Changes, some good some bad.

So there have been some changes in my life since my last post (nigh on 6 months ago...shit I suck at blogging...). I'm not employed! Woohoo, and not only am I employed, I'm even off probation bitches! I now work for a Defense Contractor (I love saying that, it makes me feel all powerful inside) as a Flight dispatcher. We provide training to the military around here, so it tends to keep things interesting. Plus...I get to post wicked awesome pictures like this! Thats right this was taken by yours truly, with my fancy camera, though to get the file size down I had to sacrifice some picture quality.

This job is good for me cause I'll be able to pay off my staggering mountain of debt (damn you student loans) in about a year or so, which is always great obviously. I'm also hoping to raise enough dinero to be able to pay for some further flight training before I actually start flying for a living.

I'm gonna do my best to keep this thing up to date a bit more. I'd also like to get a few more readers, cause I think this is ending up more like a journal that only I read...

I've really been an epic fail at this whole blogging thing. I have it on my Safari dashboard and its always sitting there taunting me to write, but I never seem to get around to it. All I can do is try harder I guess.

Life has been both good and bad lately. After school ended this semester I went on a 3 week tour with my College Singers group to England and Scotland. It was everything I hoped it would be, and I loved every minute of it. There were some sad times though. Literally the morning after we arrived in London, I got a call from my father giving me the news that my Grandmother had died. I had known that she was ill before I left but was kind of expecting that she would get better. I felt really bad, my Dad had told me about a week before we left that I should go and see her before soon, and I tried to arrange to get out to Edmonton, but things just didn't work out schedule wise. I'm really kind of sad that I didn't make that particular trip, because I didn't get to say goodbye. I subsequently missed the funeral as well, but my Aunt Laura and my Dad both told me to stay on tour, and that Grandma had wanted me to go. When I got back from tour I went straight to Edmonton and spent some time up there to heal with my family.

On other topics...I wrote my Commercial written exam and Partialled! I was kind of pissed about that. I missed it the straight pass by one question. I have since spent days reviewing Air Law, and have decided that it is the most boring thing about aviation. I'm planning on writing the partial next week.

I think that largely brings me up to date for now. Maybe I'll fill in the larger blanks a bit later.

If the weather doesn't get you, something else will!

I've finally gotten to fly some after not being able to fly for almost 2 weeks straight. We've had the most garbage weather lately, the temperature got warm enough about 3 weeks ago for almost everything to melt, and then it all came back and we got another foot of snow. Needless to say, I didn't get to fly much. I haven't been relaxing though, I've clocked in almost 10 hours in that last week since we've been flying again and it's feeling good.

On saturday I took two fellow Prov pilots Mike and Ben out for a rip out to Kenora (YQK) in the schools Diamond Star. It was a nice ride with a super smooth cruise, though there was some confusion upon our return to St. Andrews with our flight plan (we amended in with Kenora Radio to go straight back to St. Andrews instead of out to Steinbach because of time). However everything worked out in the ned and the boys had fun. I'll get some pics up from that later.

In the meantime, I'm gonna be working on getting my CPL level flying up to snuff. I had originally planned to have my CPL ride finished by the end of April but thats going to be pushed to the end of May now I think. I'm heading to the UK for 3 weeks with my College Chamber Singers group from April 21st-May 10th, and I don't want to rush myself to get it all done.

Until my next post though, I'll leave you with a shot from when I was working on my Multi-engine rating! Ciao!

And.....I'm Back!

Alright, So it's been almost 2 weeks since my last post. A lot has happened in that time I suppose some of those are:

• Got my float rating!
• went skiing!
• The Aviation trip guys got back!

I managed to crank out my float rating in a scant 2 days. I had set aside a week just because I didn't know what the weather was going to be like, and didn't end up using most of it. It was a lot of fun, we spent a lot of time doing the requisite touch and go's, but did a lot of other cool things like low-level flying, operations in confined areas, and step-taxiing, all of which were a lot of fun to do, and I'm told are not part of the normal stuff. I guess my light brushing up before I left paid off, cause my instructor Dave said I did amazingly well through everything, even learning faster and getting stuff quicker thn a 15,000 hour pilot from Alberta that was flying the week before! It was nice, my ego got nicely stroked, though I managed to scare the bejesus out fo myself a couple of times by letting the plane dig (didn't have the nose high enough on landing and the plane kinda dips when it touches down and if I left it to itself would probably flip the plane).

The Aviation trip boys got delayed coming back by crap weather and just got back tonight. Nice to have them all back safe and sound.

Other than that, everything is same old on the flat prairies.

Godspeed Boys!

So the 2009 version of the Providence Aviation Trip has commenced. I went on this trip last year and it was a great time. We stopped at such tourist spots as:

• Tekamah, Nebraska (for fuel on day one)
• Augusta, Kansas (for a two day stop and tour of the Beechcraft factory)
• Dallas, Texas (for a 3 day stop and visit to Wycliffe and American Airlines)
• Gulfport, Mississippi (to work with MDS on building homes and to dip our toes in the Gulf of Mexic0)
• Waxhaw, North Carolina (a visit to JAARS)
• and Dayton (more like Xenia, but who's checking), Ohio (for a stop at the amazing Museum of the Air Force) this last one ended up being a couple of day stop due to weather.

It's a great trip, and I really wish I was on it this year. They're going west this year whereas we went east last year. I know the guys that are going this year better than I knew the guys I went with, because I took all of my first year courses with them last year, but was far enough advanced on my 2 year program (they're all on 4 yr degrees) to go. I had contemplated taking our schools DA40 and flying circles around these guys their entire trip, or even leaving hours later and beating them to their destinations due to the Diamonds superior speed, but it didn't end up working out.

To console myself, I just keeping reminding myself that though I could use the hours, I really don't need them that bad. Plus, I'm going to Kelowna, BC to do my seaplane rating on saturday (this'll be a blast!!!). I'll be flying with Air-Hart flying service out of Kelowna on their 172SP, though I want to see if I can make a flight or two in their 182, just to get some High Performance time if I can manage it.

If any readers want to keep up with the Prov trip its blog can be found at: Providence Aviation Trip 2009 Blog

I haven't flown since my last post, but I'm itching to go up again.  I'm currently working on my Commercial License so any time is good flight time at this point.  

I tallied my logbook the other day and I'm a little short on night flight time, so I'll be doing a few cross-countries at night to make up the shortage.  

Its so peaceful flying at night.  Most of the time its clear and the skies are empty.  Or emptier than normal is a better way to put it maybe.  When I was flying around in the states last year it was amazing to look out at night when flying and see so many beacons flashing all over the place telling me where the other planes were.  We don't get that in Canada.  I've only had it happen a few times that I've seen other general aviation traffic at night, and that was because they were company traffic and I was purposely following them.  General aviation is such a small business segment here compared to the United States, it sometimes makes me sad.

Oh well, Another day done.  Night All.

First Post!

So, I've created this blog to post my thoughts and to keep people up to date on whats going on in my life and flying career. This seems rather self-centered to me for some reason. As if someone Really wants to know what little old Me is doing with my life.

I've noticed that there are a lot of blogs from pilots in the east and in the west of Canada, but not much in the middle. My goal is to put a bit of a face on what its like being a pilot-in-training in Canada. We've got a lot of open skies here with a lot of freedom in them, and it always seems to people that its a difficult place to get (ie: Very difficult to be a pilot, sideline career).

Currently, I'm attending Providence College in Otterburne, Mb. Its a former bible college, which now considers itself to be a Christian Liberal Arts college. Essentially that means you can have a degree/diploma in a variety of different specializations, but you take a core of bible courses. I'm not going to get preachy with this blog, in fact I doubt my beliefs in faith will ever come into this. I chose to go here because it was one of two colleges in Manitoba that offer a program in Aviation, and of the two, it was the cheaper of the two and since I am a Christian, it seemed like an obvious fit, the only downside being that I have to live on campus cause its located just to the left of the arse end of nowhere.

We do all of our flying here with a FBO called Harv's Air Service--which coincidentally is the same outfit that runs the Red River College program at St.Andrews Airport (CYAV)--in Steinbach (CKK7). Its fun, since they have no control tower here, which makes joining the circuit (pattern to those in the states) interesting. I've joined when there were 7 planes making their way around the racetrack and it was a hair-raising experience to be sure. Think of 7 aircraft in a mix of 152's, 172's, and Citabria's puttering around at a leisurely pace, and me entering in the schools 65' Beech Travel-Air. I was doing better than half again their speed and caused a slight ruckus...

In terms of my flying experience, I wish I'd started this back when I was a fresh and green pilot (though the fresh and green title, still somewhat applies since I'm not that far from the bottom of the totem pole as level of flying goes really). I (at this writing) have amassed a grand total of 170 hours of flight experience, and have earned my Private Pilot Licence, Night rating, and Multi Rating. In a few weeks, I'll be travelling to British Columbia to do my Float rating, so I'll be able to add another feather to my cap. I'm currently working on getting my Commercial Pilot Licence so I can maybe make a buck in the future. I haven't flown all that many different aircraft, though more than some perhaps. Currently I'm allowed to fly the following:

• Cessna 152's
• Cessna 172's
• Piper PA-28-161 Warrior II
• Diamond DA-40 Star
• Beechcraft Travel-Air (twin)

Now this isn't the list according to Canadian Air Regs, because according to them, I can fly just about anything that flies with wings on the sides and propellors pushing air towards the rear of the aircraft as long as I'm somewhat competent with the general characteristics of the aircraft.

I think this is enough for the first post, If I think of more, I'll just add it later.