Aircraft: C172
Registration: C-GQQV
Dual Time: 0.0 Total: 52.1
Solo Time: 2.6 Total: 18.0
CYRO -> CYGK 1.1 Hours
CYGK -> CNL3 0.7 Hours
CNL3 -> CYRO 0.8 Hours
IT IS DONE! I write this with the utmost feeling of accomplishment. I feel even better than I did the day I passed my flight test. Mostly because I have actually achieved something. Short of some bureaucracy and a few signatures I am Canada’s Newest Private Pilot!!!
Aircraft: C172
Registration: C-GQUO
Dual Time: 0.0 Total: 42.4
Solo Time: 0.8 Total: 13.1
I was excited, damn excited if I had to describe it. I had my plan in hand, and the aircraft was ready! I went over my flight planning with Ryan, my first encounter with him and that went well. I had already filed the flight plan with WX Brief and walked out of the clubhouse with a smile. During pre flight I noticed that I could not see any oil on the dipstick at all. Hmmm. I KNOW how to read a dipstick but of course I did the typical thing, put it in, pull it out, look, scratch head. Repeat. I then obtained a cloth and dried that stick bone dry, then put it in again. There was but a fine drop on the very end of the dipstick.
July 05, 2008
Aircraft: C172
Registration: C-GQUO
Dual Time: 1.3 (CYRO->CYGK)
0.8 (CYGK->CNL3)
0.7 (CNL3->CYRO) Total: 42.4
Solo Time: 0.0 Total: 12.3
The day was simply gorgeous! Some small puffy clouds but nothing too terrible. Pre flight briefing with Simon was a breeze. He knows his stuff so well that he probably sized me up as I walked in the door and therefore did not have to dwell on too many questions. He asked the important one “Is Rica coming with us today?” I figured SURE!! This was a double happy for me. Since “I” did not invite her I was not going against Mat’s earlier denial of her on board during my training and since “I” LOVE to have her aboard, it made me almost giddy. Now on to the serious business! I knew we would be overweight so I made sure that the aircraft was less than full and only topped it to the 30 Gallon level checked with my trusty paint stick dipper.
So what if I didn’t get to fly solo this weekend. So what if mother nature pointed her fickle finger and laughed. I’m not worried because I did some chair flying and am now ready to present to you “The Chosen Route!”. This is the ultimate VFR route when flying from Rockliffe to Kingston. How do I know this? Because I chose it!
I spent time talking with blog commenters (Thanks David!), instructors, Google earth and even had a short chat with my Garmin GPS (which was far too one sided!) All of this was to select a route that made me happy. Happy in this case is spelled by success and the best way to garner success when flying with pilotage and dead reckoning is to select a route with VERY GOOD CHECKPOINTS!!
Aircraft: C172
Registration: C-GQQV
Dual Time: 0.0 Total: 36.9
Solo Time: 1.6 Total: 11.6
This morning I awoke with a bit of a start, I knew that the flight was early and I needed to be ready. The sky was solid with overcast at 22,000 feet and therefore bode well for good smooth air. There was very little wind to deal with as I ordered my Timmies and made my way over to the airport.
A small curveball was thrown to me as they let me know upon my arrival that QUO would be out of service in controlled airspace and therefore I would be taking QQV. I have an interesting relationship with QQV in that at one time I swore never to fly her due to the engine sputter on takeoff. I have of course gone ahead and done so but always found that she landed long. Quite long in fact and I’m sure it’s because at full “pulled to the back of the aircraft” idle, and carb heat it still turns a good solid 850 RPM. It’s bad, I even wondered if by pulling that throttle back so hard to try to get her to settle down, can damage be done? I guess it’s a matter of when it hits the stop, stop pulling on the throttle and pull on the yoke instead!
Aircraft: C172
Registration: C-GQUO
Dual Time: 1.8 Total: 36.9
Solo Time: 0.0 Total: 10.0
Time en route CYRO –> CYCC 0.8 HR, CYCC –> CYRO 1.0 due to upper winds @20KT and circuit time.
Upon opening my eyes this morning at 07:00, I knew that I would arrive late to the aerodrome . Since I was booked for 08:00 I was already performing ETE and ETA calculations for the car trip to drop the kids off at home. I calculated 40 minutes round trip for them plus time for Timmies. I took the dog out back for his morning duty and looked up. As I peered into the sky I was pleased to see plenty of blue and felt only a light wind from the south west. No time to reflect on this as I had to round up the kids and get motoring!
Aircraft: C172
Registration: C-GBRI
Dual Time: 1.4 Total: 33.1
Solo Time: 0.0 Total: 6.0
Today was to be a great flight. There was something about the air today that made me smile as I drove up the the airport. The winds looked odd as I looked at the rising plume of smoke North of the field. The smoke seemed to favour the wind from the East but at roughly 300′ shifted to winds from the West. I was not concerned about the winds as I knew I would be flying a dual with a new instructor. His name is Matt Klein. I had been briefed for this lesson and was more or less ready (or so I thought!). Matt is a great instructor. He is quite young (like age matters in aviation) and he has a knack of getting a point across without you realizing that he is teaching you something. I like that in an instructor. He informed me that he had read thru my PTR and was happy with the comments so far. He said that we would depart to the east and head over the river for Cumberland. This is something else that I have not done so I thought, Great! Two firsts, one flight. The pre flight went well. we were in GBRI. I paused for a moment to think about what this meant. Did the heater valve actually work? Would I be okay in flight? I figured since I was not the only person to fly this aircraft since my last solo, we would be fine.
