happylife

Crosswind landing attempt of A321

Thanks to the spread of the high-speed Internet, it is getting popular to enjoy video on the Internet. When I was zapping Google Video, I stumbled across this exciting landing scene of Airbus 321. In the extremely strong crosswind condition, this pilot is trying to land crabbing the Airbus 321. The huge body of the A321 is dancing violently just tens feet above the runway. It must have suffered from a wind shear and ground effect. It is interesting to see the fact that the A321 motion is almost the same as any other small airplane including the Cessna152. All the airplanes will be so small in front of Nature.

video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2367849993821094040

Night rating

It was my first night flight last night. I flew the Cessna152 over Pt.Roberts and did the instrumental flight training with my instructor. As I had taken a two-month break, I've forgotten a lot of things, and my flight was terrible. Sure my flight was bad, but the night flight was great itself. The night view was spectacular and the airspace was calm. It was totally different from the busy and noisy situation under the daylight. I'll be loving night flying. After my first night lesson, I got a back seat of another student and took this picture. The trapezoid space surrounded by green, white, and red lights is the runway. Landing on the illuminated runway is cool.

A gas station in the airport

This is a gas station in the airport. Different from normal ones, it has no fuel stand and it is surround by concrete blocks so that any cars and airplanes cannot approach. How can it be used? It's easy - just call the fuel station by the radio on the airplane, and an oil tanker delivers you the fuel. As airplanes are not good at moving on lands like birds (they cannot even move backward), and they use a lot of fuel for taxing, this is the most reasonable and safest way to get fuel for airplanes. In most cases, the gas station staff is one of the student of our flight school. They can drive the huge tanker without any special license because it is not a public space within the airport. The gas station staff is a popular job for us student pilots.

A new Cessna

While I was back to Japan for one month, my flight school bought two new Cessna, one of which I flew today for the first time. I hear that it came from a flight school around Campbell River. According to the journey log, there were few people who flew it in my school. It looked good, though I found a problem of the airplane. The identifier of the airplane "GQDM" is not familiar in the airspace around my school. Every time I called a tower, I was asked the identification and I had to say it fully again. It's a little bit tough for me to say optional things on radio call. Except for the problem, the airplane is not bad and I think I can fly it again after its name gets more familiar.

Signal color

In my flight test last year, the examiner asked me what to do in case of radio failure. Of course I know the answer but I made one mistake because of the strange use of Japanese language. It is about the color - we call green as "MIDORI" and blue as "AO" in Japanese. The Japanese strange custom is that in terms of signal color we call green as "AO" which usually means blue, so we call this green signal as blue in Japanese. In case of NORDO (no radio), we have to check the tower signal to be steady green before landing, is the right answer, but my answer was "steady blue!" The examiner gave me a questioning look when I answered and I looked at him again after my answer because I was confident of it.

Paper work

Late this afternoon I went to my flight school to do some paper works necessary to get the license. Checking through the PTR(Pilot Training Record) and the journey log book was a boring but happy work. After completing all the required documents with few mistakes, the chief instructor authorized my student pilot permit as the private pilot permit, which means I am a private pilot from now and I can fly whenever I like on VFR conditions with passengers. This is a great privilege. I'm looking forward to flying around BC coast area by myself after coming back from Japan this summer. I'm happy.

Released

This morning I passed the flight test at last. Now I am a pilot, sure I'm happy but feel more relief. I don't have to worry about the weather for the flight test any more because I fly just for fun and I don't have to fly in bad weather conditions. One flight lesson costs around 200 bucks, it was just like a purse hole affecting my financial condition. Payment of more than 1,000 bucks a week was of course unhappy for me, but now I can fly on my pace. A private pilot can fly legally with passengers. It means that I can fly with my friends. It must be enjoyable to fly to unknown place with my friends, but I will fly solo to build more experience before flying with passengers. I'm also thinking about getting night rating and float rating. I become happy just by thinking about what to do this summer. I'm going back to Japan within a week and coming back to Vancouver this spring.

Eagle obstruction

There was no airplane except for me because of the strong wind. I was happy to occupy the circuit myself. I got clearance from ATC saying "You're No.1 for runway 12." However, when I was on final approach, he said "Pull up and go around!" There was no arriving airplane in my sight and it took seconds for me to understand what was happening. It was an eagle obstruction. Of course it was not an F15 Eagle but a real eagle staying on the runway. As he is on the top of a food chain, he has nothing to fear and hardly to be sent away. The ATC guys had to drive on the runway and set off firecrackers whose smoke could be seen well from the sky. Various things happen while flying.

SVFR

We cannot usually fly under the condition of below VFR minima, which is 3 mile visibility, horizontally 1 mile and vertically 500 feet from any clouds. However, there is an exception which is called SVFR, special visual flight rules. If we had more than 1 mile visibility, could have land in sight, and the ATC permitted, we can fly under SVFR. Today the weather was under VFR minima, but I flew under SVFR and did circuit training. Usually the circuit height is 800 feet in my airport, there were so many clouds that I couldn't keep 800 feet and made 600 foot circuits. As the lower circuit has different view and requires different procedures, it was difficult to make good circuits avoiding clouds. It was a good training.

Blue sky over the fog

This year started with a terrible back pain which I had never experienced. After recovering from it and coming back to Vancouver, most of my interest and time was occupied with the flight lessons which unfortunately couldn't been finished in this year, however the goal is pretty close. I also started some business of my own which has not been in orbit yet, but it is to go well pretty soon. Although I couldn't achieve any important things, I could start them nicely and I can clearly see the goals. This picture is well describing my situation right now. A beautiful blue sky can be seen over the thin fog.