Friday, November 12, 2010

The Waiting Room and some Magazine-like Stuff...

My good-old room seems to have slightly changed its purpose nowadays: it has become a waiting room!

Since these four-wall-and-a-ceiling creatures define themselves according to how their users spend their time inside them, this is so natural. The only thing its user does is waiting!


I am waiting to be called for the final stage remaining , the interview. As I’ve already said, following a success from the interview, my days in the flight academy will begin; and a long and hard-working period will very probably replace this dull one. Using multiple training centers (one being in Istanbul, Turkey and the other in Florida, USA), the company of which I’m pursuing to be a pilot, will then finally decide on which applicant to be trained in which part of the world, but that’s another story which is a complete mystery so far.

This blog is, normally intended to be more subjective; namely, aimed to cover my personal experiences in aviation. However, considering my only effort in this inactive period is to sit here and read whatever I can find about the ocean of aviation, this “issue” will merely contain something that have been caught to my eyes. So, let me tell you some J

News say that they started testing the full-body scanners in Hamburg Airport. Me and my buddies in the DLR Pilot Test have happened to pass there, roughly a month and a half ago. Could I be so naive to think that we have got off cheap from being pictured naked (set aside being exposed to radiation), just for a moment? Well, if the backlash from the pilot associations (as well as the ones in passenger and cabin crew side) go this way, maybe I will have a chance to be so. Airports vs. flyers… stay with us to see the next round!


Iron man, get out of the way! Mr. “Jet Man” Yves Rossy’s latest flight with his custom-made jet pack (like there is a serially-produced jet pack in the world…) was a 2-timer aerial loop. Before that, he has already flew over Bex in Swisserland in 2006, passed across the English Channel in 2008, flew over Alps in the same year and over Tangiers, Morocco in 2009. Most of his flights reaching to 300 km/h speeds, I wonder if he is somehow a relative of Valentino Rossi (or vice versa). Considering his age, maybe Valentino will choose to become Yves’ successor, after he retires from motorcycle racing…

 


I am still not a pilot, am I? This in turn gives me the right to be ignorant in aviation (but don’t tell this to the company’s interviewers…). I was really curious of what those big tooth-like pieces streching from the back of the airliners’ wings.  Thanks to Mr. Patrick Smith, I’ve learned that they are “mere” aerodynamics coverings of the flap mechanisms (no advertising, huh?)

No one knows what tomorrow brings, but currently it seems unlikely that I will become a US resident and buy a private plane and fly locally there. Yet this didn’t keep me from taking a look at American Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s website. There is a lot about general aviation there, though some of them being a bit too technical for me. Actually, I found there during a search for radio conversation techniques (like I’ve even ever said a single word in an airplane radio transmitter!). They had a tutorial for this, as well as some useful other tools like real pilot stories from their own voices. One story was like this: during a sighseeing flight, a regional propeller pilot had nearly had his plane lost its wings due to what they call a “flutter”. Unlike the birds, a wing flutter,as they say, can rip off a plane’s wings in a short time. That problem is stated to be due to misadjustment of ailerons.
In that site, I also learned that “roger” means only (and only) “I heard you”, not “affirmative”. These do not look like some proper “learning”; but after all, this is my private web-surf, so no rules applied!


Stuff like that… This is all (at least for today) for kiwiswings news bulletin. Keep following us! 8)
(A cliche music plays....)



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