The Doctor's Lair

A much more interesting flight, with now things happening a little more slowly. Highlights of this flight: talking on the radio and lots of traffic, almost a traffic jam. On the way in, I requested the controller for clearance, he issued instructions to three other aircraft before combing back and asking,"Inbound aircraft, say call sign". After I said '222 Uniform Mike', he asked for an ident(so that he can identify on radar) and then said,"2UM, make straight in, runway 6, number three to land". Now thats traffic. We were about 8 miles from the airport and there were two people in front of us to land. Brian even had to ask the controller for a clarification on the traffic. In other traffic, we saw quite a few planes today. Our practising area is about 12 miles WNW of Ann Arbor and there we had about three aircraft cross our path. One was even doing some tight circles and we turned to get away from him. Around this time I was shown some prominent landmarks in the area so that we can make it back to the airport....and that wasn't all of it, we also had to turn away from a jumper aircraft, that is one that takes parachutists up to about 14000' and they jump. Better stay away from those too.

In actually flying the aircraft, today started with some rudder training for turns. This was followed with climbing and descending turns. Then came slow flight and descends with flaps down, the approach configuration. The ending was lining up with the runway with a slight right crab to stay on the centerline. Brian then demonstrated the flare and the landing. I then got to taxi the plane back, shut down, park and clean.

The radio part was fun. I liked it and was not as bad as I had imagined it to be. Preparation does help and I had two good sources. A nice book by Bob Gardner,"Say Again" and www.liveatc.net. This website has a nice collection of ever growing ATC feeds and it does help getting one used to how the voice on the radio sounds like. The book helps with the phraseology and the etiquette. Highly recommended if you are having communication problems on the radio. Its a long post, but the last thing, the first time I got my preflight weather briefing on my own. 1.2 hours flight bringing the cumulative to 2.2 hours.

It is pretty regular to have a false fire alarm once a semester. We just had one half an hour back. Interestingly, this one got over pretty quickly, within 10 mins. Mostly it takes about 25-30 minutes to check if everything is fine. Its raining pretty bad though, so I went to the chemical engg. instead of stepping out.

Edit: There was another fire alarm today in a neighbouring building, DOW at 1 PM. We had ours at 10 in the morning. Hmmm, coincidence or a prank.

...and there she is, right behind me. Her name is November two two two Uniform Mike. The last two letter are UM; off-course that stands for the University of Michigan. Born in 1977, she is a Cessna 152....and yes I flew her for the first time. Check out the University of Flyers website.

Its a long story, but to cut it short, it took quite a while to get the paperwork done. I was hoping to use the summer since there is a little more time then, but what the heck, finally everything is in place. So here is today's story.

The time scheduled for today was from 3 to 6, with a two hour preflight since it was the first time. Quite some time was spent in doing the final paperwork which was setting up a student file in my name among other things. The real education then began with a call to the AFSS( automated flight service station) to get the weather briefing. You basically talk to a weather specialist on the phone and he or she tells you the forecast and other other advisory that they have. This took around 10 minutes with the wait time on the phone. Next came the procedure to check out the aircraft from the club. You have to pick up the file for the aircraft and the keys while shifting a magnetic stickers from the hanger to a flying position. Along with this, you need to check out the plane on the club's website where you go through the plane's maintenance record. And then you head outside to the hanger, slide the hangars doors open and start the preflight. Go over lots of things(probably will cover this in another post later) and then finally tow the aircraft outside. Till this part I was aware of what was going on. Beyond this till we touched back down, everything happened a little quickly. Went through the pre-taxi checklist, started the engine and put on the headsets. Talked to ground control(Brian, my CFI did, he handled the radios), taxied out short of the active runway(24) and did the pre-takeoff checklist. Called from clearance and took off. Learned the correct attitudes and tried to do some level turns. Managed to keep them within 200 feet. Also did some climbs and descends and tried to end up in a level flight. Finally learned the trim tab for hands free flying. All this took a nice part of an hour and we headed back to the airport. Brian handled the landing alone since there was a nice crosswind, maybe next the winds will be favourable and I will get a change to land. We then taxied back to hangars and shut off. The end of the flight was to push the plane back in the hangar and do the glory job of cleaning her up. We did smash a few bugs up there. Before we went in, we called for fuel and the fuel truck came and fueled the 7 gallons that we had burned.

And then came a little more paperwork. Check in the aircraft, pay the instructor and make the entry in the logbook. All of 1 hour. Yahoo!

Here I sit, in the learning center waiting for students to come and ask questions. Unfortunately, in the beginning of the term, hardly anyone even turns up to these office hours. The rush time is the right before the exam time when loads of students just pour into the cubicle trying to ask you questions. During those times, I take on a roaming policy as compared to a sitting policy. Instead of them coming to me, I roam around the place to whoever wants to ask questions. Its much more efficient, since if the students have to come to you, they need to pick up loads of stuff and drag it to you. A book, notes, notebook, pencils and a Texas Instruments calculator that looks like a brick(and costs upward of $100). So back to the point, waiting for students. The trick is to get along work to do, it could be a crossword or sudoko, just get something. This is the first thing they teach you at the GSI(Graduate Student Instructor) training.

The beginning of the indoor cricket season! And the same old story. Game 1. Scored exactly a zero of zero balls faced. My team wins. Second game, made 37 off 23 balls and my team loses. But in all two good games. A nice beginning to the season. Hope it goes on!

This coming weekend is a trip to Boston. Huraah!

Long time since I posted something. What has happened is that I have been appointed a 50% GSI for a Design and Manufacturing course. So I've been going through maching shop safety courses and setting up some stuff for the project the student will be doing. Its going to be a packed semester. More details on this side will be coming soon.

Life goes on, things go on and so does cricket. The indoor season begins early this year with tommorrow being the first day. The field is about four basketball courts lined side by side inside a huge hollow building. Its nice to play indoor with the snow outside. After a smashing first year, the second year was quite dismill. Hoping for a better year this time around. Wish me luck!