I just knew about this from FlyDamnIt. This is just too awesome until no amounts of words can describe how cool it is.

Just think about it, she didn't use the rudder controls since she is only controlling the power and yoke

p/s : She's hot too

I finally went for Navigation Introduction last week, I didn't prepare much for it, just the flight plan and flight log. Heck, I didn't even know how to do the radio call (RT) as well.

Nav Intro route :

WMKJ -> Kulai -> Benut -> Batu Pahat -> Parit Sulong -> Yong Peng -> Simpang Renggam -> Kulai -> WMKJ

The scenery was breathtaking and beautiful. Sad to say no pics as it was a dual flight. I'll take some next time I go for solo :D

I learned how to do the RT for nav. It goes like this ...

"Suria 0X, overhead Kulai this time 1500 feet, estimate Benut 24"
and for reporting position
"2 miles to reach Yong Peng, Suria 0X"

After 2 weeks of no ground school,only flying, my batch finally went back to ground school. Full ground school, no integrated with flying. It's gonna be a boring and sleepy next 2 weeks for me.

Meh.

I arrived at my house in Johor at 0430 in the wee hours as the bus I took left at 0000. I didn't sleep as I drank Red Bull on the bus(yea, stupid of me). I didn't sleep until I went to KLIFA.

We learned Performance-A today





p/s : I hold the high score

NARITA — A FedEx cargo plane crash-landed and burst into flames early Monday morning at Narita International Airport, east of Tokyo, killing the two U.S. crew members aboard and causing widespread flight disruption at Japan’s largest international gateway.

Transport ministry and other investigators believe the accident was partly caused by strong winds buffeting the MD-11 aircraft as it attempted to land at around 6:50 a.m. Winds of up to 72 kilometers per hour were blowing in the vicinity of the airport at the time.

Before landing, airport traffic controllers warned the plane of the possibility of wind shear—a condition in which wind speed and direction suddenly change—up to at an altitude of 600 meters, according to the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry.

It is the first fatal aircraft accident at Narita airport since it opened in 1978, according to the airport operating company.

The airport’s main A Runway, on which the cargo plane touched down, was closed in the wake of the accident, while the B Runway is operating. A total of 35 flights, mostly international and including those heading to New York, have been canceled and 18 arriving flights have been rerouted to other airports, the transport ministry said.

The aircraft, Flight 80 from Guangzhou, China, had flammable liquid aboard, according to the transport ministry. It took firefighters about two hours to extinguish the blaze, which completely destroyed the aircraft.

Two men were rescued from the cockpit at around 8 a.m. but were confirmed dead at a nearby hospital, the Chiba prefectural police said.

The police said they confirmed with FedEx that the crew members of the flight were Kevin Kyle Mosley, 54, the pilot, and Anthony Stephen Pino, 49, the co-pilot—both U.S. citizens.

Video footage showed the plane touching down on its rear wheels and its nose slamming into the runway.

The plane bounced and its left wing hit the ground, bursting into flames. It then flopped over and veered off the runway with flames coming from the center of the fuselage.

Source : Japan Today

*******************************************************************************************

Scary incident, very bad landing. RIP pilots

I heard from a friend of mine that he heard from he's friend that heard it from the CEO (I know it's confusing, haha) that he bought 4 Piper single engine and 1 Piper multi engine from US. How true is this? What I know is that comes May, batch 01 until 05 will be flying with the current fleet of 4 single engine. How will they cope with this?


No one knows

Today I went solo to South of Gunung Pulai. I requested for West of Airfield but the ATC cleared me to operate South of Gunung Pulai. My 1st time :p . I just flew near to the border of West of Airfield so that I won't get lost.

The other day, myself and a few friends were chatting with one of our flying instructor and he told us a very nice joke when he was flying with a student. They were doing navigation

Student Pilot : Terima Kasih (with an Arabic accent since he's Arabic)
Flying Instructor : I have control!! (because he thought he said Kamikaze lol)
ATC : Sama-sama
Flying Instructor : Oh, ok...

ROFL. Terima kasih to Kamikaze, didn't realize they rhyme so much

This is a normal view at Senai Airport at the cargo holding point. This time I managed to capture AirAsia's A320 departing to Kuala Lumpur.

It seemed very harmless at first when I was invited by Ab and H to what I thought was night fishing at Kota Tinggi. So, at 8pm I went to their house and I saw a car parked in front of their house which was not theirs. I thought maybe were following them because they knew the place, so... I was feeling okay then.

In the car, they were playing some 90s (very very slow) songs which I found really awkward and also some very very mainstream current songs. I was in a stranger's car that I don't know and he was playing some irritating songs. Come on, play some songs from The Bravery or Snow Patrol la... The driver, also the leader of the family was talking so much to H, it was like H is the son he never had and he wanted to adopt H. He wanted to bring him to family weddings, family outings and so on. Me and Ab just spoke few words as we don't really have anything worthwhile to talk about.

So, we arrived at the first stop of a very regrettable night. A house. This is the point where we know what was really happening. Tonight's activity wasn't fishing, it was visiting their family member a day before their "bersanding" ceremony tomorrow. I felt so cheated.

The 3 of us had a conversation which went something like this

Ab : Kite kene tipu dengan H la...
Me : *facepalm*
H : Sori ar... aku ingat pegi fishing, tapi rupenye bende ni pulak
Ab : Aku kalau bende2 cam ni sori ar... aku memang tak minat

We then knew that there were going to be some karaoke as well at the majlis. Great(sarcasm). We arrived at the majlis which were only for family members and we were there. I'm not really familiar with crashing a majlis that I'm not invited to. I bersalam with everyone there and sat. Then, the family guy, introduced us and said "Ni semua pilot ni" (dengan bangganya) . I expected that, so typical of Malaysians and Malays as well. H, the kind of son that the family guy ever wanted was invited to karaoke. I lol'd. I recommended him Widuri by Broery as it wasn't a hard song to perform. But, I must say... H you sang it bad, really badly. I had an evil grin on my face.


I don't know if this is a Johorean culture, but from where I'm from (Selangor), we don't sing karaoke loudly (macam konsert) at 10pm until midnight. I had a big culture shock that night. What made it worse (if I was the neighbor) was that it was in a terrace housing area. Which makes the neighbors is right beside you.

We arrived at our house and after saying our thank yous to them, they left. We 3 looked at each other and smiled.

So, on 11th I had the most tiring day of flying. My first time ever flying 3 sorties in one day which is 3 hours of flying (GILA! FLY EAGLE PULAK TU!!!). I went with "A" (I'll tell more about this very special specimen of human being in later posts, he's very intriguing) to KLIFA earlier since the morning sortie guys were absence (note: I didn't steal any sorties). But, if I can fly more, I'd do it, who would'nt?

I was doing the 3rd sortie of the day, killed time with orbiting on top of UTM Skudai just to see if there were any "jakuns" around there going

"Tengok! kapal terbang...."(with finger pointing)

or maybe some would say

"Ceh, attention-whore betul la mamat tu"

After about 30 minutes of flying, the clouds had become darker but for me, it was still flyable. I checked my phone and I saw 3 missed calls and 2 SMS-es all from my instructor. This was his message


Meh... okla, rejoin. On final there were some strong crosswind, I was like..... shit. I touched down safely but it seems like the main wheels were vibrating too much. One of the things I hate about Eagle, is that it vibrates so much even during normal taxying, I had to bear with this and hope I don't screw up and the aircraft is maintained well.

I went back and arrived home at 4pm. Then, suddenly I woke up at 9pm because of a phone call from my friend and later also a few more calls, hehe (I never even knew I went to sleep lol). I was having like a mild hangover (no drugs & alcohol related) when I answered the call. They were asking for the flying schedule for 12th. I'm the unpaid flight ops guy (kidding guys :p)

I then decided to go for dinner, just when I was "taxying" out, I felt something with my tyres. I checked and they're pancit. *facepalm*

On 12th I have 2 more sorties, hope that I wont be as tired as these 3 sorties.

Ground school is just a term we used in flying school for studying theory.

Currently, the Malaysian DCA is using the UK CAA syllabus.

There are 3 stages in the exam taking, PPL>CPL>ATPL

During the PPL stage, you'll sit for these papers :

1) Aircraft General
2) Air Law
3) Radio Telephony Theory
4) Navigation & Meteorology
5) Human Performance & Limitations
plus
6) Type Technical for Single Engine Aircraft

Then, you move to CPL, where you'll find slightly difficult papers :

1) 2 Papers for Air Law
2) Radio Telephony Theory
3) Human Performance & Limitations
4) Principle of Flight
5) Engine
6) Electrics
7) Airframe Systems
plus
8) Type Technical for Single Engine Aircraft (if you're current aircraft is not suitable for CPL flying)

Lastly, you're at ATPL stage(the hard one) which is divided into 2 itself :

For CA-6 papers, you'll have :

1) Radio Aids
2) Flight Planning
3) Instruments
4) Navigation
5) Meteorology Theory
6) Meteorology Practical

and for CA-2 :

1) Performance A
2) Loading

plus
1) Type Technical for Twin Engine Aircraft

With all these passed, you're just left to finish your hours flying

DCA approval letter (checked)
Medical certificate Class 1 and Class 2 (checked)

You will then get a flying school offer letter

Below is mine

So, today I went to training area to do my GH solo. There's not much I can do there, just practice climb, descend, turn, turn and more turns.

AirAsia has a blog competition running now for aspiring pilot wannabees. Just submit a post into the blog and if you're post is good enough, you will be chosen to go into their selection of cadet pilots.

More infos can be found here http://blog.airasia.com/index.php/so-you-wanna-be-a-pilot

Good luck!

AirAsia X's new addition to their fleet, the Xcaliber spotted doing PEN-KUL

So, you've got your DCA approval letter and passed your medical check-up, now you are ready to enroll into a flying academy to live the dream you've always wanted to.

Here are the IMPORTANT things that you NEED to have in mind

1. Money - most flying schools now are charging around the RM 250k mark and will increase in future
   
2. Aircraft fleet and flying instructors - check if they have sufficient in both of these with the amount of cadets they're currently having
3. Facilities - simulators etc.
   

These are less important than what I explained above and for me are just plus points if you got them. But flying schools are actually advertising it like it's the main reason you must join them.

1. Comfortable classes for ground school
2. Delicious food
   
3. Comfortable accommodation for cadets
4. Facilities such as library, gym, swimming pool etc.

So, don't be fool with false and bias advertisement, check the school out first and ask the cadets for current progress in the flying school (especially delays in flying, they usually will tell the truth). As you know, businessmen would say anything to please their future customers and that includes lies.

List of flying schools in Malaysia. I didn't list them out in ranking

1. Malaysian Flying Academy (MFA)
Batu Berendam Melaka
2. Gulf Golden International Flying Academy (GGIFA)
Bintulu, Sarawak
3. Asia Pacific Flight Training (APFT)
Kota Bharu, Kelantan
4. Integrated Training & Services (IT&S)
Ipoh, Perak
5. HM Aerospace (HMA)
Langkawi, Kedah
6. KL International Flying Academy (KLIFA)
Senai, Johor
7. Austral Academy
Sandakan, Sabah

2. Obtain Class 1 and Class 2 medical certificate

I did mine at Drs.Young, Newton and Partners in PJ.

List of designated aviation medical examiners can be found here

I made an appointment with Dr. Kee, the medical examiner as he only does these check-ups by appointment.

What I did there is :

1. Urine test - pee in a cup, no biggie (don't take alcohol or drugs the night before, if you do, you're stupid)
2. Eye check - just say what number I saw in the book given and stood 5 metres away from the paper that has the letters thingy and just say what I saw using either one of my eyes
3. Body check-up - was asked if I had any health problems and did normal stethoscope breathing check, eye check, ear check as well as the knee hammer jerk
4. X-Ray check - nothing much, I just stand still for my X-Ray
5. Hearing check - sit in a small dark box and press a button every time I hear a beep
6. Blood test
7. Heart test - some wires were placed on my body and just wait for the results

After you've got the DCA approval letter and Class 1 and 2 Medical Certificate, you are free to join any flying school in Malaysia as you like. :)