Dash-8-ski. I have seen fans like this in the russian planes, but in one of our planes without an APU, there are fans to keep us cool during summer turn around's. Surprisingly effective, but seriously vintage! Thought it was kinda weird and funny. I also didn't really notice it being there till the captain pointed it out to me. Don't know whether i should admit that point however.

Anyway, all the best for the Christmas holidays, hope its been great with good family and food! Once again thanks for reading and the support! 

Forgot this one was here

Not sure if i posted this on a previous post, but it looks good, although slightly blurry!

Wing to wing with a C441 from a baron. 

Late Moree

Flying the Dash-8-200 back from a late Moree, was a pretty amazing sunset. With daylight savings we don't get a lot of night flying at the moment, but we do get some amazing moments like this. Taken at about 8:45pm, i couldn't help but take a photo.

We had some interesting weather all around Sydney and the sound east coast. There was one day where i think every flight from Port Macquarie did not get in! On that day i flew to Tamworth, which was pretty bad also, requiring an RNAV to the minima on runway 12. Not really a lot to say, its been fun flying and the past week has involved 2 ferry flights to Newcastle/Williamtown Airport.

It's military controlled, so it's just like being back in Darwin, although there is a lot more fast jet activity. I think both times i have been there, i have seen squadrons of Hawks and FA18's doing circuit work. Always good to watch. Kinda feel a little slow in a dash-8 next to them!

Anyway, from Sydney, its only 76nm with a flight time of around 25 minutes each way. The flight required us to sit on the ground for a few hours due to available slots into Sydney, so sitting around in an office with not a whole lot to do, was again, just like being back in Darwin. Anyway, wasn't a bad duty off a reserve period.

Williamtown on a pretty average day!

Pretending to be a passenger! We had the APU running as a Brisbane based crew was taking this aeroplane, so we had to stay with the plane until they took it off us.

Till next time!

787 in Sydney

I was lucky enough to have an ASIC that gets me around the jetbase at Sydney. I was also lucky enough to be on reserve with no callout, and even luckier that another friend who was called out to fly gave me his 787 open day invitation. It was fantastic to see up close, and i also got to see the new Qantas Boeing 737 sky interior planes. Overall a good day! Here are some photos -

Business seats, above and below on the 737 -

AVOD on domestic flights is definately good.

737 cockpit above and 787 below!

 

First glimpse of the 787 in the jetbase

Engine shot. Not small.

Wing and engine -

And more. Notice the raked wingtips

Enjoy.

It's been really good flying recently. CAVOK days, and suprisingly little delays into Sydney, which is very unusual. Although, i did encounted not only my first go-around in the Dash-8, but also my first diversion.

In terms of not getting to a destination, i can't recall of anytime that i haven't been able to get in to where i was going. Once i had to divert to Yuendumu, going into Alice Springs in a 210, but just waited 30 minutes on the ground till the storm line had passed through the field. Another time out of Darwin i go so far overwater in Single engine over crocodile infested water that as i started to backtrack managed to find another way through the weather and get to my destination.

We were doing the routine overnight, had finished our crew meals, and after recieving the AWIS broadcast, knew it was going to be challenging. I think it was from memory, visibility 200m, cloud overcast at 200ft. We were going to do an instrument (RNAV) approach, which the minimums is around 600ft above ground level. At this particular aerodrome, it's about 4100 on the altimeter. We also briefed our minimum fuel for diversion to our alternate, and briefed the actions to take in a missed approach and what we would do.

We requested direct tracking to the initial approach fix, configured early for the approach. Upon passing the final approach fix, 130kts, flaps 15, gear down, checklists complete, we entered so fairly think fog/low cloud. as we approached the minimum descent altitude (MDA). Standard calls meant i called the pilot flying at 100ft above MDA, and the missed approach point he called decide. I replied no contact, and with that we iniated the go around procedure. The trick is to not rush and treat it as though it's a take-off. In the dash-8-300 we have no FADEC on our fuel control system, so its very easy to over torque the engines and cause damage if you panic and throw the throttles foward.

Set power, flaps 10, gear up, after take off checklist. I was very busy as the pilot monitoring. The pilot flying did just that, flew the aeroplane, i reconfigured it, called centre, called company frequency, reloaded the approach. There was a lot to do. So much head down stuff infact that i was a little disoriented when i did finally get breathing space to realise we had already completed the missed approach procedure and climbed to the 25nm minimum safe altitude. We decided to give the approach one more go, although it was fairly obvious we wouldn't get it.

In the end we divereted about 40nm to the south-west. Our passengers were bussed to the original destination, and possibly the best part about it, was that the weather was forecast to remain bad, so operations bussed our passengers to us in the morning, meaning we got an extra hour and a half sleep in on a minimum rest overnight, and our morning departure out of Sydney was allocated to a different crew as we wouldn't get into Sydney till after the departure time. 

Unrelated photos to the events described, but just some i have taken on my phone recently.

Fog

All through winter, i have dealt with severe icing (that is, by Australian standards to all those Canadians reading!), i have dealt with storms, weather, low cloud, low visibility, high cross-winds, virtually everything mother nature could throw at me - except fog!

Now, we weren't trying to land, so it wasn't a big deal at all. We were coming off the overnight and arrived at the airport with 200 metres visibility. However, this meant we couldn't depart. By Australian standards, the Dash-8 is a 'qualifying' twin engine aircraft - That is we are multi crew, have an autofeather system, above 5,700kg and have a guarenteed climb performance on one engine above 2.4% in the second segment (This relates to the gear up in take off configuration to an acceleration altitude, which for us is normally 500ft above the aerodrome elevation - unless there is a special procedure due to high terrain.)

So our problem became the required vis for take-off. Normally is it 550 metres, but the runway lights at this aerodrome were 90 metres spaced, as opposed to the normal 60 metres, which meant we required 800m visibility to legally take off. Australian airspace used to have low-visibility operations, and my company teaches it in the sim for training, as there are specific procedures and requirements that we need to follow to allow us to operate low vis. Low vis is visibility down to 350 metres, however it has been abandoned at the moment, and currently 550 and 800 metres are the legal minimums for us to take-off.

So for the aerodrome we were at, this required us at the very least to be able to see 8 rows of runway lights so count the 800 metres. Unfortunately for us, we were able to see about 3 lights, and to add to it, the runway has a slope in the middle, which prevents you from seeing lights over a slight ridge.

The captain and myself did an inspection in an airport ground vehicle to check out each runway end, and after listening to the automated weather unit, we decided to give it a shot. We started both engines, taxiied out the end of both runways, with all intention of taking off, but it wasn't to be! We ended up taxiing back on the apron to wait it out, and unloaded our eager passengers. We figured it would be a bit of a wait and it was more comfortable for them in the terminal.

So we were forced to wait it out, until it lifted - about 2 hours later! We finally departed through a very thin layer of overcast cloud at this point into a smooth beautiful clear sunny day everywhere else.

To all those that follow, thanks for the continued reading. I have been slack at posting and taking pictures of recent times, it's hard to know how much i can say or post about now that i'm flying for this company.  

Sunset over Dubbo, central New South Wales.

Checked to line for a week, and flown a total of 2 sectors! I was meant to be doing an overnight tomorrow night to Armidale, however i'm now operating as the safety first officer for a new hire doing their first flight. So the jumpseat it is!

I did however have my first cyclic in the simulator, which straight after my check was an intense week. It involved an engine failure at v1 on a pretty average night weatherwise out of Townsville. The take-off to the south has some pretty high terrain and therefore there is a company procedure, which was at 1DME TL, turn 100 till 6DME or 2000ft, whichever comes first and then track outbound on track 030 till lowest safe altitude or radar assigned level. I requested 3600ft which was the 10nm minimum safe altitude and in the northeastern sector it was 3000ft.

Once we did our checklists and secured the dead engine, i requested direct tracking to NIKKY waypoint which is the inital fix on the VOR 19 approach. Normally i would do an RNAV however there was a RAIM outage for the time that we were departing. (Means that using the FMS for an approach would have produced flags, resulting in a one engine missed approach)

We did 3 holding patterns at NIKKY, to confirm the approach checklists were done, the cabin was secured, the briefings complete and that both pilots were satisfied that we were in a safe configuration and understanding to commence the approach. The VOR to TL must be handflown once the gear is put down, as per company SOP's. I configured at 11DME to be configured an stable by 8DME which is the final approach fix. From there is was a matter of crew co-ordination and flying to get the plane down. We landed safely and the exercise was over.

The next event was by the captain into Cairns, doing an 15nm DME arc arrival 15 ILS. Handflown with a pressurisation fault and roll control fault. All handled well. After our break it was time to get back into it.

Next was an uncontrolled engine fire on descent into Tamworth. Again the associated drills and checklists were done, it was time to get the plane on the ground and simulate a mock evacuation. Shortly after we had to do some bad weather circling approaches at night, which are always challenging. My excercise was all engines operation, so i could use the autopilot. The captain on one engine had to handfly his, not easy, and his involved a missed approach from 300ft.

So 4 hours later we emerged absolutely tired and mentally exhausted, but good to fly the line for another 3 months till the next check. It was a good experience and despite it being stressful and hard, you have to consider the sim as a day at work with abnormal operations and just deal with the problems that occur, as you would the real aeroplane if you were flying on the line. It was good to see that my procedures and drills for abnormal operations were better and more understood than when i was doing endorsement training in the sim nearly 3 months ago.

Cheers   

Hello, hi, welcome, ahoy - i am still alive. I do apologise for a severe lack of posting of recent times, but it was due a few reasons, one massive problem, which i would rather not delve into on the online community, but overall, its been a fairly stressful few months, and finally, after almost 5 months since my induction, ground school, simulator training, i am finally - CHECKED TO LINE! (watch out unsuspecting captains)

So yeh, i haven't actually flown the line yet, had my first day of reserve and didn't get called in, which was a little weird as i was fully expecting it. It's been really nice weather in Sydney at the moment, CAVOK days, so i guess people aren't really dreading flying in challenging conditions and therefore don't mind working. It seems that everyone gets called off reserve when there are challenging conditions and delays at Sydney airport.

Although that brings me to an interesting point which airline flying has kinda challenged me in. And that is, the visual circuit into an uncontrolled aerodrome. It is probably the most dangerous thing we do, and that is decending through 10,000ft and entering the realm of VFR piston drivers, lots who don't tune up CTAF frequencies or have transponders. I actually had a TCAS RA on a line training flight. It's hard to know who was at fault, or whether our TCAS was faulty, or the pilot didn't turn is transponder on till the last minute, but all of a sudden we had traffic 1000ft below us, on our track, climbing through our level. Naturally, we turned out of the way and followed the TCAS instructions, and thankfully nothing came of it. But talk to nearly any captain on the line and they have all nearly had some incident involving traffic.

However apart from all the traffic we encounter, which just adds to the workload and maintain a vigilant visual look out for traffic, when its instrument procedures, it is often easier to plan a flight and manage the workload. What i mean by this, is when you have an ILS or an RNAV approach in marginal conditions, you have a defined set of rules and flight profile to follow.

For example, when we do an RNAV approach, there are defined altitudes to be at the final approach fix, the intermediate approach fix and the initial approach fix. At the initial approach fix, there is a set of speeds we also need to adhere to. So from top of decent we can plan in the FMS to be at a height and a speed at a certain space in time, and then commence the approach. By the final approach fix (usually a five mile final to the runway), we need to be configured for landing and speeds below 130kts. From there is it usually a decent to the minimum altitude and we decide whether we will land or do a missed approach for whatever reason.

I bring this up because when you brief plan for instrument procedures it somehow ended up being easier, having a set of rules and decent steps, with known speeds and 'gates' (aim points) to configure and carry out the approach. Most of my training had been in instrument procedures, partly due to training and partly due to the actual weather at the destinations, so all of a sudden we have really good weather and we were doing visual circuits and visual approaches, i was actually a little lost in what to do. Remember apart from circuit training, you actually practise very little visual procedures in the sim.

So anyway, training is complete, and i'm looking forward to flying the line. It's been a massive learning curve. I can't stress the difference in flying between my general aviation days and flying in a multi crew airliner environment.

Anyway i'll try to get posts a big more regular now with more photos. I have my first sim check as well in the next week, just in case i wasn't done with everything!

Cheers. 

Ahh well.. it's about time for a post

Hi all, thanks for continually checking up on my lack of posts! It's been pretty crazy with all the training, reading, training, re-reading, training etc. Airline flying is probably harder than i expected and more intensive than i ever realised. I'm sure once im settled in to everyday life and flying the line with a variet of different people and not so focused on flying the plane and company procedures, than it will be a different kettle of fish again, but at the moment i feel as though i haven't had to work this hard ever!

I finish reading the FCOM, the engineering manual, and other associated texts, only to basically start reading them again. I have spent a lot of hours just reading and re-reading manuals, learning specific limitations of the airplane from memory, recalls from the QRH word perfect (company requirment), on top of learning the syllabus in the training file.

So yeh, good times!
Line flying is a lot different to anything that goes on in the sim. Just some things you cannot replicate, and in marginal weather, you just need to be on top of everything the whole time. The biggest challenge in flying a bigger aircraft in a multi crew environment is the constant management that flying it requires.
Anyway one particular thing of interest in the Dash-8 is the ice protection systems and the penalties when it comes to landing and taking off. As you can imagine there is a lot of emphasis on speed management and situational awareness in the Dash. This is partly due the Colgan crash a few years back, and also because we don't have any autotrottle system, so its very easy to reduce power, get distracted doing something else and all of sudden be at minimum speed in no time flat. That why we have very defined pilot flying, and pilot monitoring roles.
Also with ice protection on in the dash, it increases your Vref (min speed landing in that configuration) over the fence for landing. This actually an automatic speed bias in the stall warning computers, which is triggered by the propeller heaters and also the increase ref speed switch. At a high weight its about an extra 15 knots. In windy conditions, by the time you apply a Vapp speed (basically a target speed to provide some protection over Vref - We use 1/3 the windspeed or all of the gust to a maximum of 15 knots) So by the time you add the ice protection speed coupled with a high Vapp, flaps 15 instead of 35, into a short runway, which is high elevation in miserable weather, it makes for some challenging approaches and high workload situations. With the ice protection on, then its a significant weight penalty for take off as well.. this is due to the speed bias in the stall warning computers which i mentioned earlier. Since you need a high speed, you therefore need more runway, which therefore limits your maximum take off weight.

I hope that made some sense to those reading at home. Anyway line training is 2/3's of the way through now and almost finished. I have a progress check in the next few days and then a check to line early september at this stage.

So thanks for continuing to check it and read my blog, i will get back to being more regular with my postings when im all checked to line.

Some photos from line training. About a third of the way through it.. massively study intensive and making a me hermit. Hope you enjoy, i'll be back to normal blogging and stories soon, but at the moment quite literally too busy.

Thanks for reading.

Line Flying

Start flying the line on Friday, with my first flight to Port Macquarie, which is on the mid north coast of NSW for those not from Australia. Is very exciting but also pretty scary at the same time. I don't ever remember being so nervous about flying a plane before. I guess its finally the real thing. You train and learn so much in the sim, that when it comes to crunch time, it seems foreign to actually get into a real plane.

I will be doing the majority of all my flying down in Melbourne, but the first two flights are based out of Sydney. It will also be the first time that i will fly in and out of Sydney International as pilot flying, and even from the right seat of a 19T aircraft! Pretty cool. It's definately a weird feeling to be achieving i guess what was my dream growing up, watching the planes arrive and depart, and now to actually be part of this and being part of the operating crew is something that i can't really put into words.

So the sims went without a hitch, actually, i lie. I had to repeat one item, which wasn't a fail, but the instructor basically said that he wanted to see it done better. SO, i repeated it, and did it better :) and then my final check was over, and i am being let loose on the line to finish my training. The company requires 100 hours with a training captain to get checked to line as a minimum, so lets hope i'm up to the challenge! Exciting times ahead, plus in the next 2 weeks i will be flying in and out of Melbourne Tullermarine, Sydney Kingsford-Smith, Canberra, and various smaller regional areas. I guess i have wanted to work flying on the east-coast of Australia out of these destinations since i started flying, so its so so so SO cool, that it's finally happening.

Hopefully bring you some pics and other news shortly. For now back to the FCOM and study, preparing my Jepp plates and making sure i know what im actually doing on Friday haha.

Cheers for reading.

apologies

Sorry for the lack of posts of recent. Its been pretty insane finishing up the endo. If all goes well i will be dash-8 endorsed tomorrow afternoon. I will be finished with all sims including the cyclic program by Monday and start line training mid next week!

Will keep you all updated soon!

A lot of my sims were cancelled this week. It's hard to keep reading the same text over and over, and it feels as though im skimming over it at the moment in the vain hope that i 'know' it. I guess it is at the point where i just need to keep going in the sim to get it all done. We had 3 out of 6 cancelled this week, mainly due to a sick instructor. So thanking him for not spreading it around! Last thing i want right now is to be sick and have to call in sick during training.

Im on that very weird line of not working enough, and enjoying the time off a little too much, and i should be head in the books again. But i have 2 sims the next 2 days so it should put it all back into perspective. We did circuits the other day, and it was a good experience not only going through all the drills as pilot monitoring but also actually hand flying the thing in the circuit, doing stable approaches and normal landings. I think thats the extent of normal procedures i will encounter! and as of tomorrow everything and anything abnormal starts to happen, with roll/pitch control jams, to engine failures at V1 into IMC and then conducting the instrument approach around for a landing. FUN....

Anyway, good times ahead, hopefully start line traing in the not too distant future once the endorsement phase is done.

I'm having trouble being able to post comments on my blog or on anyone elses, so im sorry if it seems i'm not replying, or commenting - i'm not able too!! If anyone has any clues as to why this is, i would like to know!

The photo above is a photo of the PW123E engine. Awesome right? I prefer looking back at these, and they sound way cooler in Disc, than any piston! Actually, Titans do sound super cool, but nothing beats a turbine!

Hope you like it as much as i do!

First sim session

Was awesome! Was a great experience, and possibly the best feeling going to a sim centre to learn to fly an 'airliner' or box kite - whichever you deem more appropriate.

I wont say too much! But it was one of the best experiences of my life, and 3.7 hours went so so quick!

Keep you all up to date soon.

Fits in the awesome category! Final approach 16R Sydney.

waiting and waiting

My friend in V Australia recently referred to the plane i fly as a "box-kite." I thought that was pretty funny, so i will probably start saying box-kite more regularly. I guess to his 300T takeoff weight, a 19T box-kite must appear tiny, especially on the ground!

Anyway, on to the training side of things, i can't really argue at all. I have had 2 weeks off basically to study for my sims, and 'try' be as prepared as i can for them. The hardest part is learning recalls, and how to action them. Recalls are essentially the phase 1's of a failure, or fault with the plane, which are commited to memory for immediate actioning, before the checklist is pulled out and used. An example is the depressurisation.  The recall is, Oxygen - on, mic switch - mask, passenger signs - on, power levers - flight idle, condition levers - max, and airspeed - Vmo. Now its good and ready to have that memorised, but actually doing it in a 2 crew situation and the exact ways to action it, makes it slightly more involved.

For example, in a depressurisation, and the plane is in Autoflight, then both pilots would don the oxygen at the same time and set up the mic switches. The Pilot flying would then disengage the autopilot and bank the plane 30 degrees left or right and pitch down to 20 degrees until Vmo is established, and maintain that speed till at least 14000ft. He would also say during this time have said "emergency descent recalls." The pilot monitoring would then have actioned the recall, confirming each one. The oxygen and mic switches are obvious checks as well as the passenger signs, and naturally the pilot flying would have already retarded the power levers as the emergency descent would be commenced. After saying and confirming those, he would get to the condition levers and say "condition levers max." The pilot flying would confirm this, and the pilot monitoring moves the condition levers to max. The airspeed should be at Vmo, and the pilot monitoring would say "recalls complete, reference next."

At this point he would also be saying to ATC that they are conducting an emergency descent and declare a pan pan or mayday. Set the transponder to 7700 for emergency and if time permitted advice the passengers and cabin crew what was happening. I believe cabin crew are trained to recognise a depressurisation and what their actions should be.

There are a lot of these recalls, and i guess the secret is going through them precisely and accurately in a timely manner, without rushing anything or missing anything. Although, they represent emergency situations and not normal flight conditions, they should be completed calmly and in the proper two crew coordination.

Im looking foward to the sims! I should be Box-Kite endorsed by the end of the month!

Haha, no this photo is not me or anyone else i know. Infact it was pretty much the first photo that came up in google when i searched for "wet drills." So that's what i'm going to talk about today. We had to do all our emergency procedures last week, which involved ground emergencies and also ditchings. We don't actually carry life rafts on our planes, so it was a little silly, but it's more for the rare occaison of a double engine failure or something and a search and rescue plane would assumedly drop one in our position till further help could be made.

So the day starts off with a lot of theory and learning basically what each bit of equipment is, where it's located, how it's used and also the limitations. A lot of this was box ticking exercises, but it was also very interesting to see it in a practical manner, rather than just reading about it. There is virtually an acronym for everything in the airline world, and an acronym on how to use the before said acronym. So for all the equipment we had SLOP (serviceability, location, operation and precautions.)

This meant for the fire extinguisher, that the serviceability was the pin in place, its in its holder and it was full pressure, located in the cockpit, forward cabin and 2 at the rear, operation was the PASS acronym (pulls, aim, squeeze, sweep) and precautions included the BCF can be quite harmful to breathing and in a closed space, and that you cannot use it on metal fires. I won't go through too many of these, but trying on the portable breathing equipment, such as the smoke hoods and also the pilots quick don oxygen mask was kinda cool. Its weird, you put them on it and it's like you forget how to breathe normally. Anyway, it's basically to show you so you have a feel for it all before you go on the line to fly.

So the first day also involved going to the plane, seeing the equipment stored, and also playing with the emergency exits, and how we would do a brief for a land evacuation. It's fairly involved as to what equipment a first officer carries and what exit he is responsible for. (PS- we are the first to find an exit and get out of the plane!! just saying!) So it was definately a good experience. The second day was an exam and the practical ditching side of things, where we exited a mock cabin into a pool, inflated life jackets and did a few exercises involving rafts, such as climbing into it and also trying to set up the roof that the raft has. This was not easy!! They also turned off the lights and have a huge sprinkler system in the roof that simulates rain. We got very cold and wet trying to do this, but it was also a really good experience.

So thats my EP's done for 12 months. I guess the biggest thing out of this was really how hard cabin crew work on safety and how much responsibility they have in the cabin. For just about everything, pilots have a locked door policy in flight and are virutally forbidden to go back and check out anything. They have to deal with fires, passengers, angry passengers, potentional threats, passenger safety, and know it back to front, all while keeping a smile and having good customer service. I don't think i could do it, so a big kudos to them for keeping the cabins safe.

2 More

Training is going well. Got all the emergency procedure training and wet drills (in the pool) the next few days, followed by the FMS course. That concludes the ground courses as such, and then comes the simulation endorsement and training. Once that is done, i will start line flying! Lots to look forward to, and even more to study. It's a lot of work in areas you just don't realise. One of the hardest parts is forgetting everything you already know to learn new procedure so you can focus on actually flying the new plane.

arrggghh

Learning the drills, and cockpit sequences is seriously a lot of work and study. It is a pretty steep learning curve from what i am used to doing. Don't get me wrong, i'm all about the challenge and ready/up for it, but it feels like never ending work at the moment.

Between learning the QRH recalls, the FCOM standard operating procedures, the correct calls, the correct read backs! It's definately an amazing experience though, and putting everything from the books into a 3d picture doing observation flights is great.

Next stop, the simulator!

The new plane

Sorry its been a while since i have posted! Been very busy and intense to be honest. Not sure what i expected, but it was a lot more work in a short amount of time than i anticipated. I still have another month of ground courses, ranging from an FMS course, to emergency procedures and wet drills.

It's a big learning curve! I struggled getting my head around the electrical system, which is basically set up in 3 main areas, each with a system redundancy. We have the left and right main electrical bus, which is driven by the DC system of the plane, powered by the DC generators, which also doubles as the engine starter. We then have the left and right secondary buses, which are powered by the AC system, but supply DC power via 2 transformer rectifier units (TRU). Power to the secondary buses can be connected so that it powers the main bus, and vice versa. It essentially means we can lose 2 DC gens, 2 TRU's, or a combination of each, and still supply power to the entire DC system.

The DC system is also supplimented by the battery system, which feeds the left and right essential bus, the hot battery bus, and also supplies emergency power. The batteries are charged and kept charged via the main buses, which also feed power to the essential buses when the plane is operational, on the ground with external power, or the APU, or with the engines running. The hot battery bus has essential items such as fuel cut-offs in the event of a fire, and other critical items that need a direct power source. The essential bus feeds things like avionics, so in the event that all was lost, the batteries can still supply power to critical flight instruments. The avionics need AC power to operate, so there are 3 inverters to convert the DC power into AC.

The AC system is powered by 2 AC generators which supply 2 AC buses. One generator can supply enough power for both AC buses. As stated before, the AC gens feed the TRU's, which also supply the secondary buses on the DC system.

Well thats about all my brain can write about now. I have finished the engineering side of the groundschool, now i have performance this week, which should be interesting. Photos to come soon. Enjoy, again apologies for delayed posts, but i have to find time to study, let alone writing a blog. Thanks for reading

Starting the new gig tomorrow

So i start the new job tomorrow. Very exciting. Im told to bring a suitcase for all the training books and manuals we are meant to be given. Lots of study to come, and once again becoming a hermit.

The drive from Darwin to Sydney was really really long! But made it safely back. My car was covered in bugs, and im pretty sure the suspension is completely destroyed. Lets just say it wasn't designed for country roads at 130km in the Territory and 110 all other places.


Here are some photos from the trip -

I thought this was cool

So you can see the evolution in my career. The first 2 bar's i wore literally dissolved due to sweat, dirt etc. I think i must have wiped my face on my shoulder a few too many times, and you can see how scabby they become! My dad would have hated seeing something as gross as that. But he wasn't here to complain. The second set of 2 bars was my room mates old ones which were donated to me because he thought mine looked "unprofessional."

I actually had over 500 multi engine command before i got 3 bars. The only reason i bought them was that everytime i did the RPT (regular public transport) flights all my pax started commented that they "had the junior pilot!" Naturally i couldn't have that, but the crux came when i was flying with a more junior pilot than myself, but they had 3 stripes and everyone thought they were checking me to line. Petty aren't I? Anyhoo, thats the evolution of my GA uniform. 3 sets of wings, with a 4th to add soon. I start driving south tomorrow, exciting stuff.

Ok i lied - one more post!

Just to keep you all entertained i uploaded some of the photos off my phone the other day. Some i have no idea why i took, others are pretty self explanatory. There is one when i closed the main airport at Darwin due to blowing a nosewheel on landing.

For those who want more details of the new job? Yes it is still in Aviation, it is still flying, i have to wear a coat and hat, and it burns kerosense, with around 6.6x the power of the current plane. And roughly 5x the amount of people! Its on the East Coast of Australia, and i will be based at Sydney International.

This is from a Baron about to head over Bathurst Island in the dry season.

This is a funeral plane, carrying a dead body. It was on Bathurst Island. It was one of 7 flights i did in a single since i was checked on twin engine aeroplanes.

Troughten Island! This in my memory was probably my favourite charter in GA. If not my favourite, it was in the top 3. Thats actually not a bad blog post - 3 most memorable flights to date.

Approach into Darwin at night. From memory this was from a Titan, returning from Ramingining.

Following a 747 on the taxiway at Darwin. I stopped here to avoid jetblast. It is really bad if you get to close to a 737 or 717. I didn't even test the 747! It went via a Malaysian Airlines flight number.

Finally, yours truely blowing a tyre on landing. The first incident i had that closed the main airport, and caused 3 jets to do missed approaches! Sorry to them if they read!

Enjoy!