happylife

ARCAL

ARCAL (Aircraft Radio Control of Aerodrome Lighting) is one of the most interesting airport systems. At most airports except for large international airports, the lights are turned off after the tower is closed. It is off course waste of money and energy to keep the airport lights on over the night, but how do we land on the dark airport at night after the tower is closed?  It's very scary and actually illegal to land on a runway without lights. ARCAL is prepared for such pilots. It's easy to use; just click the microphone button five or seven times within five minutes, then the airport lights are turned on just like the lights in your room. I used ARCAL several times during my night flight lesson. It's interesting to see the illuminated runway coming up from darkness. Anyway, one ARCAL is expired within 15 minutes and the lights are supposed to be turned off automatically. When I was flying night circuits alone and I was just right on final approach, the lights got suddenly expired and I had to click the microphone seven times just before landing over the dark runway. It was scary but the landing at that time was one of my best landings without a creaking noise. I don't know what this means.

Ladybugs

It has been warm these days in Vancouver. The sunlight is almost the one in Summer, and we can't live here without sunglasses. I'm always carrying a face towel when going out, but it's a very comfortable season owing to the crispy sea breeze. It's totally different from the wet summer in Japan. If there's annoying things for me, it's ladybugs coming into my room at night. Lead by the light, they fly into my room and hit the room light again and again until they die. What a pity creature! As I don't like their buzzing and hitting noise, I sometimes use a powerful electric fan to blow them out. It works well and I can get back the silent summer night.

Night rating

Finally tonight, I completed all the requirement for the night rating. I found that the night flight was much more enjoyable and comfortable than I had expected, because the wind is generally calm, the traffic is less crowded, and the night view is very attractive. You might feel strange but it's easier to find the airport than under the sun, because the runways of the airports are illuminated at night with a characteristic shape. I'm thinking about flying by solo for more hours and want to fly anywhere around Vancouver by myself. Getting the float rating was my target this year, however, I'm reconsidering about it because I heard it's difficult to rent a seaplane even after getting the float rating.

RSS

RSS is the abbreviation of Rich Site Summary. It is said to be a key technology for Internet users, but few of my friends seem to be taking advantage of it. To tell the truth, it was the beginning of this year when I myself started to use it, and I feel now I can't live without using RSS. As the name shows, RSS is just a form which describes the summary or updates of the site. It is so simple that most blog systems and news services are supporting it, and if you install a so called RSS reader software, you can benefit from it; you can automatically get all the summary data from your favorite web sites by just subscribing the site's RSS once. It means that you don't have to check your favorite web site several times a day by hand. You don't even visit the site if you are satisfied with the summary information. It's very simple, convenient, and gentle to the network resources. If the installation process could be easier or omitted, RSS would become far more popular. As the next version of Internet Explorer is to be released soon with RSS support, it's only a matter of time before the age of RSS comes.

Getting harder

I feel it's getting harder to keep this blog because I found some of my friends were checking it everyday. I can't say bad things any more in this blog. It used to be one of the great advantages of keeping blogs to say bad things about something and feel refreshed. It might now interfere my real life. I can only abuse huge things just like weather, Canadian government, Microsoft and so on. However, the weather in Vancouver has been fine these days, I've already gotten the extended visa, and Microsoft doesn't look so powerful as it used to be ... that is to say, I have nothing to blame. I'm probably happy.

Bowen Island

Urged earnestly by my friend, I sailed to Bowen Island with him on my boat yesterday. In spite of the weather forecast of gale warning, the sea and the wind was almost calm in Howe Sound and I had to use the engine instead of the sails. About four hours after the departure, we arrived at Snug Cove on Bowen Island. The cove is a popular place for boaters and is connected with Horseshoebay on the main land by a ferry. The white building-like object in the picture is the ferry, which has screws both on the bow and the stern so that it can sail without turning. The public dock was full of boats, and I decided to dock just at the end of the pier where no boats would dock. Small boats are convenient in such cases. We had lunch of Japanese rice balls on the bench under trees. It was a warm, happy day and some duck families were taking lunch too. I strongly felt that this is a place I should visit with a girl friend or family instead of a strange old man.

Night cross-country

To get a night rating, I was supposed to do instrument training last night, but it was so clear that my instructor changed the plan and we did a night cross-country flight. We took off around 10:00PM after I made a navigation log in a hurry and filed a flight plan with the flight service by telephone. The course was CZBB(Boundary Bay) - CYYJ(Victoria) - CYCD(Nanaimo) - CAP3(Seschelt Gibson) - CZBB(Boundary Bay). It was just a two hour flight with four touch-and-goes. Different from the bright night two days before, the moon was still behind the horizon and it was harder for me to see every thing. It was a little bit scary to do touch-and-goes at CYCD and CAP3, because both the airport lie close to mountains and those mountains looked like a black hole at night. I hear that some airplanes crashed there at night years ago. On the way back to CZBB, we flew over Greater Vancouver which looked like scattered jewels around the moon.

Four ways to Granville Island

Today I had to go to Granville Island Public Market. It's less than a 500 meter way from my apartment, but there lies False Creek on the way. I have four options to cross the creek to go to the market. Walking across the Burrard bridge is the easiest way, but it takes more than 30 minutes. Using the boat called "Aquabus" might be the fastest way, but it takes $2.50 for one way. I usually drive there crossing the bridge, but it was Saturday and the weather was pretty good, which means the public parking lot is full. After considering those things, I decided to choose the 4th way; sailing on my boat. I cast off the marina after five minute preparation. It's easy to start the boat if we don't hoist the sail, and it's usually only a three minute trip from the marina to Granville Island, though it was windy and the public dock on Granville Island was so crowded that I had to select the most difficult dock space. After thee time trial, I could finally succeed in docking with another boater's help on the dock. I felt that I have to practice docking under difficult conditions.

Midnight circuit

To get a night rating in Canada, we have to fly more than 10 hours at night. It was after 9:30PM when I took off with my instructor and started solo flight around 10:15 after dropping him off. It was a full moon night with no winds; the perfect conditions for night flight. I flew around the circuit seeing the moon in the sky and on the sea. I kept flying after the tower closed at 11:00PM. I was flying so long that I forgot how many times I did touch-and-go. Though it was a pleasant flight, the fuel was short and my instructor was waiting at the terminal, I landed finally before the date changed.

Prospect Point

On the way back from North Vancouver last night, I stopped at Prospect Point which is one of the most popular sight spots in Vancouver. As I have visited there many times, I usually stop there by myself, though this time, I had a purpose. It was to test my new tripod which I got a few days ago. It worked pretty well as this picture shows. I could choose the shutter speed of 8 seconds, which is off course impossible without a tripod. I'm happy because I could capture the lights of the Lions Gate Bridge, North and West Vancouver, and the Grouse Mountain ski course with the silhouette of trees. Though I didn't have a remote shutter I could use the 2 seconds of self timer instead. It worked pretty well too.