93% on the flight test! Without going into detail, the examiner said I had flown an excellent test and that it had been a pleasure flying with me. What did I mess up? The same thing I always do, I totally forgot to pick an abort point for my soft/short-field take-offs. I even wrote a note on my x-country flight log to do this, and STILL forgot. NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOLLercoaster.

The other things were fortunately small things, like forgetting to go full rich when climbing from the x-country portion to do upper air work. WHY did I forget this, I do not know. Brain fart! Regardless, I am so happy to get that over and done with XD. Next up: do the 300nm trip annnnd uhhhh, wossit... oh, solo night hours! Then the commercial licence, she will be mine, AH AH AH. Annnd then it's right headfirst into the instructor rating, whew.

89% on the Commercial written! PASSU, GO TO NEXT LEVELUH, PILOTO RANGAH. The test was an odd mix of surprisingly easy questions, and those that made me want to stand up, point at the screen and holler WHAT THE HELL IS THAT. Not difficult, per say, just uh, very differently worded.

Onto the flight test! This also segues well into the next thing I should mention: an Ontario flight school has offered to pay for all of my training if I'll instruct for them for a year and a half. It's a good school and I know a lot of the people there already, so it looks like I'll be working there once I get the instructor rating done, AND done. Suhwheet! I am tres excited.

I am back from zer frozen north! Leaving camp was kind of like the end of MASH or something; you're glad to get back home but sad to leave at the same time. The timing was probably good though, since the bears were starting to move in.

To make a long story short it was an awesome four months, excellent times were had by all, and I now have Beaver time in my logbook. Okay, right seat Beaver time. That plane is awesome to fly.

Most belatedly I realised that the_starhorse tagged me for the following meme like, back in August. Whoops. I, er, I don't read LJ very often any more, I admit it! I am horribly out of the fabulous loop.

-:- List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
-:- Tag seven people to do the same.
-:- Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag whoever wants to do it.

- Since this is my aviation journal, I'll start out by saying that I LOVE doing spins. I'll grab a plane and take it up to six grand and do like, ten spins in a row, climbing up again between them. Sometimes I'll spin just to lose altitude in a hurry. Spinning is wicked awesome. You know, from a safe height. Intentionally.
- When I was younger I, er, did some modelling. Quite, you.
- I was also featured on On the Road Again. I am a rerun!
- I just bought an XBox 360 to celebrate my return to civilisation and I'm playing BioShock as we speak. AWESOME.
- Lots of small holes in things creep the shit out of me. UGH. I really can't explain this for the risk of freaking my shit right the hell out.
- I think I hate Ted Koppel! ... No, wait, I find him informative and witty.
- I can't stand emotional people though. I just get the urge to smack them until they shut up.

I'd hunt down seven people to tag, but, you know. BioShock. THIS GAME, OH MAN.

Man, I'm never on LJ any more, hahaha.

But yeah, uh, I should probably have mentioned this earlier. I'll keep this brief, but in a nutshell I'm currently up in northwestern Ontario working as a flight dispatcher for a float air service based at a fishing/canoe camp on an island in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't get my commercial finished in time for a flying position (AGH, I'm ten hours of instrument short, AGH) but I'll finish it up this fall and in the meantime get the hang of this bush flying business from the dispatch office and the right seat.

Yep, all right seat flying for me for the summer. No left seat flying. I'm gonna try to weasel a checkout on the 185, but we'll see how that goes. On the plus side, even right seat time in a Beaver and an Otter looks pretty rad in your logbook.

Other than that, HOLY SHIT, I AM TOTALLY RADAR O'REILLY UP HERE, HAHAHAHAHA. Only I listen for planes rather than choppers.

Man, last week was great for flying. I was up every day from Sunday to Sunday, save for Wednesday due to lousy weather. All PIC time towards the commercial too, which was rad. Mostly I was practicing upper air works, slow flight, stalls, steep turns blah blah, etc., plus forced landings in and out of the circuit. The next time a good day with a high ceiling pops up I'm gonna grab my instructor and go up for some spins. Spins are also rad!

Additionally I stumbled across a fabulous rental deal. Currently there's only one plane flying at the flight school, and it's understandably booked solid. So I nosed over to Vector Air across the ramp, a charter company flying King Airs across Canada and the US. It turns out they have a very nice 1979 172N available for rental in their nice big heated hanger (HELLO!) that is hardly ever booked. They just want to see it flown. I'm more than happy to oblige.

So I arranged a checkout with their chief pilot, which was a piece of cake; when he found out I was not only current but actively flying throughout the week he just asked to see three circuits, one normal, one no-flaps and one full-flaps. No prob! He was pleased with my landings, remarking I must be used to flying out of short strips. I got a grin out of that.

Anyway! I'm all checked out on it now, and I really like this airplane. The best thing is that hardly anyone else rents it. The owners are more than happy to let me walk into the hanger at any time to fly it, which is pretty much what I ended up doing all this week. And they're more than happy to let it go out on long cross-countries and overnight trips too, which is very awesome. It's the next best thing to ownership, so far.

Formation flying = fun!

After a while we had to bolt for the airport before the snow moved in, but it was very cool while it lasted.

Five more hours this weekend, 3.2 on floats and 1.8 on a checkout for the 172, plus power-off forced approaches in the circuit... man, doing those 180s back to the runway from downwind are FUN. They're like spot landings with twice the urgency XD.

And float flying was rad, as always. Tons of glassy water landings this weekend. Talk about gorgeous weather on Saturday; I flew up north in the 170 and we just hit a ton of lakes. Even today was beautiful and smooth, although visibility was between 3 and 4 miles. It was a bit of a pain up at 3500' in the 172, but 500' above the lake and the river in the 170 with everything shrouded in mist... just lovely!

Whoa! I just realised, as of Nov. 20th I've had my PPL for one year. Awyeah!

Anyway, I just thought I'd pop in here for an update. Lessee... well, my total time as of today is 176 hours. I'm pleased to say that 75 of them are on floats. Ohhhh yeah, I had a blast flying floats this summer and fall. Originally I was aiming for the fifty hours of advance training that would make me eligible for a dock job, but to hell with that- I'm totally hooked. Floats are the greatest. I don't want to be anything but a float pilot. I really don't want to go back to wheel planes. Well, okay, maybe the ones with the little wheel on the tail. They're cool.

But alas, I'm going for my commercial licence as we speak and have made a grudging return to wheels for the winter. WAIT DID I JUST SAY ALAS WTF. Going back to flying the 172 has been pretty hilarious so far. I'm like, GAWD, my feet are bored, this plane flies itself, gotta stop over-ruddering, electric flaps, wow, a radio, lol. I hear they're pretty nice on floats though- AGH, no, must not think wistful thoughts, massive winter hatey coming on...!

Although I'd kind of like to get some ski time in this winter. And more taildragger time too... and I've been eyeballing aerobatic instruction up in Smith Falls...

But yeah, commercial licence! Time to get my ass in gear again. I'd like to have it by next spring/early summer in time to get a dock job somewhere, anywhere, and then with any luck a float job after that. Here's hoping!

Whatchicha! I'm just in the process of moving this journal over onto Blogger, so don't raise an eyebrow if stuff starts disappearing; once everything is ported over to the new place I'll probably nuke it. Blogger, ahoy!

I made it up to the airport for an evening flight last night; it was quiet and peaceful save for the GIANT COLUMN OF SMOKE on the horizon. From the sounds of things a number of cottages up on Stoney Lake were ablaze last night. No wonder I could hear so many pilots declaring that they were clear of the zone to the north en route to Stoney Lake while I was taxiing over to get fuel. Everybody was buzzing about the lake to check out the fire!

Given the number of planes loitering up north I elected to go south instead. I only had an hour booked so I stayed local and circled the house a few times, then turned south to Port Hope and Cobourg and then north towards the Northumberland hills to check out the barn that mom boards her horse at. Rice Lake and Elmhirst were next as I was curious to see if they've put their docks and the PA-12 back in the water, and failing to spot either I flew back along the lake to Bewdley before heading back to the airport for a hasty landing on 27 in time to beat an inbound Archer making the NDB approach for 09.

Just a nice, relaxing flight; the air was smooth at two thousand feet and the lake was calm and golden in the sunset. There were canoes out on the water and small boats, the radio was quiet and everything was quite tranquil. On the downside, thanks to the sunset my eyes were dazzled every time I looked west, which made the approach to 27 a bit of a squintathon. But I made a good stall-squeaker short field landing regardless and was stopped well before bravo, so hey to that.

This weekend is looking piss-poor for flying so far- nothing but rain in the forecast. I'll be at the airport regardless since my natural state of being seems to be, uh, at the airport, but I don't know how much flying I'll be able to do. Fortunately next week is so far promising to be a lot sunnier. Now that I can fly after work I'll be aiming to do so a lot more often.