Posted by Kevin, on July 28th, 2004 Well I had hoped to get up for a flight before heading to BC, but it looks like the weather isn’t going to cooperate with me. I had booked some time with Brad for today at 12:30 but at the time the METAR was showing a broken cloud layer at 600 feet and an overcast layer at 1200 feet. Looking at the TAF showed that it wasn’t going to be getting any better any time soon either. :( I hoped that maybe I could get up sometime tomorrow but all the 150s are booked solid so it doesn’t look good. I’ve got to head to the club tonight for ground school anyways, so perhaps I’ll do a ground briefing with Brad on flight planning. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on July 24th, 2004 I got up relatively early this morning so that I could go for a swim with Ellie (the dog) to tire her out for the day. We went to a spot that Amy and I found last week. It’s on the Ottawa river and it’s public access which is another reason I wanted to go early, I figured there wouldn’t be anybody there. I was right. When I pulled into the parking lot of the place, there was one car and a whole pile of garbage laying around…mostly empty beer cups (or at least the kind of cups you use for beer when you’re not allowed to have bottles, or if you have a keg perhaps). I thought it was strange that there was so much garbage since the last time I was there it was pretty clean. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on July 23rd, 2004 Yes I’ve been slacking off a bit, I really should have posted this on Wedneday night, after my last flight, but I was tired. Then I forgot about it on Thursday, and here we are on Friday already. Anyways, went up for my last solo session on Wednesday before ground school. It was quite hazy but the visibility was good enough that I was still able to go, which was good. Flew out to the practice area and practiced steep turns, side slips, power on stalls, and flying along at a certain altitude with 20 degrees of flaps at 70 kts. There was only one other person in the practice area and he was working the Ontario side so I went over to the Quebec side. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on July 19th, 2004 Well I finally managed to get up flying again. I went up yesterday morning. The weather was pretty good, although I found it quite hazy. I practiced steep turns, power on stalls, side slipping and part of the precautionary landing procedure. I was trying to practice the part where you fly along the side of the field with 20 degrees of flaps at 70 kts at a steady altitude (I was doing it at 2500 ft, but normally you do it at 900 ft) but I was having a bit of trouble. Definitely need to practice that again next time. The plan was for me to fly for an hour in the morning and then come back in the afternoon and get my last hour of solo time in. Well by the time the afternoon rolled around, thunderstorms were forecast and I didn’t get to go. Amy was also supposed to go up for her intro flight, but that didn’t happen either. We went out for beer / food with Brad instead. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on July 16th, 2004 Thanks to the unbelievably crappy weather we’ve been having, I haven’t been able to go flying since my last checkout flight with Brad, which was over a week ago now. It’s a little frustrating…I just want to get my last two solo hours done in the practice area. To be fair, the weather hasn’t been crappy all the time, just when I’ve got a plane booked! We actually had a really nice weekend last weekend, but I was down visiting T&J so no flying for me then. On the plus side, we’ve been getting a fair bit of rain in the last few days which means my lawn is looking a bit better. :) [...]
Posted by Kevin, on July 12th, 2004 Went down to visit Trev and Julie this past weekend down at their place in Brockville. Actually they are technically not in Brockville, they are in Elizabethtown Kitley, but it’s close enough to Brockville to just say they are in Brockville. :) They were kind enough to let me bring Ellie along, which was fantastic because they live on the river and she got to swim all weekend. Trev even took some pictures for me.  [...]
Posted by Kevin, on July 8th, 2004 Well I’m halfway done my 4 hours of solo time in the practice area so I needed to do another checkout flight. I went up with Brad yesterday which was nice, seems like I haven’t seen the guy in a long time. Yesterday was yet another bonehead day for me, at least at the beginning of the flight. I listened to the ATIS before calling up clearance (as usual) and found out what the information identifier was…I think it was Hotel. Anyways, called up clearance but they couldn’t hear me because of my position, so after Brad jumped in, I moved forward a bit and then called them back. Well by this time my infamous short term memory was failing me and so when it came time for me to tell them that I had the information, I said, and I quote, “…with information…ah crap I can’t remember…”. Needless to say, that didn’t go over so well. Clearance replied with, “You’re not allowed to say crap on the radio.” Which naturally wasn’t a surprise to me…it was just a surprise that I had actually said it. Oh well, yet another live and learn type situation. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on July 6th, 2004 Another early day today…well early for me anyways. I think I was at the club at around 7:30 or so. On my way there I started worrying that there wasn’t going to be an instructor with an early lesson to sign me out, but the worrying was for nothing, there were a couple of instructors there when I got there. I got Luc to sign me out. Wind was such that runway 04 was in use this morning. I haven’t got nearly as much time taking off and landing on 04 as I do on 22 so that was good. It was also going to be the first time I had to navigate back to the airport backwards on my own. I say backwards, but that’s only because I’m more used to flying the other direction. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on July 6th, 2004 Good times on Prisoner Island this past weekend. Boris came to town for his bachelor party which was held at the above mentioned Prisoner Island. He actually came a bit early so he could celebrate Canada Day too. I can’t go into too much detail, as that is the law around bachelor parties, but I will say that much fun was had by all. Prisoner Island (located on the St Lawrence, close to Cardinal) is certainly not the worst place you could spend a summer weekend, that’s for damn sure! I will say one thing…don’t trust Robbie to make punch for you! ;) [...]
Posted by Kevin, on July 1st, 2004 I’m a little late writing this up, but that’s because this is the first chance I’ve gotten. The flight was last evening, then after that I had ground school. After ground school I had to go to the grocery store to pick up a few things before Canada Day and then I was busy all day today until now. So yesterday was my first solo flight out to the practice area and back. I think it went pretty damn good. Brad told me to practice slow flight and power off stalls…so I did. I haven’t done slow flight for a long time, but it came right back to me. I went for a speed of about 55 kts. As for the stalls, I tried them with no flaps, 20 degrees, 30 degrees, and 40 degrees of flaps. [...]
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