Studying how to, and how not to pilot an aircraft

Blue skies!

We've been fairly busy lately having had four exams in the last three weeks, with another two exams next week. This far I've been spared from having to retake anything, but I'll have to study more than I have to be confident in meteorology and air law. Air law is filled with complicated details about everything which could make you think that every pilot should be able by heart to build an airport, make instructions on how to organize air traffic around the airport, act air traffic controller, organize rescue operations, and establish and design his own government authority so that it follows the wonderfully bureaucratic traditions in the industry.

The navigation course is comparatively interesting and easy, but as a former newbie physicist I regret that the geometry we learn is so simplified, and that course content seems actually designed in order to not make us understand the math, but just memorize formulas for the tests. Meteorology is by far the course that's most connected to science, among all courses that we will take until graduation. It's a very interesting course, while pretty difficult.

Besides studying I've devoted a lot of time to two things in my spare time. One is Microsoft Flight Simulator which I installed immediately after buying a new desktop computer (my old one was broken) and a joystick. Apart from easing my longing to fly for real again in spring, it can be quite instructive if you play it seriously. All buttons and switches from the real aircraft are present and the aircraft act very real. The other activity is watching documentaries from aviation accidents – I've watched around 20 episodes in the last two weeks.

One thing that's becomes very clear seeing all these documentaries is that the aviation industry should not be blamed to see lightly on accidents or not trying to avoid mistakes to be repeated, at least not in late years.  Another thing is that an accident never occur by random – there's always a series of avoidable events that lead to an accident. Practically all airliner accidents with fatalities or major airframe damage are thoroughly investigated and when solved lead to improvement of procedures or regulations that should prevent a similar accident from occurring in the future.

Youtube suggestions:

 

Maybe you've already seen documentaries about the Gottröra crash but this one is really good. A SAS airplane crashes after take-off from Arlanda on a field and everybody survives even though the airframe breaks apart. After this accident, checks that the wings have been properly de-iced were made more rigorous and the captain must actually touch the wing surface to check for invisible layers of ice. Training on engine surges and an automatic throttling system the pilots were unaware of was introduced.

A very long video about the famous 747 runway collision in Tenerife – the deadliest aviation accident ever. Because of a bomb in the Las Palmas airport terminal, many aircraft are diverted to the small Tenerife airport. When the aircraft finally can continue to their original destination Tenerife airport has been covered in heavy fog. A KLM 747 is at take-off position while another 747 of Pan-Am is taxiing on the same runway, and the KLM captain tries to take-off forgetting he has not got permission, and the collision is inevitable.

This accident led to a major standardization of aviation radio communication phraseology in order to avoid misunderstanding between the pilots and the air traffic controller. It also demonstrated the dangers of a social hierarchy between the captain and the co-pilot, and soon airlines started training their pilots in Crew Resource Management where the importance is emphasized of intervention by one pilot when the other one makes a wrong decision or is incapable to handle a situation.

Bye bye sky (sigh)

Hi!

The fall is about to turn into winter here in Ljungbyhed, with frost on the car windows and the grass in the mornings and the sun setting at 4 p.m. My last flight this year was 16 days ago – soon after my previous blog post. I was looking forward to it a lot – it was a solo flight from Ljungbyhed to Kristianstad Airport (doing a ”touch-and-go-landing”) after a detour to southern Småland region, then to Malmö Sturup Airport (ditto), and then flying along most of Skånes west coast to Höganäs, and finally return to Ljungbyhed. It's a two hour flight, almost twice my longest flight before that.

Anyway, on the morning when I was scheduled to leave at 08:30 the sky was quite cloudy and the wind pretty strong so I was pretty sure it would be cancelled. However my instructor was positive – even though the the cloud ceiling (height) was only barely acceptable she thought it would not be worse than our limits, and regarding the wind she said that if the wind would be too strong to land at the other airports I could just skip the actual landing and then continue as planned. The forecast said there would not be any problem at Ljungbyhed airport. So a quite happy student could fly as scheduled.

Since it was my first solo flight to other airports, and only my second altogether, I was not used to the communication procedures at the other airports, and so the air traffic controllers had to correct me several times, but there was no problem with the flight itself. The weather was ok for most of the time however a little hazy at Kristianstad which was unpredicted.

My solo Skåne-roundtrip was on October 25th, and since the following day was cancelled, that also marked the start of my roughly four months of pure ground training (theory classes). During the first period, from now until the end of January we will study general navigation, meteorology and air law. Meteorology is what it sounds like, and pretty much a more exhaustive repetition of the meteorology course we took for the private pilot licence (PPL). General navigation is a lot about coordinates and angles why my math and physics skills will certainly be useful. One important fundamental problem is to calculate the track (route angle) and distance between two points considering the spheric nature of Earth. Meaningly to learn how to fly the shortest route across the Atlantic ocean etc. that looks like an arch on the map. Air law is of course about the legal regulations on the air industry, this time from a commercial pilot's perspective. E.g. the maximum number of passengers per flight attendant and other essential knowledge.

Photos:

 

I don't want to read the PPL literature anymore, so I sold everything. I won't miss it (I hope)! I will probably have the same feeling for the ATPL (commercial licence) literature in a year, that's four more books and probably three times the total number of pages.

 

My brother visited me a weekend for some Skåne sightseeing and try out sitting of the school's airplanes. The colours of the Söderåsen national park fall leaves were fantastic!

I've still been far from busy lately so I've seen a lot of movies and played videogames. Airplane! (in Sweden ”Titta vi flyger”) is probably the best aviation comedy film out there, here's one of the countless unforgettable scenes. The pilots' names are Roger, Victor and Clarence Oveur.

Seeing the world upside down

Blue skies!

- Would be nice right now... I'm now halfway into my very last week of flying in 2012 before a long winter break filled with theory studies. Since we've still not had any theory classes after the exams these five weeks have been very relaxing and I've spent a lot of time into playing video games and taking naps during the day... Because of unstable weather I've been in the air about half of the weekdays, which I should be satisfied with since many classmates have not been able to fly as much. The last week have included two highlights in my pilot career. One was when I yesterday landed my first time at another airport than Ljungbyhed, namely Malmö Sturup and Kristianstad airport. It was really instructive and fun to land at a large airport such as Sturup! The other highlight is the main topic of today's blog post.

In Ljungbyhed we will fly two types of airplanes besides the four-seat Cirrus we usually use. One of them is a Scottish Aviation Bulldog, also known within the Swedish military as SK-61. It's a single-engine two-seat airplane first built in 1969 with an important difference from our other airplanes: it's certified for advanced maneuvers. That means we are allowed to fly it in any direction including straight up, straight down and upside-down (for a short while). Last week I flew the Bulldog for two hours – the only two hours I'll have this privilege at TFHS. That's because the objective of the exercises in the Bulldog are just to get a basic feeling of being in abnormal situations, and knowing the counter-measures if it would happen in an airliner.

During the first of these two flight lessons we mainly practised deep stall, i.e. slowing down and/or turning too steep until the plane falls vertically. Then the instructor put the plane into abnormal attitudes – a 90 degree bank, a very steep climb, upside-down etc – and I practiced getting back to a normal attitude. During the second lesson we practised spin: trying to turn sharply when stalling so that the plane starts rotating while falling rapidly. Obviously all this was performed at high altitudes under full control by the flight instructor. For safety we also wore parachutes so that we could leave the airplane if necessary.

When we were finished with the mandatory part the teacher simply asked me what kind of maneuver I'd like to try out, wow! In the two lessons I performed myself five barrel rolls and three loopings and the teacher showed even cooler stunts like the hammerhead, avalanche, the Cuban eight etc. I felt like a 12 year old being at the the best amusement park on the planet, hehe. Watch the videos!

On a side note, an unexpected scenario unveiled last week during a night flight lesson (practicing flying in dark) when a Norwegian student and his instructor happened to see a fire in a storehouse on the ground close to Ljungbyhed. They alerted the fire authority and circled the area until the fire squad arrived which could prevent the fire to spread to the adjacent house.
http://hd.se/klippan/2012/10/18/flygplan-upptackte-brand-i-uthus/ (Swedish)

Videos:

Boarding the Bulldog (short clip)

During the first maneuver, a half-roll, half-loop, I get a grey-out (I see only grey) because of the high g-force, so after that I strain (spänner mig) as much as I can...

My instructor enters spin and then exits it.

The teacher shows loops and rolls and then I try. The fun starts after 0:50.

Temporarily demoted to passenger

Yo!

I really hate Swedish climate... Recently it has become cold, windy and rained a lot, and because of that we've stayed on the ground most days. There are mainly three weather properties that highly affects flying small airplanes by visual flight rules (VFR): visibility, cloud height and wind. While driving a car in heavy fog usually only means you should slow down a bit and be careful, flying in fog is a larger problem since there's no road to follow (you don't know where you are) and on collision course without another aircraft you will often not know it before it's too late. Legally we usually need 5 km of horizontal visibility to fly, while preferably we want much more – 20 km to be able to navigate without difficulties.

Since we're not allowed to fly inside clouds by VFR, we need the cloud height to be higher than our planned flying altitude with some margin. In the end that means the clouds must be around 500 meters above ground or more. Finally, the wind can make a very good-looking day for flying (blue clear skies) a bad one. But while we must fly for a longer time in headwind, or be heading for a different place than we want to go to in side-wind, the only moment the wind is a flight safety issue is at landing (and sometimes however seldom on take-off). Since we want to come to a quick stop on the runway while we can't fly slower than our current stall speed in the air (because then we'll simply fall down), an airplane always land and take off in headwind (so that the speed over the ground is as low as possible).

There's always two directions in which you can land on a runway, but how to do if the wind is coming from the side and there's no different-angled runways? Then we have to fly partly sideways and just before touch-down we turn fast so that the wheels come down straight. This is a little tricky, why we are not allowed to fly unless the wind from the side is extremely low (maximum 2,5 m/s) until we have more experience. Anyway, lately the wind has often been strong and in the wrong direction, why most days the lessons have been cancelled.

While I'll explain that later, the opposite to VFR is instrumental flight rules, IFR, which allows airplanes to fly in clouds and in fog, but only exactly the paths that the air traffic control tells us. We will learn such flying much later on.

Photos:

Klippan from above soon after take-off

Approach Ljungbyhed. The short runways are out of use, but 10 years ago when they weren't Ljungbyhed had four paved runways – more than Arlanda!

 

 Last week most of us could ride in the back seat on another's flight lesson because we practiced flying with maximum weight allowed. This is my classmate Petter's first touch and go-landing of three. We often practice landings by landing and then quickly taking off again without stopping.

 Myself flying, the footage taken by Niklas in the back seat. Just level flight.

How to land in crosswind.

The Two-Day War

Tjenamors!

Now I'm finished with all theory for obtaining a PPL (Private Pilot License)! Two weeks ago we had nine exams in one day in school - and I passed them all, some with a 100% score and some just on the 80% pass mark... This meant I had 1½ week of basically free time, except that had to take the official exams for Transportstyrelsen as well. I did that alone in Uppsala on Monday last week so that I could spend some days in Uppsala meeting friends and then stay in Falun for most of my short holiday. The offical exams also went well – which made me very relieved since every failed exam would have cost me another 570 SEK.

In Falun I also met a lot of friends, having a really good time! Since I'm planning to go to Japan this Christmas holiday I have to save a lot of money why this probably was my last visit before Christmas. I returned to Ljungbyhed on Sunday leaving home at 09:30 and arriving around 22:00 after a long trip by bus, another bus, train, commuter train and car... Looking forward to five consecutive weeks of only flying, everything felt good then, but a nasty surprise was waiting for me to go to sleep...

I woke up in the early morning on Monday, being thirsty and feeling itchy. Scratching my back a small (0.5 cm) bug falls off and when I stamp on it, it explodes and a pool of blood appears. Terrified I return to my bed and checks it for more bugs. I soon find more than 10 of them, and my bedsheet is literally covered with blood stains. Looking in the mirror my back is covered in mosquite bite looking rashes (utslag). While hoping I'm dreaming or something I quickly carry all bedsheets to the laundry room and wash them in 95 degrees with excessive detergent. Back in my room I check the walls and kill another five or so bugs. I google them and soon confirm what I suspected – that they are bedbugs (vägglöss), a plague my brother suffered earlier this year and I've heard is a common problem in student corridors. Somehow I manage to fall asleep again on a new bedsheet for an hour until my alarm clock sounds. Later I call the landlady and she calls Anticimex (the major Swedish pest control company. Anticimex actually means ”anti-bedbugs”).

Bedbugs are quite persistent pests, so on Monday and Tuesday I, the Anticimex worker and the caretaker did the following things to get rid of them: threw away and burned the bed and mattress, along with all splines (lister) near the bed, put all stuff (rucksacks, books, a sleeping bag, all shoes etc.) that had been lying beneath the bed or on the floor in the sauna at 90 degrees for 4 hours, washed most clothes at 60 degrees and poured poison on the whole floor and on the new bed. Hopefully – and only hopefully – are they gone now... Preliminary, I declare myself winner of this war with the bedbugs.

Unfortunately, autumn has got a firm grip on Ljungbyhed and the weather this week has been really bad and unreliable why I've only flown on Monday, while the last three days were cancelled for everybody. Hopefully this is not how the whole of October will be, or it will a very boring and frustrating month. By the way I'm now halfway to obtaining my PPL having flown soon 25 hours.

Photos and videos:

In Uppsala I went to Laser Game! We lost... (Kanpei Hayashi's photo)

In Falun we homemade pizza! It was nice! (Misaki Arihama's photo)

A cool video taken from the nosewheel of a 747.

When we practice landings, we always aim to land within a specified area (at the beginning of the runway), and if we are about to overshoot that area we must always do a ”go around” (give full throttle and cancel the landing). This pilot seems to have forgot that fundamental part of his training.

9 exams, 7 hours, 1 day

Yo!

The last period has been quite hectic, with upcoming exams on Thursday this week. After having flown all week two weeks ago, last week was packed with theory lectures. With most of our free time spent with our noses in the textbooks, at least for my part I have already broken my personal record on preparatory studies for an exam. Being satisfied with last week's study progress I have relaxed during the weekend going to Lund on Saturday meeting a Japanese friend and then ”old friend” Johan who was an exchange student in Sendai at the same time as me in 2010. Johan then visited me in Ljungbyhed for two nights and we did some local airplane orientated sightseeing in the village.

Yesterday, Monday September 10th, we had a quite special day in school. Divided into three groups of four students each, we acted officers at Haverikommisionen (Swedish Accident Investigation Authority) and performed research on an imagined aircraft accident. It was organized very well and we got our information by faxes from different authorities and by making actual phone calls to the emergency services, the police, witnesses etc. (all played by our teachers). After four hours of investigation we presented our conclusions as a final report and listened to the conclusions of the other groups. The accident in question involved a small four-seat airplane that was flown by two experienced pilots who both died when they crashed in the woods outside Nyköping. Quite interesting and instructive!

If I pass all eight exams on Thursday, I will be able to leave Ljungbyhed for 1½ week during which I must book and take the corresponding license theory examination at Transportstyrelsen (Transport Agency) somewhere in Sweden. If I fail any of the tests, I will have to stay in Ljungbyhed until next week's Tuesday for re-examination - then I can leave. When I've passed the Transportstyrelsen examination, I will be finished with all theory for my Private Pilot License. If I fail any of the offical examination parts, I'll have to pay another 570 SEK or so for each that I have to re-take...

Even the school has tried to complain to Transportstyrelsen about the absurdly high examination fees. Out of the 570 SEK I pay for a test of about 30-60 minutes (depending on subject), the examiner receives about 250 SEK (according to one of our teachers) per student. Sure, he is supposed to accept a student that wants to take the exam alone, for the same price, but when we are up to 12 people in a class that take 9 exams in one day having one examiner to watch over us, the salary becomes ridiculous. Who wouldn't want to work one day a month and earn 27 000 SEK before tax?

Anyway, I hope I'll do alright! See you in two weeks or so when we've begun flying again!

Photos:

 

 

While going to Uppsala to move out from my old apartment, I was allowed to ride in the cockpit and get the feeling how my working days hopefully will look like in 2 years, nice! The captain was an old student of TFHS, why is probably why he let me ride there.

 

When Johan was visiting me, we heard that a former SAS DC-3 was parked at the airport – of course we went there to see it and say goodbye when it left. A person who has the privilege to fly one of these must be so happy!

Söderåsen national park before dusk.

I'm a solo flyer

Good evening!

Now an important milestone in my career has been accomplished: my first solo flight. Last week was the third consecutive week of practical flight training, and thanks to the weather being flyable every day except one 10 of the 12 students in my class, including myself, managed to do our first solo flight before this week's theory classes. Of course we have been looking forward to this moment a lot so it was a rewarding experience, and a great feeling to manage to fly an airplane all by ourselves!

The days before the solo flight we practised a lot of starts and landings and also emergency procedures if the engine stops at take-off, landing or low altitudes in general. Our airplane is a very safe plane and the geography in rural Skåne is very forgiving, so even in the very unlikely event that the engine stops we should be able to land safely on a field or even on the same runway we just left, no matter when in happens.

On Friday, the very day of our solo flights, we began flying just as we had the day before (on the ”final rehersal”) flying back and forth landing and starting immediately again (”touch-and-go landings”) on the same runway. After three such landings, if the instructor judges that we're ready, he/she steps out and we continue doing the same thing for another four landings all by ourselves. All of us that had passed the ”final rehersal” could complete our solo flights. Later in the day the class gathered and those who finished their solo flights that same day were all greeted by respective instructor and then soaked by a bucket of cold water. This is an old tradition...

In the evening the same day, last Friday, I ”hitchhiked” to Jönköping, where I had decided to spend the weekend, with my classmate who was going to his hometown Linköping. In Jönköping I met my cousin and my aunt who both live there, and then my friend Andreas from my physics class in Uppsala who guided me around the town. We also went fishing (no bites) and on a half day trip to Eksjö, a small and cute old town in the countryside where they had a pretty large air show. On Sunday evening, I tried the famous Jönköping kebab pizza (it was great!), and then hitchhiked back to Ljungbyhed with Sören and a perfect week came to an end.

This week we have had only theory lessons studying the final parts of the Private Pilot License stuff. Next week I will, together with half my class, fly again and we'll do our first solo flights outside the airport area and simple navigation flying according to a predecided timetable, and more. The following week the other half of the class will fly while we others will have final theory repetition before the final school exams in three weeks from now, on September 13th. Another week later we will do in principle the same exams but for Transportstyrelsen, the Swedish aviation authorities, and if we pass all parts of that exam then we are ready for acquiring a Private Pilot License regarding the theory part. The exam consists of ten parts or so and each part costs 500 SEK per try, so I better succeed on the first try...

Finally, some bad news, however not affecting me this far. Believe it or not, while Ljungbyhed is a rural village, it's locally known for having lots of burglars and thieves. And since my class arrived in June, we've been exposed to a lot of trouble. As of before, we had heard about lots of people getting their bicycles and car gasoline stolen. Then in the beginning of the summer someone, who seemed to have aquired a key to our housing, stole food from the refrigerators. It's hard to believe, but a lot of things from a new pork fillet to an open package (!) of ham have gone missing. Soon after, expensive sport shoes put outside one's apartment also were stolen.

We then let change the locks and barricaded the basement doors. Then they broke one's bicycle lock (but changed their mind and put the bicycle at another place), and also they stole more gasoline from cars on the parking lot. A while later, people once again entered the building, presumably through veranda doors that someone forgot to lock, and stole more food and other stuff. The straw that broke the camel's back came yesterday when they stole a motorcycle belonging to one of the military pilots who are here temporarily. So starting tonight, we will take turns staying awake on guard during the nights.

Blue skies!

Photos:

Four very excited TFHS students line up on solo flight day.

My instructor leaves me alone for the first time.

A very happy me.

 

 

Six very wet but happy students.

 

Jönköping sightseeing and fishing with Andreas.

 

 

Eksjö air show (flygdag) 2012.

Eksjö wodden town, popular tourist destination.

Beautiful and completely quiet advanced flying with a sailplane. Must try flying a sailplane sometime as well! By the way, did you know that the age limit to aquire a sailplane pilot license is 15 years, and that it usually costs only around 20 000-25 000 SEK? As a comparison, to aquire a PPL for engine-driven aircraft you need to be 17 years and often pay more than 100 000 SEK.

An ordinary day at TFHS

Hello! We're now in the beginning of our fourth week of flying, and while we have some theory and final tests in between we have at least another four fun weeks in the sky before the long Swedish winter and only theory studies. The final tests are on September 13th, all eight or so of them in one day. If we fail any of the tests we will do re-exams the following week, and in both cases around September 20th we will do the offical theory exams for Transportstyrelsen (The Transportation Bureau) that are neccessary for our Private Pilot Licenses (PPL). After that, the theory lessons will become more advanced as we'll start studying what an airline pilot needs to know, as opposed to a pilot who only flies small airplanes in his free time.

I thought I could make an example on how our daily schedule on flight weeks looks like:

• 06:50 – I wake up, eat breakfast.
• 07:35 – I do the 10 minute walk to the school's hangar for weather briefing.
• 07:45-08:10 – One of us students (taking turns) shows weather maps and weather forecasts for the day with the projector and discusses whether we will be able to fly as scheduled or not. Afterwards each flight instructor meets his/her three students and we have a short briefing about today's flight lessons. The student who is scheduled to fly in the morning stays, the rest of us walk home.
• 09:45 – If I'm flying the second round, I'll walk back to the hangar and meet my instructor personally, and if there's no questions about the weather or the flight lesson we'll immediately walk out to the airplane. I do a ”Pre-flight check”, checking that nothing seems damaged on the fuselage, that air vents are not obstructed and that there's fuel and oil.
• 10:15 – While reading the checklists so that everything is checked and ok, I start up the engine, ask the airport tower for fresh weather information, and then ask for clearance to taxi (=drive on the ground) to the runway holding point.
• 10:25-11:10 – I ask the tower for permission to depart, then do the take-off mostly from Runway 29R (the right runway in the direction 290 degrees). I fly at 200 m altitude most often west to the coast north of Helsingborg and then do the scheduled exercises. For example having climbed to 700 meters, the instructor turns the power to idle (pretending that the engine has stopped) and I'm then supposed to find a suitable field on the ground for emergency landing and then ”try” (pretending to try) to re-start the engine while I'm flying towards the field and prepare to land. When we're approaching ground, the instructor gives full power again and I climb back to the original altitude. When the exercises are finished, I head back to Ljungbyhed, gets permission to land and then do the landing.
• 11:15 – Having taxied back to the parking area outside the hangar I shut down the engine and I have debriefing with the instructor about how it went, and fill out my log book etc.
• 11:40 – Back home I eat lunch (usually leftovers from yesterday's dinner) and the rest of the day I study with my theory books and/or play videgames etc, and of course eat dinner. 1-2 days a week I do some exercise, in the gym or playing football etc.

As you can see, we have quite a calm schedule when we're flying – as opposed to the theory weeks with classes from 08:00 to 16:30 most days. However, of course we are supposed to prepare for each flight lesson by reading about the exercises and learn checklists etc. by heart.

If the weather is bad and we can't fly, then we usually are free the whole day. Of course we all want to fly though, so we're not exactly happy when it happens. In the three weeks this far I've done 13 lessons, which means two lessons were cancelled because of bad weather. In the very unstable weather that this summer has given us, that is quite a good record I think.

Please ask if you wonder anything, or just leave a comment anyway!

Photos:

 

The parking area in front of the hangar. A PA-31, that we will just fly a little in fall next year up front, and five Cirrus SR-20 that we fly during most of our training in Ljungbyhed. The school owns six PA-31 and six SR-20.

The interior of Cirrus SR-20. Four seats, a 200 horsepower engine, 200 km/h cruise speed, 100 km/h stall speed (minimum flying speed), 212 liters gasoline gives a range of 1450 km.

 

 

Passing Åstorp at 200 meters towards Öresund. It is actually pouring down straight ahead (first picture) which we passed through a few seconds.

At 1500 meters at the coast, amazing clouds.

 

My textbooks for Private Pilot License – we're supposed to memorize all of this in about three months. Also the map I use when flying, folded around the areas we usually use. The heights in black digits (2500, 65(00) ) are the maximum heights in feet (30 cm) that we don't need to ask the Air Traffic Control for clearance for.