Tick Tock Tick Tock

Wow, I certainly am feeling the hours and minutes as they pass between between my toes these days.

Two weeks now till I get in the car and point it North.

Yesterday morning was D-Day down at Transport Canada as I went in at 0900 and sat down to the first of two exams, back to back.

The first one I've been studying for over the last five months in between work, raising a newborn and surfing the internet, reading pilot-blogs. The second one, not quite as much. The first exam is for my Instrument Rating, the INRAT exam. I printed off a copy of the study and reference guide from Transports website and have worked my way down the list of recommended reading material and exam topics.

If TC wrote a written exam for driving a car, for example, the study guide might say something like " Steering Pinion Torque Sensing " and after dutifully studying steering design for thirty-some odd hours including the full engineering history, design and practical operation, you would get one of the two following questions:

If turning to the right, the control wheel should be rotated in which direction?

A.) Clockwise
B.) Counter-Clockwise
C.) Both
D.) Up

And you would sigh about all that brain space dedicated to the knowledge of the brothers Rack and their French competitors, the Pinion freres and their ground breaking work in the field of vehicle steering.

Or, you get one of these;

If the Over-Limit stops on the starboard side of the steering Rack are engaged, what is maximum pressure allowed in the hydraulic fluid bypass orifice before the hydraulic pump reverts to the standby mode?

A.) 6
B.) 42
C.) Clockwise
D.) Up

And it all becomes worthwhile....



Anyhow, I passed the INRAT with a respectable score. I felt I got a fair mix of questions type one and two as above and my " knowing " of the answers before seeing the choices was pretty accurately matched by my final score. Sometimes with multiple choice exams, you know you were guessing on lets say, 25% of the questions, you had no real clue as the correct answer, yet you got an 85% mark.... I got 4 questions wrong in the end and two of them, I knew were wording issues that could have been interpreted two different ways ( and of course those answers were represented among the available choices.. ).

The other two, were part of a larger series of say a half dozen related questions, and I'm not sure which ones I got wrong. They don't tell you specific questions you got wrong, only give you a generic area of knowledge that you need to study on. Its so awesome when the back of the exam sheets says you need remedial study on " The Atmosphere. " or " Aerodynamics, Flight ".

Sigh.

Anyhow.... The other exam, was the IATRA. I think it used to stand for Intermediate aircraft Type Rating or something along those lines. Apparently it doesn't stand for anything anymore, but they kept the acronym as it was catchy. I concur.

I looked at the study guide for this one about the same time I started the course about five months ago and noted that it had a lot of similarities to the INRAT and those areas where it differed were actually very similar to the Flight Dispatcher exams I wrote a couple years ago. I planned on writing this one at some point, just not at the same time, or under the gun time-wise. I didn't look at the study guide again, to avoid getting distressed about being woefully unprepared, as I simply didn't have the time to study for it, so it was a moot point.

Even so, I scored fairly well on it at the end of the day. I did however notice a differential in the ratio of Questions-Known to Questions-Guessed and the multiple choice format gave me a few extra points for being able to successfully pick a letter out of four possible choices.

So, those hurdles are down, and they were weighing fairly heavily on me. Pooch either of those exams and I would be re-writing them on the day before I am scheduled to leave. Do the unthinkable and fail them a second time and I'd be kissing this job goodbye, as there would be a 30-day wait till a third try would be allowed.

Back in the Simulator today to brush up on a couple of things, the last sim session I will probably do. As my instructor pointed out to me, hopefully the last sim session that I have to pay for, hopefully, in my career. If there were any more for me in the future, they would/should be paid for by the employer.

I'm glad to be rid of that thing now too. In the beginning, I loved it for the savings versus trying to learn some of the IFR stuff in the aircraft with that insane meter spinning like crazy... But, I've had a hell of a time controlling the sim during the engine-failure-under-IFR portion. During these sessions, one of the simulated engines on the simulated multi-engine plane is failed during a flight where all reference is by instruments only ( ie in cloud ). In the real aircraft the nose yaws noticeably over to one side, but is controlled by the rudder and bank angle with pretty authoritative result. There is also all kinds of feedback in the controls and the aircraft itself to guide you through it as well.

In the sim, she simply pulls hard over and tries to roll over on her back. I get stuck trying to wrestle it back under some semblance of control and usually end up doing a poor job of the engine feather part because I know that feathering the prop probably wont change the outcome of the flight if its done while inverted.



This is a picture of a coal-fired power plant out in the prairies. I found it neat that it created its own little fog/cloud bank over the discharge pond/slough where the hot water is ejected after the steam turns the power turbine. If you look closely too, you can clearly see the the piles of coal where they get stockpiled and then hauled to the plant by truck.







More drama with the last push to get things wrapped up before the end of the month, but the list of Must-Have-Done things is shrinking quickly, while the list of hmm-that-might-be-a-good-idea continues to grow.

I have two more IFR Cross-country flights to do, booked in for next weekend. One of them has to be 100nm in length and the other is just a training flight to a couple local airports to do a few different types of approaches and sample some of the airspace around here.

One big shopping day has to get done at some point. I've been growing a list of stuff I need for the new neighbourhood, mostly decent outdoor clothing and a few household items for the summer abode.

I need to cancel my car insurance once i arrive up North, as my employer is giving me the use of a small truck for the summer.

I need to pack up my computer and make sure I have a wireless receiver installed so I have internet access while up there. The XBox will probably stay home for this trip as I don't have a decent enough TV to play it on anyways and there is no way I'm showing up at my new job with a TV in the back seat of my car.

I need to get our good car tuned-up, cleaned up and oil-changed before the end of the month so it can be passed over to TLW. It is overdue for both the tune-up and the oil change, hasn't been vacuumed in a shameful amount of time and has recently developed a little rattle in the exhaust system at certain RPM's. I suspect a hangar is busted and needs a little work before it develops into something worse.

I need to get all my tax paperwork in order and either take it with me to finish electronically up there, or find time to do it here. I have a small amount of self-employment income, expenses and training expenses for my foray into freelance ultralight-instructing last summer and now we have a Dependant to add into the mix of income tax excitement.

There's lots more stuff to get done, and more seems to get added to the list everyday...strangely though, the amount of time I have left to get it accomplished seems to keep shrinking...almost daily it seems!

I'm throwing in some pictures I took during my trip up North-ish back in February to my self-invited interview for the other job. Mostly because I have no relevant pictures to add and I feel bad about that.



This was kind of funny. We had a fairly high-end car parked in one of our hangars while it awaited sale at an auction. This is pretty common, only the proletariat park their cars in "garages", the true elite hangar their rides.

Anyhow, I was assisting a flight crew off their aircraft and over to their hotel with one of our vans and while we waited for the last crew member to finish up on the plane, some of the others expressed an interest in the car they could see through the widow, so I gave them the 50-cent tour. One of them actually showed me a neat feature of this Rolls-Royce SomeThingOrOther. When the driver opens one of the rear doors for his or her passenger, their is a little button on the inside of the door-jamb that you press. Presto! out pops an umbrella, stored neatly in the doorframe. Sweet.

They asked whose it was and I replied jokingly that it probably belonged to a (ex) drug dealer as it was currently up for auction sale. We then peeked in the trunk and it was completely empty, except for a small brick-sized packed wrapped up in duct-tape and bubble-wrap in the middle of the trunk floor. Looking like a brick of contraband like you might have seen on Miami Vice... If you are that old that you know what Miami Vice is. Or that young that you know what gets wrapped in duct tape and bubble wrap in the truck of a (ex)drug dealers Rolls.

Big things are afoot....

Wow, a lot has happened over the last three weeks or so.

Pretty much every single " plan " that I had in store for this summer and ALL of my tenuous job leads or options, have changed or disappeared altogether.

TLW and I went out East to visit my mum and had a great time. I promise a post about this at some point in the future, but I'm a little short on free time at the moment... The Wee One had ZERO issues on the plane, in fact she passed out the moment the engines lit up on all four flights. Even the longest leg of almost 6 hours was no problem for her. Seatmates all around were pleased by this development, as were we.

Northern fueling / flying job disappeared into the fog of the employer simply never getting back to me...at some point I wrote it off, and of course the next day they email to tell me they are posting the job opening and for me not to worry, I was still in the running. Phone call about two weeks later tells me, sorry, you are now, in fact, out of the running.

Skydive pilot job out east that they seemed quite eager to have me fly for them, also disappears with the owner telling me he will call me when he is in town so we can have an interview face-to-face. His trip dates come, no call. I email to remind him we were going to get together before he leaves town...leave-town date comes and goes without a reply and I still haven't heard back. No phone number for him as the drop-zone is closed for the season and he is still on the road...

Kinda got me thinking about meat-bombing, so I obsess on it for a few weeks and apply to pretty much ever drop zone in the country. Got a few replies, but nothing that looked liked it had any legs.

I learn that amongst skydiving types, a " Whuffo " is a derogatory term for a non-skydiving person, whose stereotypical question is along the lines of " Whuffo you wan jump outta dat a'plane? "

Then TLW wakes me up one morning.

" There is a phone call for you, some guy from the Northwest Territories, wake up. "

A brief phone interview ensues. I got the company name at the start of the call, while I was still waking up, and by the time I realized what was going on, I had forgotten it. It was now too far into the call to ask for it without sounding half-asleep, stupid, or both. Luckily, they have a very unique aircraft type and I CSI'd them and their website after the call.

Two days later, there is an arranged conference call with the CP and the guy who originally called me. The job is offered, accepted and start date set.

June 1st I'm outta here!!

I am going to try and keep things as confidential as I can, at least for awhile. If you know, or figure out, who I am working for, please keep it to yourself.

I'm packing up the car and heading north ( over 2000 kms north ) at the end of this month and have definite plans to be there for the summer and am hoping it turns into more.

TLW and TWO, will be staying down here, until we know if this will be a permanent or seasonal position, which I most likely will not know till late summer. It was hard last time I went away, more for TLW then it was for me as I simply had too little time to feel sorry for myself or my situation. This time, she's the one with the distractions and the preoccupation, and I'm the one who will be challenged.

I am playing ostrich with this one and trying not to talk or think too much about how much I am going to miss my girls.

But things are moving forward again and we both are EXTREMELY excited by this turn of events. Who knows if it will turn out to be a good thing or not, at least things are happening.


So, watch this space... The next couple of weeks will be an insane rush of finishing off the IFR training and getting ride-ready so I can do a PPC ride to complete my IFR. I need to write both the INRAT and IATRA exams in 5 days. Both to get it out of the way and also to ensure I have a chance to re-write if it comes to that, as there is a 14-day waiting period between a failed exam and the next rewrite.

I've been studying for 4 months, so I am hoping for a positive result.

So, if you've suffered through the last year or so of banality, spotty posting schedules and pathetic whining, stick around, things are about to get fun again...

J is also for Just trying....

Totally off-topic, but a blog that I follow posted a story about a Paramedic down in California who was attacked after a baseball game in LA. He was wearing the "wrong" jersey apparently and is now in intensive care in an LA hospital.

There is a million sad stories like this playing out around the world, every minute of every day, even as we speak. Think about your situation, sitting on your computer reading this....can you compare or even convincingly empathize with someone in the intensive care waiting room, waiting for news of your father and his senseless injury or death?

You can't solve the worlds problems, but you can't turn away from them all either.

To donate, or to hear the full story, please click below.


http://www.smco-ems.com/bryanstow.html

If you can't donate, I bet you can tell this story or pass the link to at least two people in the next 24 hours....

It could be as easy as posting two paragraphs on your blog or cut-and-pasting the above onto your facebook status...

J is for Job....

( I know, shameless, but if TLW can play dress-up with her, why can't I ? )

Ok, I'll admit it, I am pretty much stumped for a ramp-related entry that would fall under the letter J.

A couple of other bloggers who I follow have both posted recently on the subject of jobs, or lack thereof, and since I am furiously job-hunting as well, I thought I could stretch it into something. Since the whole point of doing the A-Z thing was really nothing more than a way to kick myself in the ass and actually churn out an entry or two now and then, I figure it fits the spirit, if not the letter of the law.



I'm a big fan of following blogs. I feel a little bit like I'm watching some sort of reality-show, but the realest kind. There's little in the way of editing and it all happens in relative real-time. In following along with someone, you build an idea of the " character " with tidbits of information picked up in their entries over a couple of years. As well as glimpses into their personality that they probably didn't even intend to impart, but as the "viewer" you get to see, regardless if they meant for you to see it or not.

In a reality show, they'd edit out the bits that didn't fit the character they are trying to portray, you only see exactly what they want you to see. In a blog, the blogger probably tries to do the same, but given the nature of your average bloggers post-production editing skills, you probably get a lot more.

There is also the aspect of the interaction, in a blog, you can ask a question after the "episode", in the comments section. You'll usually get a response as well, adding a whole nother layer to the experience.

Its actually easy to forget that these are REAL people, leading real lives.


Another Happy Customer - this one bought a MASSIVE gift basket as a thank-you gift for the FBO crew. Some seriously high end chocolates and all manner of exotic treats. Very classy!

Anyhow.... Both Dagny and Aviatrix, two aviation-blogging-action-figures whose entire seasons I have followed over the last four years or so, have both lamented on their dogged, but unsuccessful-to-date job searches. I might as well join in...

To really and truly complete the illusion that this is somehow related to working at an airport, I'm going to stretch the J is for Jobs connection by commenting on the fact that there usually are a lot of pilots hidden in the mix of baggage handlers, tug operators and other airport workers.

At the FBO where I work, I've personally seen two guys go from bag smasher to Multi-Turbine FO's in a little less than four years. One of them flies on a KingAir 350 doing the medevac thing and the other is sitting in the right seat of a Citation XLS. Albeit, the Jet-guy ( Citation XLS ) had a few years of instructing time to add to his credentials... I suspect that the KingAir-guy has probably surpassed him now, as they fly the living snot out of that machine...


I came across another blog the other day as well, worth checking out. Back story appears to be; local BC boy gets pilots license, smashes bags in YYZ for awhile, moves to Newfoundland to work as a dispatcher, buys camera, starts blog. Funnily enough, as the blog is not on blogger, I can't follow it with my usual methods, and it had me linking to my facebook page if I wanted to "follow". I did that, I like to get new entries from blogs I follow as-they-are-posted instead of catching up on them en masse, or worse, forgetting all about them.. Then I noticed on the facebook link that he is friends with two people I know from the airport out here...both pilots and ex bag-smashers as well.... haha.

Anyhow, when you finish flight school and you have little else to offer an employer than your meagre Transport Canada Minimum required hours, pretty much ANYTHING to do with an airport environment or an aircraft could be considered an additional skill. I'm kind of getting to the point though that I feel like I'm spending a little too-much time hanging out at the airport again and not getting on with getting on. I suppose you can chalk that up to basically taking a year-off to hatch our new family addition, but it starts to feel a little depressing watching people who were a year ahead of you at one point in a career progression be three years ahead of you now...




So, Plan A was to find gainful aviation employment for this summer. Originally, we were going to limit my searches to permanent, year-round, worth-moving-for opportunities. Didn't matter where and would most likely be somewhere of less than desirable locale... This plan sort-of hinged on my completing the MIFR well before spring. That isn't going to happen now. In fact, I would count myself lucky to have a Multi-Engine rating before I get my first sun-burn this year, at the rate things are going.

Between my schedule with work, The Wee One and The Lovely Wife's study schedules it was already going to be a stretch. Throw in an aircraft that has been down for maintenance for over a month now, and a solid month of absolute crap weather before that...well, you get the idea.

I've beat the hell out of the simulator in that time, skipping ahead to the IFR portion of the course while we waited for the Multi-Engine Aeroplane to rejoin the living. Good use of the time I suppose, but in light of some of the prospects for this summer, it might be a bit of a waste of time at this point.

Anyhow, Plan A started to look iffy at best, so we decided to open up the possibility of ANYTHING. Another season away working a seasonal position, a ground job that had prospects, ANYTHING.

So, I've been dutifully sending out emails and cover letters to all the contacts in my prospects list. Over the last two years, I've maintained the list, adding actual peoples names as they've replied and told me to PFO ( Please F%^&^ Off ) and a shorter list of people who have replied with even a hint of interest in my resume in the past.

Oh - side note. I looked up PFO to see if there was an actual abbreviation that had been bastardized or if it really existed in it's commonly understood form.

Turns out, PFO does actually mean Please F&*k Off and is common use, apparently even in some HR departments.

One other notable use of the acronym PFO was in British Emergency rooms, usedto classify a type of injury common on weekend evenings... Pissed, Fell Over. I'm not even making this up.

So anyhow, not too much in the way of results on the job front, but here's where I am;

Plan A.2

Ground job in a Northern Place. Company owns at least a half dozen aircraft and phone-interviewed me last year( I didn't get it last year ). I stayed in touch with a couple emails over the winter and a self-invited visit/interview to their facility in February. They've advertised the position, but emailed me before-hand to let me know I am still in the running, but they have to advertise the spot before they hold formal interviews and/or hire someone. I hold my chances at this one to be a little better than 50/50. I suspect I would be worth a lot more to them in the long-run with a MIFR and my lack thereof for this spring might hurt my chances. I do however have experience with the ground position duties and am qualified for their entry-level aircraft. In theory, as long as I got a MIFR in the first two years of working for them, I wouldn't ever be under-qualified for internal movement, assuming normal progression. If FO Freddie runs off to Air Canada without notice, and I'm the only one around but lacking a MIFR...well, it would be like having your headphones on and not hearing the " Does anyone on board have a pilots license? " call on the P.A....


Plan B.1

I emailed the owner of a sky-diving outfit ( known as a Drop-Zone, or DZ ) in a far-flung corner of the country. The owner would like to have a sit-down interview in late April when he passes through where I am now. Basically, if I was to live near the DZ, it sounds like there would be a fair bit of work for me. It looks like a lot of fun, and I didn't see any pictures of moose carcasses on their website. I would however, have to relocate to said far-flung corner and the financial considerations of trying to subsist on what would essentially be a part-time job are not exactly adding up. It wouldn't take much to make up the difference though, so I'm not giving up on this just yet, perhaps I can do some freelance moose-carcass transporting at night, who knows.


Plan C.1

I sent a bazillion resumes out to owners and chief pilots of flying services associated with fishing lodge and outpost operations. My reply-rate when I had a total of Zero experience in this market segment was about 6 replies to 200 resumes. Those 6 replies included those who took the time to tell me to not bother them with my useless resume. This time, with the possibility of another season away from home, doubly difficult now to even consider with a certain soon-to-be-walking-and-talking individual in our little household, my 200 resumes got me about two dozen replies. A solid half dozen of those expressed sincere interest, but no offers of a job. I knew float-season hiring had already come and gone, but at that time, going away was off the table.

The sincere replies mostly consisted of " we have our pilots hired for this year, but, as always, someone inevitably flakes out once the season is underway and you are top of the list to get a call if/when they do ".

Plan D.1

Keep plugging away at the MIFR and accept the fact that I might not get any flying work this summer. I make pretty good money at my present job and I do get to work near airplanes. Another year of equity in the condo ( which is getting smaller by the day, due to you-know-who's newfound mobility ), another year of family close-by while our little girl is still little. And of course, another year behind....

It might even work out well to not complete the IFR part right away, most of the simulator stuff we do at the flight school for 150 bucks an hour can be practised at home on my computer for roughly , oh, nothing per hour, and done ad nauseum. It sure would be nice to go into a flight test actually feeling comfortable with the material..

Plan E.1

Screw it. I'm going fishing.

I is for International Garbage

Yeah, thats pretty much all I can come up with for I...its a little bit of a stretch as all I could think of was " International ". Theres lots of Intl things going on out at the airport, but most people are aware of most of them. International Flights, International Customs, International Arrivals, yada yada yda.

But there is actually such a thing as International Garbage.

See, when a flight arrives, everything on that flight that isn't part of the aircraft ( and will be subsequently leaving ) needs to clear customs.

The passengers get cleared, the crew gets cleared, even the aircraft itself gets cleared. Sometimes the booze and duty-free items on board the aircraft are even sealed by customs as a sort of " bonded cargo " where they have entered the country, but someone has promised that they will not be sold or consumed while visiting and will in fact leave again.

But there is an interesting grey area with the trash. The trash will indeed be staying, so it needs to be cleared right? I mean, you are importing all manner of stuff, including fresh fruit and vegetables which are a big non-no in many countries. They could be infested with foreigner-bugs after all! Just try bringing an orange through customs sometime and see how seriously they take it.

But your orange is nice and clean.

And it's not covered with a babies diaper, a pile of coffee grounds and a used sick-sac. The orange in the garbage is, so customs, while taking it seriously, don't actually want anything to do with it. So, between them and the airlines, they invented a procedure for dealing with International Garbage that looked good on paper and would convince any lawyers reading through the procedures manuals that all was being done tickety-boo.

The procedure, as I understand it, is to paint some of your dumpsters a different colour.

Ok, there's more to it than that, but its all on paper..the reality of it is....some of the dumpsters are painted a different colour.

Thats it.

They'd have you believe much more was being done, but to be blunt, no.

Some operations don't even have access to this special colour of paint and the garbage gets thrown in a regular green one.

Anyways, thats the story there. If you ever get the chance to take one of those college or trade school Airport Management courses and they start in on the International Garbage, just sit in the back row and snicker, you know the truth.

Its kind of sad sometimes to see what gets thrown in the trash after some flights. I mean, stocking the galley on a large charter airliner has its challenges. I'd compare it to stocking an RV for a long road trip. At home, you have all kinds of extra's that you dont think about, like ketchup or salt and pepper or forks. To set up for a charter, you have to bring EVERYTHING. A lot of the larger airliners that charter out tend to sit awhile between trips as well, so you can't just leave the fridge stocked, it all has to go at the end of the trip.

Enter the Lineman, who will helpfully take away this stuff ( and avoid it becoming Intl Garbage ) and see that it gets recycled ( yum! ). Or, follow your Ops Manual which spells out how International Garbage must be segregated and disposed of properly. sigh.

I remember one Global Express that came into town one night for a maintenance stop. It was actually at the end of a series of trips that had it pretty much continuously on the move for its corporate owners, shuttling around execs for a little over three months. The thing had literally been around the world a few times over, in each direction. As a result, the galley had slowly been stocked to the hilt with all the little accoutrements of a good kitchen. Spices, sauces and salad dressings from around the world. They handed us about a half dozen packed boxes full of all kinds of interesting stuff. ( Which we of course threw in the appropriate coloured dumpster...not )


Oh, and not Aviation or Ramp related, but a true story. This happened to TLW and I last year and I stumbled on this email summarizing the event for our strata council.

I is for Intruder

To whom it may concern,

On the morning of July XXth, 2010 a person claiming to be a XXXXX resident entered our unit, without our permission and refused to leave until the police were called and they were removed from our suite.

My wife and I were sleeping at approximately 0700 and were both awakened by a loud banging outside our patio door. It sounded like someone had hit our patio balcony glass several times with their hand. I got up and saw out the window a person standing on the walkway outside our ground-floor unit, with their back to the glass, partially obscured by the stone wall.

I went out on the patio to find out the reason for the disturbance at this hour and saw that it was a man in his late 20's or early 30's holding a small boy, perhaps 4 or 5 years old. I also noticed another resident across the street walking his dog, and he had made a comment to the gentleman with the child that " people are still sleeping you know ", most likely in response to having seen him banging on the glass.

I asked the man what the problem was and he said " theres something going on, you have to call the cops, theres someone in my apartment, you have to call the cops ". He appeared quite agitated and scared, along with his child. My first impression was that he was under the influence of drugs as he appeared quite nervous, sweaty and unable to stand still. I told him I would call the cops and went back inside my suite to get the phone.

As I picked up the phone, my wife, watching out the patio door yelled " He's throwing his baby over the deck! He's coming in! "

The man entered our suite with his child, through our patio door and went into our dining area and crouched down on the floor with his child. He instructed me to lock the door and call the cops. I told him at this point to leave our suite and that I was already calling the cops. He said he needed to stay here and to keep the doors locked, and that he did not want to leave.

He also told me at that point, that he was a resident of building XX, suite # XX. I spoke with the 911 dispatcher and passed that information to them as well.

While we waited for the police to arrive, my wife called our neighbour, XXXX, a member of strata council, and asked that he come over to make sure this was in fact a resident as well as to have additional assistance.

XXXX arrived and confirmed the man as a resident of XXXX and waited with us until the police arrived, approximately 10 minutes after the inital call. The entire time the man remained in our dining area, crouched on the floor with his child. He made several phone calls on our phone, at least one of which was to his father or father-in-law. As he had put his father on speaker-phone when he dialed, I heard his father ask him " what kind of trouble have you got yourself into this time ? ".

The police arrived and I let them into the building by passing them our fob over the patio railing. As soon as they entered our suite they called the man by his first name " XX ". He seemed surprised that they knew who he was, but one of the police made a comment that " oh, we know who you are, XX ". He was put into handcuffs and removed from our suite.

At this time the police took my name and details, but on my asking them if they needed a statement from me, they declined.

We will be following up with the XXX Police Service to ensure that charges of unlawful entry, trespassing, mischief, and/or break and enter have been laid against this individual. If charges have not been laid, an official complaint will be lodged with the Police Ombudsman.

I strongly urge strata to look into the status of the occupant(s) of Suite XXX in building XX and if in fact this person is a rental tenant, that steps be taken to evict this tenant.

On listening further to the police discussing the situation with the father outside our window as he was taking custody of the child, we heard that this family has had extensive problems with drugs and alchohol. The police also noted on entering the suite, that there was broken glass and evidence of some kind of altercation.

Domestic Garbage, that one.

Oh, no charges were laid against him. On following up with the cops, I was told by the investigating officer that he is a known crack-head and that he was having a paranoid episode, and " thats just the way it is when they on crack. ".

I further followed up with the Watch Commander to file a complaint or push to get a little more than a shrug of the shoulders, but no dice. He echoed the same sentiment.

There was a little more to it as well, as the officers responding in our suite actually thought that the boy was ours. While they were cuffing this guy, instructed my wife to go around behind this douchebag and get the kid. In hindsight, putting my 8 month pregnant wife in between a man and his child while he is being handcuffed inside an apartment he forced his way into while high on crack probably wasn't in her best interest. Especially since the cop had at least three of his buddies standing behind him with their thumbs in their belts that could have / should have, done that particular task.


Anyways, sorry for the lack of pictures with this post and lately in general...I haven't brought my camera to work for a while and have regretted it more than a few times.

H is for Heavy Pad

At our FBO we have two parking areas for large aircraft. These are areas of the ramp where the surface is made of reinforced Concrete instead of asphalt. The concrete can support much heavier loads than the asphalt and is thus the place where we park the big jets.

We have a little procedure we use for parking them that we like to call " spinning " them.



I tried to type up a description, but failed. Instead, behold my outside limits of my artistic abilities.

The red line represents the path you want the aircraft to take as you marshal it into position.

So, first off, the aircaft has to be kept close to the side of the ramp as they taxi in. as most of our larger aircraft arrive at night, some crews will be a little nervous about taxiing this close to the edge of the pavement. Crews that have been here before recognize the awesomeness that is our marshalling crew and will usually take direction well. Others, just don't.

Secondly, the path once the aircraft is on the pad and you are getting ready to " spin " them, needs to take a small 45 degree turn to it's right. This can be difficult to convey with marshalling wands. Technically, there is marshalling-ology for this and the degree of turn is sometimes indicated by the arm you are using to show the direction of turn being at a 90 degree angle to your body ( normal turn ) a higher angle, towards the ground, of say 120 degrees ( sharper turn ) or pointing sharply downwards, say 160 degrees, representing a hard turn.

If you are facing the aircraft and want it to turn to it's right, you indicate the direction of turn with an outstretched Left arm and wave the Right arm from an outstretched position, towards your head.

I've also seen it where the speed of the moving arm represents the sharpness of the turn.

As both are kind of obscure and usually not in most of the " official " marshalling guides, the second method usually works best as an increase in the speed of your signal is a little more obvious in my opinion.



In any case, the little 45 degree turn allows the Main Landing Gear to move up the pad, so that when you finally make the larger turn, the wing will be centred over the pad, instead of hanging over the grass. This way, we can get ground vehicles past that side of the aircraft and we don't have under-wing slung engines running over grass and ingesting lawn clippings.

The problem is that most crews who are first-time to our ramp, once they realize we are taxiing them towards the edge of the ramp to facilitate turning them around 180 degrees or so, figure that once you start them turning, they should power up and crank it over, all the way over.



A large aircraft requires a good deal of momentum, power or sometimes both, to make a sharp turn like that. Considering they are coming in slowly ( scared of taxiing off the edge of the ramp, in the dark and uncertain of the marshallers ) once they realize our intent-to-spin, as soon as you indicate any turn, they will usually pour the coals to her and crank the nosewheel over.

It can be a challenge to get the gentle turn in first.

Technically the 45 degree turn is followed by another little straight-ahead segment as well. If they've already powered up and cranked it over, when you suddenly switch from a turning indication to a straight-ahead one, there can be some hesitation to comply. In probably 20% of the cases, they simply decide you are an idiot and continue the turn.

Thats on their first visit. We'll take the time to explain what we are doing and we usually get a little more trust the next visit.

It has to be hard for some of the flight crews though. I've seen some linecrew ( thankfully not at our FBO ) who I wouldn't trust to marshal a golf cart around a football field, let alone a 100 million dollar jet around a small ramp, in the dark, full of millionaire passengers.


H is also for Hold Entries

Not much in the way of hold entries on the ramp, but there sure are a lot in my simulator sessions at the flight school lately.

A hold is a way for Air Traffic Control ( ATC ) to park you in the sky. This might be for traffic spacing, a closed airport, runway or other problem. It can also be used by the pilot to park themself in the sky for a bit. Perhaps to change plans, figure out an aircraft issue or anything else where you'd rather stay in one place instead of blundering off in one direction and then have to turn around and come all way back depending on the new plan.

So, a hold is a maneuver that will ensure an aircraft will stay within a prescribed area assigned to it by ATC ( the Protected Airspace ). A hold is also defined by a navigation "fix". A fix being a spot that can be defined by the navigation instruments in the cockpit. Usually a radio-based navigation aid, but can also be a GPS coordinate.

Depending on the direction that you are approaching the fix, there are three different maneuvers that you are recommended to use when entering the hold.

For those people who know what a hold is, I won't make you scratch your eyes out listening to me explain hold entries.

For those that don't know what a hold is, I won't make you scratch your eyes out listening to me explain hold entries.

Suffice to say there is a little bit of mental math and a whole lot of visualization to do it properly.

G is for Gear Pins

So, I've been working hard at my Multi Engine / IFR Rating.

The Lovely Wife has been working hard at a Medical Terminology course thats a pre-requisite for another course that starts in April.

I've been working my day job, TLW has been a full-time mommy for some time now and we've both been juggling study breaks, personal time and of course, night-shift with The Wee One.

It has gotten to the point where we have an online calendar that we both consult before doing anything, replete with respective study periods, class or lesson times, personal time blocks, family commitments, my work schedule and of course, a small portion of the day where we are expected to sleep...

Hectic, to say the least.

Unfortunately, blogging has taken a back seat to pretty much everything else. The only reason I'm typing this, is I should be practicing hold entries on flight sim and planning a mock IFR cross-country flight and my brain has surrendered. It was either this or play some mindless flash game on facebook.

I just saw The Social Network and have decided I need to stop giving those losers my money and/or contributing to their page-load counts.

In any case, heres an update on the last month or so and some of our happenings, aviation and otherwise.

The Wee One

TWO has had a few milestones lately. They seem to come so fast. Everything she does is usually a first of some sort or other and physiologically speaking, big things are afoot.

She just hit six months and we are easing her into "solids". I use that term loosely, and frankly, so do her bowels. A little Rice Cereal mixed with a bit of mushed-up fruit. A new fruit every three days or so, so we can spot any allergies or other issues. So far, Bananas and Strawberries, all systems nominal.

For the last couple weeks she has made the leap from rolling over onto her tummy and back by herself, to getting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth in a threatening manner. The threat of course, is that we will go to the kitchen to prepare her mush and come back to find she has walked into the den and started blogging.

A couple little white pointy daggers have popped out of her gums. Two on the bottom and one up top. Came as a bit of a surprise as there was little fanfare or histrionics with their arrival. A little extra drool and some funny sleep patterns of late, but thats it.

Not that the teeth will assist in any way with her current eating routine of gumming the spoon and rubbing mush into her hair and hands.



Multi-IFR Training

Ack, where to begin. This one is by far the most cerebral part of my flight training so far. An innate set of "Good Hands and Feet" ( which I am not professing to have ) will not save me on this one. Lots to learn and memorize.

I'm currently training on a Seneca II. A Twin-engine, turbocharged, non-pressurized, 7-seat aeroplane.

Quite a nice plane actually and it seems to have power to spare compared with some trainers I had a chance to look at while shopping around. 200 Horsepower a side to be precise, and with the turbochargers, all of that is available, right up to 12,000 feet before she starts gasping for air.

Avionics are very nice as well. Seems the AI and/or DG packed it in a while back on this plane and in the research of the Re and Re, they discovered that installing a partial glass cockpit, in the form of an Aspen HSI system, was cheaper, or at least a relatively inexpensive way to upgrade.

The AI is(was) the Attitude Indicator, the little blue and brown ball shaped instrument that you would use to reference the horizon when it's not visible out the front window. The instrument has a gyroscope inside it, run(usually) by a vacuum system and is a key component in the Instrument-flying instrument set. The DG is the Directional Gyro. Similarly run by vacuum and a gyro, it gives you a compass direction on a stable platform.

That is, more stable than a little piece of paper mounted on a pin and floating in a glass jar full of kerosene and bouncing around in an aeroplane and trying to give you indications of magnetic directions while being packaged inside a metal aircraft and sitting on top of all the radio equipment, electrics and spinning gyro bits....

So anyway, the Aspen system is pretty sweet. It's a "partial glass cockpit" in that a couple of key analog and/or mechanical instruments have been replaced by a small computer display screen that gives you the same info, and more, from a solid-state system.

And wow, does it ever give you more.

In some ways, its frustrating, as I'm trying to learn Instrument flying procedures and regulations, handling a larger aircraft and its extra complement of systems, learning the flight test guide and preparing for the written, but then you throw in a modern GPS system and whole slew of extra little "oh, let me show you this, this is cool, watch what it will do " bits and I find my brain tuning out the nice-to-know stuff in sheer survival mode, for favor of the you-better-damn-well-know-this stuff.

The aircraft has had some mechanical issues of late, but luckily, we are forging ahead with the IFR part of the training, so on a day when I miss out on the Multi-Engine part of the course, due to weather or other issues, we can head over to the Simulator Shack where I can sweat it out for an hour trying to learn and practice some of the stuff I have been dutifully studying for months now.

At Six Bucks a minute in the real airplane( a beer a minute ), I'm more than happy to sit in the sim at a fraction of that and practice it till I've got it semi-down.


Day Job

Work out at the airfield has been busy lately. Mostly busy as we've lost some staff over the last year that haven't been replaced due to the economy. As our company US-Owned, they are feeling the pinch a lot more down there and it is having a trickle down effect onto management up here. As always, the monkey at the top of the tree looks down and sees the smiling faces of all the little worker-monkeys making their way up. The monkey at the bottom looks up and sees nothing but @$$holes.

The fuel distributor that we sell for, has also switched over to a new metering system in our trucks. Our old system was so old it was barely computerized. It had these giant " RAM Cards " that were the size and shape of eight-track cassettes and held the days pumping data on it for download at the end of the day.

I'm sure they held upwards of a kilobyte or two of data on each one. Heady stuff for 1972, not so much today...

Now we have a new system, and it's much maligned, as all new systems are. I could rant all day about it, but I'd probably get in trouble and frankly, you always end up coming across as some progress-reluctant Luddite when ranting about the perceived shortcomings in technological change.

I've done a little work with database systems and crude programming in the past though and even to my untrained eye, I can spot the work of a hack when I see it, that's all I'm going to say.

Job Hunt

Some exciting prospects here...



a company I interviewed with over the phone last year is looking like a good potential prospect for this year. I kept in touch with a couple updated resumes over the winter and I actually just got back from making the trip out to see them and introduce myself and get the tour of their operation. It wasn't technically an "interview", but it was close and I suspect something might materialize on this front. Would mean a move to another province and another adventure. Lots to consider and lots of stuff I shouldn't be talking about until things fall more into place....watch this space...

Aside from that, with the addition of the MIFR rating to my license, it will pretty much be " complete ". That is, there is little more I can add to my license in the way of training and ratings that will help me get a job. Now, all I need to get a job is some experience. But of course to get that, I will need to get a job.....funny how that works...




I saw they are looking for more ultralight instructors down at the grass strip where I worked last summer. I'd love to do it again, but frankly, with The Wee One, I really need to find a full-time flying job...trying to fly part-time, work full time and parent full-time, just doesn't add up. Either that or find a cure for sleeping.

Iphone

TLW and I recently traded in our circa 1986 "contractors model" cell phones for a pair of nifty little Iphones.

Wow.

Now I see what they mean when they say smartphones. These really are little PDA's, with very functional Internet browsing, email, GPS and all kinds of other functionality. Our little calendar I mentioned earlier is based on a google calendar, but is synced up to both our phones. If either of us makes and entry on the calendars on our phones, it automatically updates the main one online and the other phone as well.

Some of the Apps available for this thing are pretty sweet too. Lots of little games and novelty ones, but lots of really useful stuff as well.

Highly recommend.

( but of course, everyone else in the world knew this four years ago, and I'm just now catching up )

Road Trip






As part of my trip out to A Different Province, I got to briefly visit some places from my youth.



My old elementary school, complete with separate Boys and Girls entrances.



My old house.



The little alleyway off on the right is actually a steep little gravel road that receives No Winter Maintenance from the snow plow. But every year, some yahoo tries to do a hill-climb in their car or truck. Our kitchen window looked out onto this alley and I'd often get to see the offender come level to the window as I did the dishes and slow to a tire-spinning crawl right in front of me... Then I got to watch their cocky grins morph into white knuckle terror as they started, slowly at first but quickly gaining speed, sliding backwards down the hill.

I remember coming home from school one day and finding a giant car-shaped hole in our wall from where one of these losers had slid into it and then slunk away.

Luckily, the house is ( was?) owned and rented out by the city. Ownership being retained by the highways department in consideration of future expansion. At least that was the story twenty years ago when I lived there..


Random Pics;

Some shots of a very interesting visitor to the field recently, a British Military ( RAF ) Vickers VC-10.


This thing has Four engines, mounted two-a-side on the tail. Very unique design and a rare catch indeed for this neck of the woods.















I was poking around a 767 the other day and was looking at the nose gear and thought I'd comment on this.



On most large aircraft, and some smaller corporate jets as well, there is bit of linkage on the nose gear that connects the steering mechanism in the plane, be they cables, hydraulic assist cylinders or otherwise, to the nose wheel assembly. When you are towing some of these aircraft, you need to "disconnect" the steering mechanism otherwise you could damage parts of it when you turn the nose wheel manually with your tug or tow bar.

On some of the larger airliners, because the assemblies are far too heavy to be simply hooked together with a little pin, they have a "bypass" pin that you insert into the appropriate orifice and you have free rein to steer away.



As Linecrew, when towing an aircraft with disconnect-able gear, you had bloody well remember to disconnect before towing and reconnect afterwards. Like all things aviation, it ultimately falls to the pilot to ensure it is in place before he (tries to ) taxi away for take off. But, just because the ultimate liability rests with him, doesn't mean your fair share of vitriol isn't coming down the pipe if you fail to do your job....

Sweet, I've been struggling to come up with something for this posts " G is for..." item and I just stumbled on it!

G is for Gear Pins

A lot of larger aircraft will also have Gear Pins that need to be inserted before the aircraft can be moved around on the ground. The purpose of a Gear Pin is to stop the gear from retracting inadvertently while being towed. Usually its just a little pin say the thickness of a finger, that is inserted into the gear retraction assembly that would physically stop it from retracting.

As Linecrew, part of the service you can offer is to put the pins in place while the pilots are dealing with passengers or putting the aircraft to bed. Particularly where the main gear require a little bit of a stoop or kneel on the dirty ramp to put the pin in place. White pilot shirts and slacks generally do not stand up to this too well. As a good linecrew, you know where the pins are stored on the aircraft ( little cubbyhole on the stairs or in a cabinet inside ) and have them in even before the crew notices. Again, still their responsibility to ensure they're actually in...




I thought this was kind of neat too. On the nose gear, there is a panel for the ground crew to operate some functions on the aircraft, from outside. One of those functions is to shut off the APU ( Auxiliary Power Unit ), and on this one, you can actually discharge the fire extinguisher bottle into the APU if it catches fire. I've seen this on some Airbus aircraft as well, actually on the fuelers panel. Which is kind of handy as in a lot of cases when you are fueling an aircraft, the crew is upstairs with the APU running and you're the only one down stairs. If a fuel-related emergency were to occur, you might not be free to run upstairs and tell them to shut off the APU ( or to evacuate, for that matter ). Shutting it down on them though would certainly get their attention.