Ninja’s blog

Folks,

I thought I'd post this to give you an idea of the chatter that goes on as pilots join circuit on approach for landing.

For those who don't know, Oshkosh in Wisconsin is THE biggest aviation show in the world. And each year the Oshkosh airport is like a mecca for general aviation enthusiasts from all over the world. A tonne of these people fly in to the show and that truly makes Oshkosh the world's busiest airport for the one week festival. I'm told that Avalon in Victoria doesn't even come close to matching Oshkosh.

The tower guys have their hands full trying to keep the traffic flowing nice and safe for everyone to come in.

The interesting thing you will hear in the chatter is the ATC guy asking some pilots to "rock your wings" if they understand. And this is really important to pilots everywhere. Language, instructions and airport procedures all have slight variations, plus the fact that every pilot is trained and used to something that's a bit different to others. Good to know that the traffic controllers recognise this and use plain language to guide the planes in as they join the circuit to come in. And if something's not working out, they will not hesitate to ask pilots to go-around.

I'm not sure what "FISK" means - I think it's the US version of what we call ATIS (automatic terminal information service) in Oz. This is a regularly updated generic aerodrome flight condition status that's pre-recorded. Planes can tune into the ground frequency to check for things like wind speed, wind direction, which runways are for inbound-outbound traffic, QNH settings (altimeter setting specific for the airport) etc.

I've got an eye on being at Oshkosh next year and see the fuss for myself.

Ninja

Folks,

It was a good flying day today: low winds, some puffy clouds but otherwise a lovely VMC (visual meteorological conditions) day for VFR flying.

Which meant that the airspace over Jandakot was busy. Coupled with the fact that there was an aviation tribute to the late Aussie aviatrix Nancy Bird-Walton at the Perth foreshore and there were plenty of vintage planes which flew in for that at 11am this morning, it did have an impact at Jandakot. Well, my lesson was at 1pm and by the time I was doing my second circuit, tower told us to do a full stop landing and hold short of Runway 30 while they sequenced a squadron of the oldies for landing. It was quite a sight to see 4-5 bright yellow Tiger Moths plus a few other classics coming in to land at almost standstill airspeed on final. Pity I couldn't grab some footage on my mobile as I was busy holding my position in the takeoff queue behind two other light aircraft.

The Good

Anyway, my pre-flights are getting faster and my taxiing has vastly improved. And being told to do left hand circuits on Runway 30 is actually great because it is a wider runway and the approach is less intimidating compared with Runway 24L. I joked with Min that I therefore had more room to weave since there was more room. She laughed, I did, too but deep down I have been cross with myself all week for not getting rid of this "yip".

So, a shorter flight log today folks.

Take-off roll outs were good. I managed to keep KMB on the centreline before pulling up at 65 knots.

In fact, I'm pleased with my progress up till about short final on the circuit. This is when KMB is about 150ft AGL (above ground level), engine power is down to about 1100-1200rpm and I'm probably 50m just shy of the runway piano keys. This is when the yips start.

The Bad

My final line-up is good but I am somehow just a tad too high or airspeed just that fraction too fast as I power down to idle rpm (about 750rpm on KMB) when I cross the runway threshold. So I go into quick correction mode: pitch down to lose the altitude.

The Ugly

But this means the airspeed picks up a notch. Then my eyes are fixated on the tarmac. Shit!!! Then I pull back on the yoke to flare, but now the attitude of the wings is starting to bank slightly right at 30ft AGL. So I work the left aileron to correct my attitude. All this while KMB is about to touchdown... my head's all in a mess as we have a somewhat heavy landing. Now I'm working the pedals furiously to keep KMB centred on the runway, retract the flaps, two trims forward of the wheel before whacking the throttle up to full power to take-off again on the second circuit.

The Plan

I know what has to be done. Min said I needed to fixate on the horizon more as I get towards short final instead of looking down. She's right. It's target fixation. This is what I learned riding motorcycles; you never fixate on traffic coming in the opposite direction or you'll invariably veer across. The same thing's happening here with me and landing the damn plane. I'm focusing too hard on the threshold and forgetting to prepare for what lies a couple of steps ahead. And this causes my workload to rush at me quickly (literally) and I'm not giving myself enough time to respond immediately on landing. This also explains why I'm having these annoying post-landing weaves on the landing roll-out and pre-takeoff. I reckon if I can improve my short final preps to gain an extra 3 seconds, the weaves will be a thing of the past.

I recall my struggles with Straight and Level Flying back in June, and the same feeling of frustration is too familiar. I know what I've got to do. Time and practice are what's needed; I can't fix this any other way. Flight Sim can get me some of the way there but it can't simulate the updraft turbulence that always happens on final approach. This is what causes the aircraft's attitude to get off the runway's centre, requiring more rudder/aileron/throttle coordination. And this is where time starts to condense and the cockpit workload builds. This is exactly the phase of my circuit session where I have to focus on.

I shared with Min that I was getting angry with myself for not getting rid of my yips, but she's cool with it. A quick Google around and I found that a lot of student pilots did anywhere between 8-25 hours of circuit training before being asked to solo. I checked my log and found that I've only done 3.6 hours of circuit training including today. Maybe I'm being unrealistic to expect miracles. Perhaps there's also a lesson here about safety in wanting to rush things along. Still, I'm just not built to accept something less than good when I know I can do this.

So, I've got a few more circuit sessions to go yet. I'm thinking maybe I should take a few days off work to go flying 3-4 days consecutively to really lock in my lessons. We shall see. 

Till the next instalment, clear prop!

Ninja 

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/join-muslim-asia-or-perish-taliban/story-e6frg6nf-1225794873972

Folks,

I'd like to think of myself as a fair-minded bloke who doesn't mind having his eyes opened occasionally to better ideas and ways of living. Lord knows I'm the same dumb shit as I was the day I was born.

But when I hear that there are people out there who'd be arrogant enough to think that I HAVE to choose their way of life or die, that's when the gloves come off.

How dare these SOBs tell me in my own home how I should live or who I choose to worship??! Do I ever want to see Australia darkened by the rubbish we see happening in the backward townships across the Middle East? Do I want the female members of my family to forever be second-class citizens and have their life choices diminished because of their gender? Do I want to always be declaring war on people simply because they might choose to wear normal clothes instead of a maxi-kaftan? Do I want to force people to be carbon-copy fools because some bearded moron said so? And do I want all children to be forced to recite the Koran from sunrise to sunset, and forget what it means to be nice to our neighbours of all persuasions? HELL FRIGGIN' NO!!!

I also think these imbeciles forget that many amongst us left Islamic countries to come to lands like Australia because of that very reason - we DO NOT accept Islam (or any religion for that matter) to be the guiding ideology that underpins the proper running of a fully-functioning democracy. The laws of this land are what makes us tick and gives us the right to pursue everything within our powers to make a decent life for ourselves, our families and our community - without fear or favour, no matter who you are. We accept all comers to this country - even some who really should be booted out without a second glance. But we are fair-minded and decent folk who happen to believe in a fair go. But there is a limit to that compassion, especially when threats are issued such as the one from the Taliban.

So if the Taliban thinks that they can push little ol' me and my mates in Oz around, they're sadly and badly mistaken. Very terribly mistaken. I used to understand why there was so much bitterness in the Middle East. I still do. But that all changed for me in July when I very nearly became a stat to the indiscriminate Islamic-based hatred that we see around the world. No more. Gloves are off.

Ninja

http://youngestround.blogspot.com/

Folks,

Follow young Jess as she makes her way around the world in her tiny boat.

Ninja

Folks,

It's not for the horses that I stop on the first Tuesday of every November. Rather, I stop and enjoy the photos of the aftermath of the race when the beautifully coiffed and dressed ladies on race day display their totally au naturelle look when the alcohol finally takes its toll.

I miss the displaced hats, the unkempt hairdos, the smeared lippy, the vomit-stained dresses and legs akimbo next to the toilet block in drunken stupor. Oh where, where art thou????

Sorry, was I too forthright? Yeah, the blokes are no better, too.

Ninja

Folks,

I had two sets of kids in our neighbourhood come round to trick-and-treat last night. Old-timers here will know of my aversion to this "celebration" in Australia because frankly, it's a borrowed habit that's neither here nor there for the majority of Aussies.

A family three doors down brought their kids and some of their little mates over to my place and the motley crew stuck their hands out for lollies. I said to the parents: "I'm not ready for this guys."

The mother goes: "That's alright, I've got some pretend treats so here, take them and give them to the kids."

Not wanting to spoil little Jack and Jill's dress-up adventure, I took the lollies, went back inside the house, asked them knock on my door again and then pretend that I had sweets to give to the little takkers. Sheesh!

There were the little Scream ghosts, a few witches and other kids who looked like they were too old to be out hunting for lollies.

I'm totally opposed to this Halloween palava being adopted down here because it has absolutely nothing in common with our culture. Why this has taken off I'll never really grasp, but to me it suggests a lack of respect for our own culture that we have to blindly follow something as silly as this.

Next year, I'm going to be prepared with a blood-stained t-shirt, an axe and put on a really bad southern accent with whiskey breath for when the kids rock up with their folks to ask for lollies. That'll scare them shitless and give me a good laugh.

Ninja

Folks,

After a hiatus of 2 weeks, I was back inside the cockpit of Kilo Mike Bravo today for more circuits. No question about it; I'm being trained intensely to get to my first Basic Aeronautical Knowledge (BAK) test. This precedes my first solo.

Truth be told, I felt a little jetlagged this arvo after having come home very early this morning from Papua New Guinea where I'd spent five days listening to how that country is going to be changed dramatically in the next 5-10 years due to a higher degree of oil-gas-mineral exploitation. But that's another story for this blog, which I will talk about later.

So, at 1300 I'm off to tackle my pre-flights on KMB and I'm getting faster at it. I think this comes also from being more familiar with the aircraft and getting to a good mental space with it. I won't bore you guys with all the gory details now, since most of it you would already have read about in previous log entries.

Tower clears us for left circuit training on Runway 24L, so off I taxi towards it. Even managed to park in the run-up area to do my final pre-takeoff checks without the park brakes running off on me. One quirk I've found on the Boomerang is that its rudder pedals are bloody stiff. You really need to get your boots in to make them work. And to set the park brake, you really need to step on them hard and pull the handbrake lever out. This is important because if you don't have enough pressure on the pedals prior to setting the park brake, the aircraft will creep forward in your run-up check as you increase the throttle to 1800rpm to test the magnetos and carbie heat. Not a desirable situation if there are other aircraft parked alongside also doing their run-up checks prior to take-off. So, I gave the pedals a good couple of boots and set the brake. Voila! It worked! Check - brakes sorted.

On completion of run-up checks, I taxi off towards Runway 24L and tower clears me for take-off.

Today was very windy and I felt it heaps on landing as my final approach was buffeted by strong headwinds. Anyway, my take-off was not bad as I managed to keep her straight on full power (enough right rudder and taps on the left to balance) before pulling up on 65 knots.

I had trepidations yesterday afternoon about today's lesson when I was busy reading my previous notes and ground school stuff. In these early days of my training, one thing I am constantly anxious about is how much have I retained and how much have I forgotten. This is one major reason why I blog about all of my lessons and then re-print them for my training file to re-live the experience. As if that's not enough, I then get on flight sim to try and simulate what actually happened during my lesson - including power and trim settings of the aircraft during my circuits. A geek, I know!

But the notes are invaluable as I remembered the altitude to climb to (600ft) on the upwind leg, then do a climbing turn on the crosswind leg to 1000ft before levelling off and powering down to 2300rpm. I then do a medium level left turn to get onto the downwind leg (parallel to Runway 24L) and do my en-route checks:
- Brakes off
- Fuel set to rich
- Tank set to fuller tank (today it was the right)
- Fuel pump on
- Quick scan of engine T&Ps
- Give KMB a blast of carbie heat
- Check hatches and seat belts.. and then

Me: "Kilo Mike Bravo, downwind touch and go."
ATC: "Kilo Mike Bravo, follow behind Cessna 152 in sequence, cleared for touch and go."
Me: "Kilo Mike Bravo, following behind Cessna 152, cleared for touch and go."

My radio calls are getting a bit better but I need more time to get faster and smoother at the mechanical stuff during my circuits, so that this would leave me enough time to focus also on the radio calls. And the wind noise did make it hard - even with my headset on - to hear the chatter. There was a "November Mike Bravo" flying around today, which sounded awfully close to "Kilo Mike Bravo" in my headset. I did look at Min once and indicated "Was that for me??" There are plenty of things going on in the cockpit, especially in circuits as actions happen in pretty rapid succession as we go round and round the airport. As the schoolies would say, I'm "consolidating". There is such a thing as cockpit workload and it is something I need to pay special attention to in learning the right habits to give myself enough time for everything. It is very easy to miss things up there if you're not careful, especially the en-route checks.

I also remembered when to power down to 1500rpm when turning base and dialling in 10 per cent of flaps to get us down to the right airspeed.

The main thing I learned today was to get all the hard work done on the base leg and in the early part of your final approach - set the right approach to the runway threshold, trim the aircraft so that you're not fighting the elevator pressure, feel the power working its magic on descent to give you sufficient altitude. Once these things are sorted, by the time you reach the short final (about 100m from the runway's piano keys), it is actually a smooth glide down.

The winds did cause me some anxiety as it was rather hard to aim for the runway in a straight line. This is where I have to get used to using more rudder in conjunction with more ailerons to keep the aircraft aimed straight and level on final approach.

Key thing today was that I didn't do any hard landings. But my pedal work still isn't good enough because while the landings were okay, the immediate aftermath on landing was that my aircraft still weaved left and right somewhat while I'm  re-trimming and raising the flaps, before my next take-off. I think my brain needs to snap out of the focus on landing and quickly start to think a couple of steps ahead of what I have to do. This is where experience and unconscious learning are important. I suspect that once I'm there, landings will actually be when I start prepping for my roll-out and take-off, and the damn plane will no longer weave on the roll-out! I'm actually pretty pissed off that I'm still slow on this part of the process.

So, we did five T&Gs and a final full-stop landing and taxi-off, which were fairly good. Min took over to taxi back because I think she was keen for another student to use KMB instead of Delta Xray Whiskey, which was being pre-flighted for circuits as well. This is the business end of flight schools - capacity utilisation and maximising income. Can't blame Min because as we approach summer, this is the start of the busy season for her. It is neither easy nor cheap to keep a flight school running profitably anywhere these days.

Alright, so the biggest takeaways for me today were:
- Get all the flight configurations sorted on the base and early final legs.
- This will leave plenty of time for me to focus on targeting for the runway, landing and a quick roll-out for the next take-off.
- Work on those damn pedals on the roll-out!

Till the next time my friends, clear prop!

Ninja

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific_business/view/1013253/1/.html

Folks,

I'd imagine that Beijing has managed to extract this deal from Canberra as part of a concession on the troubles surrounding the Stern Hu affair.

It is a significant price to pay and Rio Tinto still needs to be brought to account for its back-room dealings in trumping Chinalco in favour of BHP; let's not lose sight of that issue.

As I said all those months ago, the trouble surrounding Stern Hu's detention is going to be worked out quietly behind the scenes and this Yanzhou takeover of Felix Resources is but a start. You bet Beijing will be using every lever possible to extract what it seeks from Canberra. And Rio Tinto thought they were clever by doing what they did...

Ninja

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26252677-601,00.html

Folks,

This is a significant opportunity for Australia to forge closer ties with Indonesia. Diplomatic relations always take a turn for the better when both sides pull together in times of adversity; the aftermath of the Aceh tsunami was a case in point although the momentum for that was lost sometime in 2006-07.

Now that the asylum seeker issue is back on the radar, literally, Canberra and Jakarta really ought to be sitting down and nutting out what has to happen and who does what. All upside, no downside... provided sufficient goodwill exists on both sides to make the effort.

SBY has just been inaugurated for his second term and there are plenty of signs that Indonesia is fast re-asserting itself as an ASEAN powerhouse. And Rudd needs to get this vexatious issue under control before another dozen boats surface on the radar to give us more cause for concern.

One wonders whether or not there is a case for ASEAN to be roped into a potential regional solution to asylum seekers heading this way. If the asylum seekers are using Indonesia as a stepping stone to, for instance, get to Oz, then I'd say that some obligation does impact on ASEAN member countries such as Singapore, Malaysia or Thailand or even Brunei to lend a hand. What good is regional cooperation when neighbours talk but don't do?

Ninja

Folks,

Another milestone to share with you. The youngest Ninjette this evening officially graduated from high school! She's got her TEE/HSC exams in early November, so there's one major hurdle left. But she's got her head finally screwed on right and is doing the hard yards now.

As with things like this, I always feel that bit older... but profoundly satisfied. That's what I toil for, that the younger ones get a better start in life than the one I had.

Ninja