Afterburner on stage 2

I didn't have much time to post here on the last days, I'm sorry... It's because we started stage 2 on ground school, and our instructor opened the afterburner on the material covered. I mean, in 3 days of ground school we covered (actually only the instructor covered in class, we students couldn't really follow his pace) about 4 chapters in the Jeppesen book "instrument/commercial" - that would be Departure Procedures, DP charts, Enroute procedures, Enroute charts, Arrival Procedures, STAR charts, Non-precision and Precision approach Procedures, Approach charts (terminal and non-terminal), and holding procedures. 3 days for that, can you imagine. We just get home and immerse ourselves in the books, trying to understand what the hell was the instructor talking about in class early in the morning...
We've been also doing simulators every day, on Mr. Frasca 141. Hopefully I'll get to fly a little bit this weekend so I'll try to get some pictures and post here. Later!

Unusual attitude recovery

Today I met Mr. Frasca again. He was much more contained and easygoing this time, it took me just a couple minutes to reset myself and get along with him. Together we did some basic attitude instrument flying, simulated instrument failures, partial panel flying, and lots of unusual attitude recovery on IMC conditions. My instructor tried me on standard ones, once he realized I was managing to get out of them really fast and easy, he made a big effort to "catch me with the pants down": started to put me from one unusual attitude right into another, and failing my instrument one after the other, during the recoveries! It was fun though, I could beat my instructor tentatives to fail me almost all times, and that was a very good sensation... I felt like winning him on that Tennis game on Nintendo Wii! (have you ever played it? I really recommend it if you don't).
It seems that me and Mr. Frasca are going to be good friends now, it seems like finally we understood each other. And I really loved the unusual attitude recoveries, I hope to do some real ones during the next flight on the Skyhawk.


Oh, we also did lots of standard rate turns without using the directional gyro, either using the regular magnetic compass or simply timing the turns with a stopwatch. One 360 degrees turn is done in 2 minutes so I practiced some mental calculations while my instructor asked me to turn to many weird directions using the stopwatch. That was easy compared to the turns using only the magnetic compass; it swings more than a booty shaking dance and has all that errors we should have learned when turning to North or South. By the way, easy way to remember is UNOS >> "undershoot north, overshoot south". It works!

Tomorrow we have stage I exam, ground school. There's still a lot for me to read, so I better get going. Have a good weekend!

KDAB INTL. AIRPORT

From the map, it looks scary. From above, a little more. That's the biggest airport I've ever took-off and landed! We are settled at Daytona Beach International Airport, and that's our home base. I flew 2 times this week, and I could tell that taxiing next to a Citation and waiting for a Jumbo to Land while you are "holding short of runway 7L", it's a pretty exciting experience. Suddenly you feel that you really are a pilot, and you are on a real big airport. KDAB is class C airspace, that would be something not as a big as "Antonio Carlos Jobim intl. airport" or "JFK intl. airport", but quite as big and busy. Most of the airports in Israel (LLHA, LLET, LLSD) I would say are like the "Class D" airports here.

We fly here for the instrument course the C172-SP, very powerful (180HP) and new with a GPS and leather seats, compared to my old C152 flown during my PPL it's quite an upgrade :)
We landed at Flagler (KXFL), an uncontrolled airport; I was expecting to land on something like Jacarepagua (SBJR) or Meggido (LLMG), but it had 4 runways and even 1 waterway!! On the take off back to KDAB, were waiting behind me a KingAir B200 and a little twin Jet, not sure what... I'll take my camera next flight!

Today I met the FRASCA-141, a simulator that totally sucks, exactly in these words. Well, they are supposed to be good for instrument training but it's so frustrating to fly it after you fly a real plane... My Flight Simulator on my laptop has better graphics, and the controls are so sensible, it was so hard just to maintain a level flight. I found myself almost kicking the panel after 20 minutes struggling with it, but my instructor hit the "pause button" on the simulation and tried to make me calm down... I have to get used to it cause we fly 14 hours on that crap. Ahhh bad day!


Tomorrow is thanksgiving day, a big holiday in America, not sure what they celebrate. What I do know is that no one works anywhere and there is plenty of food specially turkeys. We don't have class tomorrow so we have some time at least to study to the stage I ground school test, this Saturday.
Have a good week everyone!

How it all started

All right, since there was a slight discussion in one of my previous posts about what's the purpose of all this and this huge investment I'm doing on learning to fly abroad, I could resume it in saying that this is a childhood dream. If this passion to fly could turn into my profession, that would be living this dream as an everyday reality. Since many young boys have the same dream of flying, I found it useful to build this blog, and tell my readers about my story and what I am doing to try to achieve that dream. If this could help anyone who have also the dream of being a pilot succeed too, so I made my part of making someone happy and also contributed to the aviation world. It's also a pleasure to me to help someone get into this little world of aviators, that is something so difficult to achieve in our days.
I found it also very motivating to tell my readers a little about my personal story: how I was initiated into the aviation world, how everything started, until my first solo on a Cessna 152. So I made a little movie, I think that was the more efficient way to tell a little story. Comments and questions are welcome, specially if it might interest and help other readers. Enjoy it!



Here is a little observation to my israeli readers: all the pictures of the planes, including tail numbers, were taken from the internet.

Scanning your panel

Attitude instrument flying is controlling an aircraft by reference to flight instruments, rather than outside visual reference. In the instrument course we learn how to refine this skill to the point where we can maintain precise control of the aircraft solely by instruments while carrying on the many additional duties of IFR flight.

We must master three fundamental skills: instrument cross-check, instrument interpretation and aircraft control. Imagine the pilot as a computer: you input data from the instruments, process this data in the brain and interpret this data as the aircraft's behavior, and for last the pilot applies an action to correct the aircraft's previous behavior or to achieve a desired response from the aircraft. Pretty much simple, ah? Well, it might be but takes a lot of practice.

While learning raw data from ground school and books, no flights yet. Actually half of this course is made on simulators, where you can simulate situations that would be almost impossible in real flight, or very difficult at least. You can also pause during a simulation to discuss the subject with your instructor. If any of you is interested on learning how to fly by instruments too, you can try starting with Flight Simulator on your PC at home; seems like a very good training!

I had to buy some maps and books today, the FAA regulations here are a little different than ICAO and JAA so we have to study flight regulations all over again... It looks like a dictionary, it's endless and boring.
:)

Studying at full throttle

01:22, local time.
Just closed the book, wondering how the hell I'm supposed to get up tomorrow at 7am. Well technically it's today, so that makes me feel even better.
Only 2nd day of ground school and things started to get loaded: endless reading homework. Seems like we are rushing through the books, an average of 40 reading pages/day, that's a lot to cover! Analog Instrument failures, IDI (Integrated Display Instrumentation), gyros, gimbals, you name it.
[The pic below shows the panel of an aircraft that has IDI]

Good thing that after ground school we get to sit together and study with tutors, these are students that are almost becoming instructors so they teach you a lot, and for free :) That's also the fun time, for the jokes and and some social interruptions too, why not?

Today I also met Raviv, an israeli instructor, they say one of the bests in school. Nice guy, +1000 hours, we had a little chat, talked about a distant future back in Israel at El-Al... good to know we have some hommies here too!
1:30, bet time.

Welcome to Instrument Rating

Today the ground school started. Not much, just 2 and half hours a day, 5 days a week, early in the morning though. About 15 students in class, and only one cheek, I felt like going back to the faculty of engineering. We learned some things about aeromedicine and about the phisiological effects of flying at IMC (Instrument Meteorological Conditions). The classroom was beautiful, the walls were full of aviation pictures, the atmosphere very professional, I liked it. Afterclass studies seemed very useful too in the study room and the lounge of the school, students are usually very supportive and help each other. We also received some reading homework, not a surprise...

We need also to buy more and more material all the time: charts, approach plates, airport directory, FAA regulations manuals, etc. The shit about it that theses things expire every couple of months so you are always buying the updates of it! And I was complaining about the "Minhal ha-Teufa" back in Israel that they were updating their AIP (Aeronautic Information Publication) only 3 times a year. Well, I guess I didn't see this coming...

Talking about some entertainment, social life in school seems lots of fun too. I managed to make some brazilian friends already, and we went last night to have dinner at one friend's place and play boxing on Nintendo Wii. Damn, my arm still hurts! Well, we played also bowling. And tennis... And how could we forget the PC, some flight simulator X, 2 guys playing online together, just for a change.

We heard also that in town there are many events this time of the year: on november 22nd is the thanksgiving day and supposed to be a very big holiday here, lots of parties in town. Also here there are lots of NASCAR racing events, the stadium is just next to the airport, sometimes you can hear the engines of the 600HP cars in the weekends from far away! Also we were told that in march there is a big event of Harley Davidson motorcycles in town, it's like a huge reunion from people from all over America. Seems like people that like machines will love this town.

Getting some flight gear: part II

I'm waiting the whole day, anxious. In the other side of the line I can hear a very polite voice from Sporty's pilot shop telling me that my order will arrive still today and he is sorry for the delay. It's 5pm and nothing from the UPS guy on the door. A few minutes soon after I hung up the phone I hear the salvation knock-knock on the door: "that's him that's him" - I shouted to my roommate and he ran to the front door, and we are pleased to see a smily guy from UPS handing me a big box and a machine to sign on. I ran into my room and opened the box in such a rush that looked like it was a huge delicious plate of food and I was starving!

So there it was, the rest of my flight gear, new and shinny, a brand new DC headseat and an Icom handheld! I was so excited, I mean, look at this flight gear on the picture, this is really happening, right now, it even looks pro! I even got the stripes on the shoulders for the uniform!

My roommate was more excited than me I think, and he decided he also wanna be happy for the weekend and he desperately needed a laptop to play flight simulator X: we ran into the closest Best Buy store and he bought himself a laptop and a flight yoke, so we are all happy right now, it seems like we're not sleeping this night...

Last weekend before the classes start, let's have some drinks!

Getting some flight gear: part I

It seems like the expenses doesn't end in the first month here. Well, at least this uniform is so cool, isn't it? Well, the wings and the stripes are still missing but as soon as I receive them I promise I'll post it here, with me wearing it of course.

The pilot shops here are a bit confusing, you enter there willing to buy a specific thing, then you get there and they have so many things you're not sure what you really need anymore. From teddy bears wearing flying jackets and remove-before-flight-keyrings up to anything your money can buy: air-crew clothing, plotters, charts, radios, headsets, jackets, books, bags, gps, stoppers.


Oh, and for those asking what is that funny bottle over here, that is a fuel tester, very interesting by the way. It not only allows you to see if there is water and other contaminants in the fuel, it also traps the water inside the jar!

I've spent the morning in school reviewing the subjects studied on my private-pilot license, it seems a lot now. And there is so much more to come! Oh, and I met my instructor, Helge his name, a norwegian guy, probably younger than me, what a name. Seems a little cold or even harsh, but let's wait and see. He gave me already 2 chapters of instrument homework and promised me that we start flying next week, sounds good!

I (almost) got a ride!

As I said, my place is the closest complex of apartments to the airport, and yet is a 30 minute walk. It's kind of "not really cool" walking every day to school, let's put it simple this way. And don't forget to walk the way back, if you're lucky enough to not have someone give you a ride home. Guys from school say the Norway students get a car the second day they arrive here. Spoiled rich kids... The thing is you can buy an old car, let's say 15 years old in reasonable shape, for about 1000$. Of course there are more expenses such as gas and insurance, that would be about an extra $150-$200 a month.

Well, as a good brasilian-israeli, always trying to save some bucks, I managed to get my almost-car today, a brand new mountain bike for the bargain of U$ 65!! Oh how I love Wall-mart... at least this babe will take me to school every morning in only 10 minutes... And since the winter is starting, no sweating for now. Let's see what happens when it rains...

There are buses around, don't get me wrong. But they pass only on the main streets and one bus every hour or so... 40$ is a monthly pass, 65$ is a new bike, plus 25$ more for a decent seat and a bike-lock, I didn't need much reasoning to take my conclusions... That will be fun, and healthy too! Maybe when I'll be an instructor or start working on dispatch in the weekends I'll pamper myself with a 1000$-running-well-car. I've already spent too much money for the first days... bought a set of pans, kettle and some kitchen-ware, cell-phone, bike, some flight gear such as a David Clark headset, Icom handheld radio, flight bag... enough for now, or I'll bankrupt! And I don't even have a bed or a table yet...

Anyone want some books?

Well well, I arrived at the scholl in Daytona Beach, Phoenix East Aviation it's name. Very nice and clean, many students walking all around, instructors rushing from one flight to the other, all well-dressed in the standard glamorous pilot uniforms with the yellow stripes on the shoulders. Cool, that was a impressive and a good injection of motivation, 'cause i'll definetively need some. Look at the picture, did you guys see it?? I can swin on those books no kidding, there are more than 2000 pages summing all together, and everything to be finished in 4 and a half months!! At least all students seem happy after all...

The ground school starts next monday - Instrument Course. I don't even have an instructor yet, but I've got enough books to spend the nights with... Actually I can't wait to start, but I took this week off on purpose so I'll have some time to take care of the "surrounding circumstances" - arrange some furniture and basic appliances for the new apartment I just rented, open a bank account, take a local driver's license, maybe buy an old car or at least a bicycle so I won't stay stuck at home (here everything is pretty much far far away, everything is apart), you know, make some arrangements so everything starts nice and straight.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell. I met some friendly students today and last friday, many brasilians, none of them from my hometown, but hearing some portuguese and laughing at the good -ol' brasilian way-of-life it's always such a joy. And i happened also to meet a nice israeli girl, Maayan her name, that happens to be studying to be a pro-pilot-girl too! Also another israeli student that just arrived also last week, Tsachi, seems like a quiet good kid, and he and Maayan told me that more 2 or 3 israeli students are supposed to arrive during the next month. Well, Hanukkah will be sameach!

Talking about israelis, how many of them I saw in the mall right next to my house, volusia mall. All the stands selling all kinds of please-come-waste-your-money-things and the smile in their faces... it was nice talking some hebrew to them too :)

The guys in school so far know me as the "half brasilian half israeli guy", that sounds a bit funny to me... let's see what a nickname i'll receive after all.

Tomorrow I'll get to know my instructor and get acquainted with the way of studying in school. I'll keep you posted, for those interested on following my steps.... or for those who are just curious, or enjoying some time-off-internet-reading.

Welcome aboard, and enjoy the ride...