Rumbled!

It's minus 38 degrees  here with wind chill this morning and my instructor is sick, so I've got the day off.  The cut off temperature for flying is -35, and everybody is sitting, waiting for a thaw.  The mercury was down at 35  yesterday while I was doing my pre-flight inspection and it didn't take long for the familiar face freeze to set in.  It was my fourth flight and for the first time I was starting to feel ahead of the plane, with the exception of a few blunders and an ensuing "rumbling".  Things happen fairly quickly and it's easy to get behind if you're not on top of things.  For example, on initial climb after take off at 150 ft above the ground landing gear is retracted, at 90 knots the flaps come up, 100 knots engine oil pressure, RPM and temperature check, prop set for 2400 RPM and at 600 feet above ground level, turn out is commenced where a certain land mark (a bridge) has to be picked out and headed for directly, all the while climbing at 100 knots.  All of this needs to be done while keeping the plane under control and before reaching 1900 feet, where level off takes place due to an altitude restriction.  There isn't a lot of time for bumbling asking oneself  "hmm, now what comes after, flaps again, and where's that bridge I need to head to head to?"  Procedures need to unfold like clock work in order to stay ahead of things and yesterday I felt like I was getting closer to where I need to be.  

There's a guy down the hall I practice with every night.  We sit in his chair and supervise each other making airplane noises like we're a couple of 5 year olds playing the airplane game, visualizing, imagining, sharpening procedures, "1500 ft gear up ka clunk flaps up vvrrrrr". His name is Pierre-Olivier and he is the most obsessed guy I've ever met.  He's from Quebec and his English is decent, but he still cannot put into words what a magazine picture of a helicopter does to him, or the sound of an approaching Griffon makes him feel.  We were in the student lounge yesterday and he was flipping through the latest edition of Vertical magazine, which he has been a subscriber to since he was 9.  He beamingly showed me a picture of some new helicopter from Europe, "Oh Jiff, I can't teel u phwew, ow much I loffff dis masheen".  Like a 16 year old groupie who'd just spotted the Beatles he was frantically rubbing his hand up and down his arm.  I think he was trying to convey to me the picture was giving him the shivers.  Next time I went into his room, sure enough the centre fold picture of the A-Star was pinned up on his cork board.  

I mentioned the infamous "Rumble Book" in a previous post which is the place where all the blunders from the course are both shamefully and humorously  recorded.  There is a guy from Nova Scotia who has been paired with the gruffest, most intense instructor in the school.  I think the man wrestles buffalo and wins with his stare alone.  The other day he left Shawn alone to do his pre-flight inspection while he walked over to put the engine cover in a bin.  It was quite windy and as Shawn was crouching down to check tire inflation all the papers in his flight suit pocket fell out and started blowing to the other side of the plane and towards the runway.  Terrified of being seen, and quicker than Billy Be-Darn Shawn scampers like a cat to the other side of the plane and tries to collect the papers which are being strewn erratically down the taxi-way.  His instructor still had his back to him, but was almost at the bin and ready to do a 180 and return his watch-full eye.  Shawn had to get back to the other side of the aircraft so as not to raise suspicions in his instructors over suspicious mind.  So he bolted and made it back to where he should have been by the time his instructor turned around; entry number one in the rumble book.

I made an entry of my own yesterday.  There are two radios in the Grob and a toggle switch which must be pressed to switch back and forth between the two.  It's kind of like having two cell phones in one where you simply press a button to talk on one or the other.  Before take-off the dispatcher in our hangar needs to be notified with the following blurb: "Grob ops, Shotgun 12 departing".  I managed to flawlessly pull that radio call off.  After making it however, I was distracted by something else and forgot to switch to control tower frequency, where take-off clearance must be obtained.  So a few minutes later as we were taxiing up to the runway hold line, I confidently and calmly stated: "Southport Tower Shotgun 12, takeoff".  The reply, a woman's voice, "Shotgun 12 you are still on Ops frequency".  IDIOT Ahhhh, what a dumb thing to do.  Rumbled!  The funniest part was when I got back down and asked by one of the guys how my flight went.   I sheepishly replied "pretty good except for a little radio issue".  I explained to him what I did, he looked at me, snickered and told me he did the exact same thing.  Rumble number 3, at least I'm not the only doofus!

Heather has been doing some research for me on how to deal with stress, how the body responds to it and strategies for minimizing it.  My understanding of the process is when we are stressed, certain hormones are released in our bodies such as cortizol,which helps in the fight or flight (ie run away) routine that our ancestors used.  Regular exercise reduces stress by up to 30 percent, but even more effective is laughter, smiling and social interaction.  It is quite interesting that smiling alone relaxes our stomach and releases relaxation chemicals.  It's so nice to know other guys are screwing up too!  I'm off to the pool.  Take care, thanks for reading.     

Winnipeg

I must say it's been a bit tough getting my head back in the game this Monday morning after spending a nice weekend in balmy, dynamic, romantic Winnipeg.  I'm being somewhat sarcastic, but it really was a fun time and turning out to be a neat city.  Heather came out for a visit and following the Friday night Bengal Beer-Cal/initiation night for the new class, we headed down the road 45 minutes for a Winterpeg winter getaway.  It was fantastic being on the non-initiation end of the beer call and having Heather here to witness the shenanigans.  The highlight of the night for me was the social experiment we decided to conduct on this one guy by putting lime juice, ground up Cheetos and water in his shot-glasses instead of booze.  The jury is still out and the results are a little skewed I think due to his excessively high blood alcohol levels at placebo commencement.  Regardless, I'm sure his liver was thanking us the next day despite the mashed up Cheetos that some genius decided to start adding.  He really didn't seem to notice anyways.

We had a good time in Winnipeg and spent a large part of the day at The Forks, which is the part of the city where the Assiniboine and Red Rivers meet.  There is a 6 mile skating track on the river and three full size hockey rinks, so we laced them up and went for a rip.  There was a pretty sharp wind, so by about kilometer 3 I was slurring my words worse than Cheeto Placebo Man due to a frozen face.  I'm still not sure my feet are completely thawed out, so at least now Ihave an excuse for not being able to fly straight (for those who don't know airplanes are steered on the ground by the rudder pedals on the floor, which is also used for directional control in the air).  

Since it was a Winnipeg weekend we continued on with the theme and rented the movie/documentary "My Winnipeg" made by a local guy.  Being a Canadian production I had my seatbelt fastened for a weird and wacky over artistic, hard to understand, Canadian movie experience.  It didn't dissapoint on the whacky front and I'm still left wondering what was fact and what was fiction.  Did you know:  Winnipeg is the coldest city on earth.  It has ten times the rate of sleep walking of all cities in the world.  There is a civic law stating that no street signage can be destroyed and there is a sign graveyard somewhere in the area.    Cree legend has it that beneath The Forks of the Assiboine and Red Rivers, lies a subterranean meeting of two rivers which leads to the underworld.  For hundreds of years they would burn their dead there, at the confluence of this underworld.  The Arington street bridge which is one the major bridges in the city, was designed and built to span the Nile and be sold to Egypt.  Somebody screwed up and it ended up not fitting, so the city of Winnipeg bought it at a discounted rate.  "Garbage Hill", the only land mass remotely resembling a hill by BC standards, is composed of over half a century of the city's trash.  It's not uncommon for for thrill seeking toboganning children to impale themselves on old car bumpers, frost heaved and sticking above the surface.  The city's Legislature building is the biggest Masonic construction in the world.  Apparently, when it was built in the early 1900s, the Premier and all his cabinet members were Free Masons, so it was the Masons who did the building.  Winnipeg is home to the scorer of the fastest hat trick in NHL history in an eclipsing time of 21 seconds.  It was also the home of the first Canadian hockey team to win Olympic gold, which took place in Antwerp in 1920 and was considered the capital of international hockey in the 20s and 30s, hosting some the the initial Soviet-Canadian duels.  And last, but not least, the city was the site of "If Day".  In 1942, 5000 Rotary members volunteered to dress up as Nazi storm troopers and rain simulated terror on the city.  The disturbance was a campaign to promote the purchase of war victory bonds.  I'm still not sure how much of all this is really true.  I'm going to research it as it's all quite interesting.  I recommend the movie as well.

The winds are up today and clear hood 4 is approaches and landings.  Needless to say, conditions need to be almost perfectly calm to make learning productive, so I've got the day off to study.  My class is starting what is called a "Rumble Book", tradition and a place where everyone records the blunders and or stupid things they've done in the airplane so far.  My third flight last week was a tough one, so I am ready for a little group therapy.  More to follow on that...take care.   

     

Primarus Fuga

The conditions were finally just right today for my first flight.  It was a beautiful, clear, bright blue sky day with almost not a cloud in the sky.  I mentioned the horizon had to be almost perfect due to the skill that I needed to tackle.  It's called attitude flying which is where certain climb, bank and turn positions are set up based on the plane's orientation with the horizon as opposed to looking at the instruments inside the cockpit.  The point is to learn how to fly without having eyes inside so that collisions and other problems can be avoided.  Flying is tricky because it involves 3 dimensional movement as opposed to just 2 on the ground, so trying to remember an exact picture in front of you on the windscreen combined with keeping a level altitude and turning at a steady rate, while monitoring radio communication and keeping track of airspeed  is like a juggling act while trying to talk and chew gum.    I couldn't have asked for better conditions today and am amazed at the airplane I get to fly.   The Grob has been compared to a German sportscar and I now know why.  The Cessnas I learned to fly on are like old unresponsive 1972 pick-up trucks in comparison and I was amazed at how fast it climbed.  I had to double take a few times out of disbelief that I'm actually being paid to do this and really enjoyed the day.

Last week we had an interesting guest speaker come in to do a quick talk and conduct a bunch of research.  He was a psychologist named Dr. Terry Orlick who has done a bunch of work with elite level athletes and various other professions on how to train the mind to perform under pressure and how to reach and maintain excellence.  He's worked with a bunch of Olympic medalists over the last 25 years such as the speed skater Katrina Lemay Doan.  He just finished with a team of surgeons teaching them how to control their minds and manage stress during critical phases of surgery.  He's been contracted to figure out how to make better pilots and how to raise performance levels on an ongoing basis.  One of the things I found most interesting was his bit on "ongoing excellence".  He used an example of some of the pro golfers he works with and he talked about how in every round of golf played there is always a lesson to be learned or a weakness to be improved upon.  So for example, Tiger Woods may win a major tournament, but in that win realizes his short game is weak.  He said that it is easy to learn a lesson or identify a weakness, but what separates the elite performers from the mediocre performers is that the elite performers act on improving  and relentlessly work on that weakness until perfection is achieved as opposed to remaining idle after the lesson has been learned.  Tiger Woods for example can often be seen out on the driving range after a major win he explained, working on any imperfection he notices in his game.  

The other thing he talked about was the power of being in a moment when performance is critical and how the mind can be trained to block out the past and future in order to "flow" in the moment.  So on a flight test for example, distractions such as past screw ups, or fear of future events and or failure, detract from present-moment tasks.  He discussed a variety of techniques for mind blocking which are useful in a lot of situations in life.      

Alright, that's enough rambling for now.  I've gotta go hit the driving range.  

Weathered in...

I heard on the radio the other day that weather is the most talked about subject in the world.  So, I'll follow along with the masses and say that I never thought I would see a rainy February day in Manitoba.   The running joke today was "Hey, let's go play hockey in the parking lot".  Unfortunately it was freezing rain, which is never good when you are a student pilot.  If rain droplets hit the wing surface and freeze, the airflow gets disrupted which reduces lift and causes huge problems; all of a sudden gravity is not your friend.  Apparently the Grob has about 2 minutes in icing, so obviously all planes were grounded today.

In the morning weather brief today everyone dodged a bullet because they didn't have the "pick a victim emergency scenario".  Leading up to it I was calculating my odds of being chosen and figured it was around 10%.  With Murphy's Law in the mix I deduced it must have been in the high 90s.  If it was for a draw prize or one million dollars I would never be picked, but for something like this...call me a pessimist, but..  The bottom line is being ready for it I suppose and not minding being picked, which is where I will be tomorrow.  The worst part about being chosen is the fact there is a surly old captain that sits in the back of the room and turns up the heat big time on anyone who stutters, stumbles, stammers, or generally needs a good yelling at that day.  Like a hyena lurking in the tall grass he will scream "You are in a one G environment, what's the matter with you???  Sort yourself out or you are not going flying today!!!!!"  Well sir, Mother Nature sorted it out today and nobody is going flying anyway.

It is interesting seeing how the different personality types deal with being prepared for upcoming lessons and or being the "hyena in the grass bait" for the morning emergency exercise.  At about 8:30 last night I popped by my neighbors room and found him watching some bad Quebecois Comedy show.  "How's it goin Gaston, ya got your Red Pages down?"  I asked, "Hi know da feerst tree hemerrrgencies, but dat eez hall".  I reply, "hmmm, ya think you're going to have them by tomorrow?"  "Ho yiss, eets hall gooood Jfff".  I don't think he had them memorized this morning and I don't think he believes in Murphy's Law, or maybe 10

% odds are low enough.

There is another guy here who failed 3 years ago.  He went out, spent every penny to his name on a commercial licence and is back for a second crack at it.  I have never walked into his room and not seen him studying.  

I hope you are doing well, thanks for reading.     

The Green Mile

Tomorrow my class hits the flight line.  Following each flight we do a debrief with the instructor in one of the rooms off this hallway to find out the mark we got for the flight.                                                                    

Altimetry

I mentioned how impressed I was with the on-line training program and how interactive it is.  We carry around lap tops and can log in whenever.  This one shows what happens to the altimeter when an airplane flies from a high pressure system into a low one.  The altimeter thinks it is higher than it really is and the plane can hit terrain.  By clicking around on the image, I can see exactly what the gauge would indicate and why by getting a look the inner workings of the instruments.  It really helps for understanding and how to avoid making mistakes in the air. 

Bedtime Approaches

I mentioned it's better to be friendly than smart.  One of the guys who just finished the course gave me a Google Earth image that he printed out of the airport and surrounding area along with his approach cards.  So rather than fumbling around in the air, I can fumble around on my bed and figure out reference points.  When departing certain runways you have to maintain specific altitudes and fly to certain landmarks.  Leaving runway 08 for example, 3500 feet must be maintained until a certain landmark is reached.  There are 6 different runway procedures to be memorized so figuring it all out while relaxed should make life easier in the air. 

Home Sweet Home

I feel like I'm living in a Super 8 Motel some days, but it's not too hard to take.  The room comes complete with a temporary Mom, ie a maid with empty nest syndrome.  It's like reverting to childhood because she makes my bed every day, brings fresh towels and always calls me "dear".  She even brought the building a pot of stew because she thought we all needed a home cooked meal.  Her kids just left home so this job gives her 50 should-be adults to take care of.  

Going Nowhere Fast

Every day there is a weather brief first thing in the morning with the whole school in attendance.  One poor sap from the audience gets picked to stand up in front of everyone and say what they would do in a given emergency.  So, if you don't know the Red Page by heart, you are left looking silly.  To get ready for it I spent all day today in the simulator practicing.  I'm still hoping I don't get pounced on tomorrow!

Meteorology Monstrosity

The Air Force has more acronyms than you could shake a stick at.  FOD for instance stands for "foreign object damage" to an airplane.  Believe it or not there is a rule/regulation stating that no pens with pen caps are allowed into aircraft at the school for fear of them becoming "FOD", ie an insidious little pen cap could get caught in prop wash and whack another plane.  It makes sense when you think about it, but I never thought I would be prohibited from protecting the precious ink in my pen.  One thing that really tickles me is when acronyms get turned into verbs for example "That plane was FODDED today".  

A flight student's least favourite acronym by far is PRB.  It stands for Performance Review Board and that is where one goes after failing a string of exercises, flight test, or written test, and today the ominous "P" word reared its ugly head.  Fortunately, I wasn't the victim, however I suspect I had a very near miss with it.  The MET, or weather exam today was absolutely brutal and one of the guys in the class failed it.  That means it's off for a visit with the Course Director, usually a Major, which is 3 ranks up from us lowly students, and never a good time.  The test caught us all off guard and was considerably more difficult than anticipated.  Most of the tests so far have been more or less regurgitation based however this one required applying knowledge at a much more complicated level.  We were given a string of coded weather reports for example for Portage which are called METARS which look like this: 

CYPG 1500Z 13025KT G25 P6 SM BKN 035 2995 RMK 5SC SP1098=   

Rather than being asked to simply decode them as anticipated we had to interpret a whole bunch of them and then figure out where in relation to Portage a low pressure system would be situated.  

80 percent was the pass mark.  One person got 86%, two got 84%, six scraped by at 80% and the one guy "failed".    Over half my class is made up of Quebecors and my hat really goes off to them for being able to absorb everything in their second language.  The international standard or official language in aviation is English so I am thankful my parents decided to set up shop in British Columbia.  

My test scores have been pretty good.  I got 100% on the first test and 95 on the second.  It's not that I'm a shining star or anything because we usually have a pretty good idea going in exactly what will be on the test and the class averages are usually right up there.  People in courses ahead of us compile a "GEN" (general) file with a databank of test questions as best they can remember.  So, it's better to be friendly than it is to be smart!! :)

It is a strange and stressful environment to be in where a string of poor performances can end it all.  The guy who failed today won't be sent home, but a failed test does not look good in front of a board and one more could do him in.  The bummer of it all for him is it could have been any number of us in the same boat.

I'm off to study Air Regulations which is things like how long a pilot needs to wait between consuming booze and flying and how far a VFR pilot needs to be clear of clouds.  I'm not sure how much time must elapse between test writing and alchol consumption, but my freind who pooched it today may be able to tell me.  Until next time, I hope you are all FOD and PRB free! 

Seeing Red

This weekend has certainly been tamer than the last.  The blood alchol levels have stayed at a level a lot more conducive to academics as we've got a big week ahead of us with a meteorology (weather) test tomorrow, an air regulaiton exam on Tuesday, aerodynamics on Wednesday and then one more to round out a fun filled week on Thursday.  So if any of you want to know what happens to wind, temperature, turbulence and air pressure when a warm front passes, I'm your guy.  One more week of ground school and then the flying starts.   

I took a time out from being a study hermit in my room yesterday and went over to the simulator to practice emergency procedures with one of the other guys in my class.  We have access to it more or less 24 hours a day and can get in after hours with swipe cards.  It doesn't move so there are no barf bags involved -unless it is the day after initiation night- but it is surprisingly realistic and is pretty much like sitting in a real Grob.  The computer can be set up to throw random emergencies so that I can sit in and get the procedures mastered.  All critical emergencies have to be memorized, mastered and performable in my sleep.  There are 13 of them in total (I'm not superstitious, so having to memorize 13 is no big deal, they don't have 13th floors on buildings though so maybe I should talk to someone about such an unlucky number:) )  They're known as "Red Pages" and as I mentioned we're expected to know them cold.  I feel like an actor some days trying to memorize lines for a movie.  For instance, if there is an engine fire in flight the pilot needs to do the following:  1)reduce speed to 120 knots and manoeuvre the plane away from the direction of flames 2) shut the fuel supply off from the tank 3) cut the fuel-air engine mixture lever 4) put the throttle full forward 5)  turn the ignition off 6) turn the fuel pump off 7) turn the cabin air to off and cold 8) make mayday call 9) turn on emergency locator transmitter 10) turn unnecessary electrics off 11) carry out forced landing procedures, harness tight, landing gear down, flaps as required, and just before landing turn off the alternator and battery.  One of my tactics for remembering all this stuff has been sticking post-it notes all over my room like my headboard and bathroom mirror.  If I can recite my lines while brushing my teeth, surely I can recite them in a real emergency.  And just for the record, on the topic of actors, I do not fancy myself Tom Cruise or Val Kilmer, yet at least.  However, there is a Quebecois guy here named Pierre Gosslein who is a spitting image of Goose and we do call him just that (much to his delight I think).  

I hope you are all doing well.  Thanks for reading.  Back to the books for me.

Air Force Tradition

The Mess here is a really neat place steeped with tradition.  The building it's in is WW2 era and has a neat old feel to it.   It consists of 2 parts, both the place we eat every day on the top floor, and down below a bar and lounge type set-up with couches, tables and ping pong.   Every Friday the Air Force has beer-calls, which is a chance to get together and have a few drinks at the end of the week.  They say a lot of the old traditions are dying out in the Air Force,  however the Commanding Officer of the flight school here is a fan and trying to resurrect them.  This past Friday it was a special one called the Bengal Beer-Call.  I'm not exactly sure what the origins of it are, but it was a Friday night I will not soon forget.  With all the negative publicity surrounding hazings (rightfully so), it wasn't really that.  In a nutshell, it was an initiation welcome night sort of thing for us new arrivals to the school.

It was set up council meeting style, with a "mayor" sitting up at the front of the room with 4 goons/enforcers to his left and right and a big Bengal tiger head hanging above him.  His "excellency" was seated in the fancy yet intentionally cheesy tiger apolstered ejection seat that I described in the last post, wore his flight suit and a big goofy Canadian flag top-hat.  He had a gavel that he wasn't afraid to make a ruckus with and a set of mandatory rules: He could be referred to only as your worship, your highness etc. and made it very clear that any other nomenclature used would be severely punished.  The punishment?  A disgusting mix of various hard alchols from the shot glasses literally covering the large table in front of him, administered by his assembly of goons.  

The proceedings started by introducing all of us poor sods and  sitting us up in front of everybody.  Two guys from my class were 10 minutes late which is a big no-no when the Commanding Officer is there waiting.  They were punished "accordingly".  Next came the introduction of the beer girl, who as luck would have it was one of the guys from the course ahead of us, dressed in fishnet stockings, and a mini skirt.  He/she was our server for the night.  Following our introduction came the confessions, stories and "instant- justice" portion of the evening.  It was a chance for any and all to get up and tell goofy stories.  Following each, the story teller and characters would take a shot.  Before drinking however the words "Primarus Fuga" had to be bellowed and if they weren't the goons were right there to administer.  As you can well imagine the stories became more and more outlandish the higher the blood alchol levels rose.  One guy was "instant justiced" by another guy for cutting him off in the traffic pattern that day.  The late comer from my class provided an explanation/confession for his tardiness.  He explained that it was his childhood dream to be a pilot and since arriving here in Southport he has been stressed to the max.  Unfortunately for my star struck colleague, this nervousness has impaired his ability to go to the bathroom.  I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say he was stuck in the bathroom, enjoying the fruits of his x-lax consumption and as a result couldn't make the meeting on-time.  He told the story well, and the whole room including the CO howled.  Of course things continued to go downhill as the night went on.  The next day there were the telltale signs of people having had way too much to drink.  Again, I'll leave it to your imagination.  Suffice it to say, it looked like Picasso had been by doing abstract art in the snowbank.

All in all it was a lot of fun.  If you didn't want to drink you didn't have to, the punishment could be passed to someone else.  And, after a while I discovered there were shot glasses of Kool-Aid at one end of the table, so the 150lb lightweights like myself had an out if we wanted it.   

Now it's back to the books (aerodynamic theory), emergency procedures and  simulator tomorrow.

TGIF

I don't mean to focus on the weather again, but man is it cold here.  The minute I stepped out the door this morning my nose hair thermometer instantly indicated it was a LOT below zero and combined with the wind (15 knots) it was really uncomfortable.   The first stage is a cold face and then about 45 seconds later you have a cold, numb and stinging face.  It was kind of funny walking back from class this morning there was a car parked out in front or the building.  It's bumper was loaded with icicles and the licence plate numbers were hidden from frost except for the tagline "Friendly Manitoba" part.  If I were Premier of this province the licence plates would say "Frigid Manitoba".

I'm really glad it's Friday!  It was a very hectic week with a lot of information being thrown at us.  One guy likened it to "Drinking from a fire hose".  We had our first test this morning on Aircraft Operating Instructions.  It was nice getting the first one out of the way and shedding the first test jitters! 

 It amazes me the minute details about the airplane we are expected to know, right down literally to the particle level.  The Grobe is made up of carbon fibre fabric all fiber glass together.  This gives the shell steel like strength qualities at half the weight.  To make one Grob requires 400 sq. yards, enough carbon fibre to wrap the entire building that I am attending class in and 1.5 million dollars.   Of course that was not testable material, but something I found interesting.    

The calibre of instruction here really is second to none.  We have one instructor who gracefully dances for us with his arms out as if he were an airplane, to explain and clarify teaching points.  He's known as Dr Feaver because his last name is Feaver and his Dad really is a doctor.  This guy is like an airplane doctor though.  He looks like a cross between Fred Flinstone and JohnF Kennedy and talks similarly to Margie in Fargo.  He's a local and a real character.  He talks about pistons like they are people, describes oil filters like livers, and throttle mixture controls as if they are human lungs.  He's full of funny stories and expressions like if you don't do this or that correctly in an airplane you could find yourself "running out of "airspeed, altitude and ideas all at the same time".  He is obsessed with flying and builds both real and model airplanes in his garage then sells the plans which creates himself.  He was a mechanic for 16 years and is brilliant at teaching all the aircraft systems.

In education there are all sorts of flowery sayings.  One of them is "Education is not the filling of a bucket, but rather the lighting of a fire".  I'm no poet, but I'm guessing that fire is like lighting a passion for learning in students.  Here, the fire is constantly being held under our butts.  I never thought I could push my own information intake levels this high, or see other people push themselves to learn this much in a short period of time.  There is a constant fear of falling behind and that fear allows people to miraculously force more into the brain even if it's 12 o'clock at night.  The school here really is like a pilot factory.  People wake up, study, eat, go to class, eat, study some more, go to sleep, then repeat it the next day.  The level of focus is incredible. 

I am going to stop here for today.  I'm hoping to get some pictures up soon.  Tonight we will be initiated by the class who came through before us.  We were told not to worry and that we "wouldn't be made to eat sh#t or anything".  It's a tradition in the Airforce to do it though and I'm not 100% sure what it will involve.  As I was walking past the student lounge today though I could smell beer and saw our initiators setting up an old aircraft ejection seat with tacky leopard apolstery on it and a stuffed tiger head above it.  Your guess is a good as mine, but the smell of beer, I suspect, was an hors d'oeuvre of what's to come.  Thanks for reading.  

We're not in Kansas anymore Toto...

It feels like I came to Winnipeg and am visiting Canada.  My flight in was complete with views from the airplane of shinny games and outdoor rinks and we've got pond hockey planned for the weekend.   I woke up this morning and heard what I thought was the shower running next door to me.  Upon exiting the building to scurry over for breakfast I quickly realized it was the wind howling and not a shower I could hear.   The 50 minute drive to Portage from Winnipeg was like a drive on a frozen lake and it makes sense the wind can get going the way it does.

Today was mainly admin. and paper work.  We were issued lap tops with the learning material and program all laid out on it.  It's amazing how well thought out it all is and coming from an education background it's impressive to see how well set up the 3 week ground school is and how the interactive diagrams all are designed.  Today it was propellors, engines, oil systems, flight instruments (attitude indicator, airspeed indicator etc).  It all comes at us pretty quick.  I talked to a guy at dinner who is a course ahead of me.  He has a weather test tomorrow and doesn't expect to sleep more than 2 hours tonight.  Yikes!!  Time to study.  

I saw a quote the other day about the blog craze that said,  "Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few".  It sort of rang true and now here I sit with so little to say to a  few of you.  So thanks for reading this.  I think I am the least prolific letter writer in the history of the world and this is my attempt to keep anyone interested up to date with what is going on.  It's less of a slap in the face than the impersonal group e-mail and allows for a little more creative flexibility than facebook.  The above quote reminded of the word "megalomaniac" as well, which is somebody suffering from delusions of grandeur.  Blogs seem to me to be a little of that as well.  Am I really worthy or polluting cyber-space with my ramblings?  Anyways, if you've read this far you must be semi-convinced that I am, and I do hope you enjoy and or find interesting the things I post.