder late and the plane's turn wasn't very smooth. I didn't repeat my mistakes from the last flight. Cool....but of course there were new mistakes like coordinating my turns. During the Pre-flight, I thought i had screwed the fuel cap tight already. But, somehow it popped out after we parked. Man, i was mortified. Lucky it nv pop out when we were flying or we would be in trouble. Darshan didn't seem too angry. Maybe it happened before. Well, IF it had popped put in flight... I'd have heard banging on the wings which i didn't hear...so whew...Next time, I'll screw it DOUBLY tight. Man, how in hell it popped loose i dunno...I thought it was tight already since i checked it. Oh well, next pre-flight i'll do an even better job.

I was pretty calm when flying i gotta admit. Even flew into a cloud...Man that was cool. It was a small cloud so i guess Darshan allowed it. Although today's flight can't beat my performance in the 2nd flight, Darshan said i did OK... I'm now 3 hours ahead of the syllabus. Next flight next tuesday...on SLow flight and Stalls...That ought to be fun.

Oh...I drove Dad's car for the first time...I did ok for the driving part...Er it was when he wanted me to stop on a grass patch when i put a slight dent in the car...Oops! Guess I'm Sierra Hotel in the air and not so on the ground.

For the mistakes i made...a quote from A-6 Pilot Jake Grafton

" Every pilot makes mistakes. Some you can correct and some you can't. You just can't make the mistake that'll kill you. That's where confidence comes in. You have to know you'll never make that fatal slip."

For me, Confidence and trust in God will do the trick.
That is me in the cockpit of the Cessna 172N

C and L

2004-12-21T08:39:00.000-08:00

Oh boy... This flight didn't go so well. A combination of factors. I slept very late and was very sleepy during the flight. The wind was strong. The headphone i used sux, the transmission in the ICS very garbled. During the Pre-takeoff checks. I didn't pay attention to how much to pull back on the fuel mixture, and i pulled it back to ICO (Idle Cut-Off) thus the engine quit. I got it right the 2nd time tho. I did the take-off with Darshan's guidance today. Very fun. The climbing and descending part was ok except for one impt factor: I didn't pay attention to heading. The wind was strong and other P-factors made the plane turn without my knowing. Darshan pointed it out when we landed. A point to take note of. The approach landing was quite scary...Descending to abt 800 feet. I was muttering 'Too low. Oh God...Way too low.' Well, i gotta get used to it and i will. A few more flights should do it.

One more thing to remind myself. I will do things the way i did which is take initiative. I decided not to be a hot dog today and wait for instructions for Every single move i make and it sux... Next time i will do the flying as i see fit and will obey instructions when they are given...Not wait for them.

S and L

2004-12-15T01:04:00.000-08:00

Straight and Level flight. That's wad we did today. Pretty good weather todae. This time the Pre-Flight only took abt 10-15 mins. Darshan checked the external already while i checked the internal of the plane. Well, Playing FS2004 helped in my sense of direction as i taixied to W3 taxiway without a hitch. We got delayed for take-off though. Some SYFC Piper Warrior doing Touch and Gos. When we finally took off... I managed to control my enthusiasm this time. I only gave a extra large grin as we lifted off. That grin turned to a frown soon though as from the corner of my eyes i saw a Piper Warrior about 400 metres to our 11 o clock. How he appeared there i dunno. But what i wanted to say was "Where the hell did that PW come from?!" But i said the correct thing. "Traffic at 11 o'clock!" Darshan immediately replied "Contact!" Then we continue straight and the PW banked left. It was thrilling really... I half wished that the PW was closer... that would be exciting...and dangerous...

Well, FS2004 helped too when its time for me to do my airwork. Straight and Level aint as easy as it sounds. I had to hold the plane real steady and have to keep compensating because of aerodynamic whatnots... I think i did ok for everything. I even got some 'Very Good' and "Good" out of Darshan. Well, during the climb and descend though i got a little excited. and i climbed rather steeply and descended at a slightly steep angle too. My impression of Darshan was that he was too serious a guy. He had a sense of humour alright. He told me my mistake and did it to show me the difference. THe prob was he magnified the 'mistake'. He took the plane into an extremely steep climb and dive. Must have been more than 2G and at least -0.5 G i felt. He had a real large smile on his face when he heard me grunting and yelling "OK!OK! I get it!" At one point when i was flying the plane he oso said "My life is in ur hands." My reply was a grin and "That's a nice thought." Although i wished i could have said "Really? Ok!" and then dive the plane. LOL Can't do that if i still want that PPL. haha. Guess he has a sense of humour after all.

One hitch with this flight was that we were delayed by the traffic around Seletar Airport. We had to do a holding pattern. I had control almost the whole time. Turn towards Causeway, turn towards Bukit Timah Hill. Basically turn and turn. Good practice on turnings tho. Then Darshan demonstrated Steep turns. Woohoo!!! That was fun. He kept asking whether i was alright or not cuz we experienced abt 2Gs then. But i told him i wuz enjoying it. When we finally managed to reenter the traffic pattern and land i was already damn exhausted. My fingers were really cramped up as I held the controls real tight lol. We landed and shut off abt 20-30 mins behind schedule. Well, extra flight time.

Next lesson will be Climbs andd Descends. Hope i can breeze thru it.

Grounded by weather

2004-12-13T01:11:00.000-08:00

This is just my luck. I thought i wouldn't get to fly in the morn cuz it was overcast. Then, the weather cleared up...So Mom and Dad fetched me to the airport. It was still ok..the weather ...when i made my way to the Cessna 172N...Then..once we were thru the security check-point, it rained...it RAINED at that time...So Darshan said..no choice must cancel the flight...well..i guess all aviators must have gotten this feeling b4... Man it feels like being turned down for a date..... I felt real disappointed and angry...I was cursing the weather the whole way to Compass point for lunch. Oh well, gotta wait for Wed...Hope the weather will be fine....or i'll be royally pissed.

One gd thing tho...i got a new wallet to replace my 3 year old one.

First Flight.

2004-12-10T01:00:00.000-08:00

Man...I wuz waiting for this day. In the morning Darshan called and said the security clearance did not come thru. I wuz sooo disappointed. Plus the weather was oso quite good. Then after Mom and Dad left, he called again. He said those CAAS guyz filed my clearance wrongly then they found it. Hahaha. Yesh i immediately called Mom and Dad to come back and fetch me to the Airport.

I waited there for abt 45 mins as i saw Darshan in the air with another student. I recognised the plane i will be flying 9V-BOQ. They circled the field like 3 times and then landed. I got to know the student pilot. She's called Elienna and her 1st language is French although she's from Angola. She's a rookie like me on her 4th flight.

When i finally made it to the plane with Darshan, we did a Pre-Flight. Check the wings in gd condition and check the fuel(That was real messy work). Then go and check the systems and controls. THat took abt 30 mins and then after that we were ready to taxi. He gave me control when taxiing and i found tt exciting enuff. Man its like driving. The take-off was pretty exciting too and i let out a "Waaaahhooooo!" on the ICS (Intercom). Dunno if Darshan was impressed with tt or not cuz he gave me a funny look. (Bet he was thinking 'Damned Hot Dogger')

Then came the fun part. Flying over Singapore. Real Bird's eye view over the zoo, the Bukit Timah Hill and the BKE, PIE and SLE and causeway. Man i felt damn good. I even got to handle the plane several times. Thought this was a familiarisation flight, I think i knew my stuff well enough to proceed on to more exercises. And we did. Effects of Controls and Further Effects of Controls. We did rolling, banking, yawing and pitching. Real uncomfy during pitching down when the Negative Gs hit u. I felt weightless...eveything in the body oso move up. I did well in almost everything except the flying steady part when powering up or down. Had some probs there...and Darshan got a little impatient...Hey can't blame him. I wuz the one that wanted to go fast. But i finally got it mastered in the end.:)

Then as we cut our engines to land. God...I got a sick feeling as the plane started sinking. I felt like a dog shitting razor blades when Darshan cut the speed even more...I asked why and he said "If we increase the throttles we'll nv be able to get down." meaning that the Cessna had a lot of lift. Ok...fine...i was scared over nth.
The landing was real smooth. Then i took over the controls and we taxied to parking. hehehe i wunt haf any probs in driving lessons if i can park this plane. He took over in the end tho to position better.

Being on the ground now, I feel unnatural. I wanna go back up there. Knowing tt i'll get to do this every week is a consolation tho. Now i haf to study.......Horizon parallel to dashboard....blah blah...

yesh...cca approved

2004-12-09T01:58:00.000-08:00

Made a trip down to MOE todae...to negotiate and ask whether my training at SFC can be considered into my CCA in JC. Wahhoo...can...but muz haf a internal cca oso. ok...maybe tennis or table tennis... or maybe some slack club.

haha...so much time left that i went to seletar to see the travelling time. a Whopping 1 hr 30 mins from my home to tt place. I think i wuz cursing and swearing abt 1/4 of the journey cuz i missed the bus and the bus took so damn long to come. I oso got lost in West Camp. diaoz... Went to see planes take off then come back home....another veri long trip.

Tmr will be flying hopefully. Hope the security clearance come thru liaoz. And must hope the weather is fine. Pleeeeasssee nice clear blue skies tmr...........

Seletar Flying Club

2004-12-06T23:27:00.000-08:00

YEAAAA!!! i finally gotten my SPL yesterday. The Instructor couldn't meet me yesterday cuz he wuz bz flying the whole day. Then again, this morning i learnt the planes were grounded yesterday as well as for todae cuz of weather. Well, I hope that wunt happen when its my schedule to fly.

Seletar Airport is real deep inside Seletar Base. Man i gotta take MRT to Yio Chu Kang then take 86 to outside the camp and then take 103W to the last stop. Man lot of time its gonna take. I had no idea the airport is so hectic. First thing i saw when i got out of the car was a Dash-8 taking off and a C-130 shutting down. Seletar Flying club was just beside the airport. Pretty small clubhouse though.

My instructor is Darshan Singh Gill. He is about 6 foot tall and has a slight tummy. :P My first impression of him was ok... Can see he is a pilot. But he's rather serious and all business. I woulda tot he would joke a little. Hell, he forgot to send in my security clearance. So he had to do it again and send it in. So i'll be grounded for a few more days. Hopefully by Friday i can fly.

I got the starter's kit without the headset. Dun need one. Can use the one in the aircraft itself. But the danger is ear infection. Haiz if i uncomfy then i get one.
2 textbooks on Radio-telephony and Flying Training by Trevor Thom. Gosh...Darshan outlined many chaps to study. Its like school reopening like tt. Except that i like this subject. Too bad Os or As dun haf flying as a sub. I'll prolly get A1.
Still, gotta pia...Tachonometre, Attitude indicator, Magneto, VSI, Emergencies..........................................

SPL ready!

2004-12-04T04:35:00.000-08:00

Just got back from Japan today. Well...very good trip...saw many flyer's jacket there but they were too expensive.:( (Hey i already haf one anyway). After checking out, i ran all the way from the arrival hall to the Airworthiness office to find it...CLOSED. Well, then rush home after dinner to check the mail to see if my SPL application was approved. hehehe it was APPROVED and READY! I started yelling in joy...(Those in Pine Grove if u heard me...my apologies) I got my punishment for being a hot dogger [Overexcited and overeagar]. I forgot to take the mailbox key... Had to run down to get it b4 it was stolen.

Well, Yesh...Monday go pick up my SPL and apply to Seletar FC and I should start flying by Thursday.

FS2004

2004-11-25T18:55:00.000-08:00

Yeah...My security particulars are being processed now...gd will be able to fly once i get back.

Yesh...I got Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 yesterday. I'm halfway thru the Student Pilot training in there. pretty cosmic stuff even in the simple Cessna 172. I spent like more than 1 hour figuring out the dials, Levers and whatnots on the dashboard.This Sim is great, it even has Changi and Seletar airport in it.

Man, seems there's a lot more to flying than i thought, Slipstream...I wuz wondering why my plane started slipping when taking off. Man its hard. But i finally managed to maintain control regularly on the plane... Well, i hope this Sim can help reduce the number of hours i'll need in training that will reduce cost and the burden on my mom n dad ( Not to mention worries) God bless my parents...They're the most supportive people i know. Man i hope my son or daughter wunt inherit this sense of adventure...(WHO AM I KIDDING? Of course i want my son or daughter to be like me!) Well, i just hope i rmb wad i wuz like now then, b4 i give a big protective NO to my son if he asks for permission to skydive or wdeva.

Ok, time to find out how to trim the ailerons and rudder.
Cessna November 176 Charlie-Mike out.

Wings

2004-11-23T22:03:00.000-08:00

PPL Wings.

Yep. This is what i have my sights on. Yes! The doctor did not call me today...woohoo! Means my medical is fine... Ok...Now the instructor at Seletar FC told me to send my particulars for some security clearance thingy...must be so strict mehz? dunno...

SPL application

2004-11-22T05:55:00.000-08:00

I was so excited about today i almost couldn't sleep at night. Woke up real early in the morning and Mom fetched me to the Airport. Man...ppl were looking at me dunno why. i was merely:
Wearing a rapper shirt
Listening to Mp3 ( Blurry, Danger Zone)

Then, when i asked the way to the office to apply for SPL, this fella looked at me as if i wuz joking. As if only ppl who dun wear specs can be a pilot... At least the clerk who filed my application was helpful and supportive haha. Thx Lee Cheng. I should be able to collect my SPL in 2 weeks time after i get back from Japan. Tmr will be another barrier. I will be hoping Dr Leow doesn't call me abt my medical test. Cuz if she does it will mean there's sth wrong and i failed it. So...plz no calls from Dr Leow tmr.

Blazer out.

Purpose

2004-11-20T18:38:00.000-08:00

This blog shall be something of an informal flight log. This is here for me to reflect on my every step to attaining my PPL. Today, I have begun my first step. The Flight Medical Checkup at Clifford Dispensary.
1)Eyesight 6/60 w/0 glasses
6/6 w/ glasses
Normal Colour vision
2)Heart and Lungs Ok
3)X-Ray Unknown (Likely to be ok)
4)Lung Expansion Ok
5)Blood Pressure 110/70
6) Anomalies: Slight allergies to dust
Other than that,none.

Medical Results take 2 weeks to process. Tuesday i will make my way to CAAS and apply for the Student Pilot License(SPL). Then, join the Seletar flying club.
Should start flying by 2nd week of December if all goes well.