Annual Airworthiness Infomation Reporting

Every owner of a Canadian airplane is required to file an Annual Airworthiness Information Report for that airplane. It's not a big deal. Most of the time the information to file per airplane is shorter than the term Annual Airworthiness Information Report. It's almost as short as the abbreviation, AAIR. In the bad old days, they sent you a paper form with a built in carbon paper and you filled in the appropriate blanks. I have a few of the forms here, for reasons I will disclose later, so let's check them out.

Most of the form is already populated with the registration data of the aircraft, weight and engines and propellers and such. It's the same information you find in the Canadian Civil Aircraft Register. In fact, an odd error on the AAIR for one of our planes is reflected in a weirdness in the registry entry for that plane, so I suspect they draw on the same database. The data I add to the form is when the last inspection was performed, who did it, and how many hours the airplane flew in the calendar year. We bought a plane late last year from a private individual, and the total time flown in 2015, including flying it to our base for a still-in-progress makeover, was nine hours.

There are still people who own airplanes and not computers, so the forms persist, but I've been doing ours at my current company for the last three or four years, and I do them online. I'm "computer literate" "detail oriented," and anal about stuff getting done on time (what's the resume version of that? "able to work to deadline"?) so I'm a good fit for the job. The forms are due March 30th, but there's no reason not to file them as soon as the year is over, so they were on my list for this month. Today the forms, the actual forms that I hadn't seen for maybe ten years, turned up on my desk with letters on them. The letter tells me that Transport Canada is going to begin electronic notification of the Annual Airworthiness Information Report in order to reduce its environmental footprint and better manage public funds. It informs me that, You are receiving this notification because we do not have an e-mail address or fax number on your aircraft file. The paper forms are pre-populated with data that includes both a valid e-mail and fax number.

They literally sent me a form with my e-mail printed on it, in order to ask me for my e-mail. I suppose it could have been worse. They could have e-mailed and asked for my e-mail. But that way I wouldn't have to walk over to the recycling with all these forms and letters. I e-mailed the AAIR people to tell them about this, and to thank them for the laugh. I flew two hour and did paperwork for the rest of the day.

Anxiety Over Time

I find a letter in my mailbox from Transport Canada. My anxiety level increases. What do they want? I recall that the really bad ones are sent by registered mail, so they can prove you got it, so anxiety goes down a little. It's a window envelope, and the paper through the window looks like the kind government cheques are written on. Anxiety decreases further. Maybe I paid a licence fee than my company had already paid on my behalf and I'm getting a refund? I open the envelope.

Inside is a licence booklet sticker. When I pass a flight test to renew my instrument rating, the examiner will sign my licence booklet, and her signature is valid to prove my renewed rating for ninety days. If I haven't received a new sticker within the ninety day period, then I am not legal to fly. I have not taken a flight test in the last ninety days. My company does renewals in the spring. If I didn't receive my renewal sticker back in April, then I have been flying illegally all summer and fall. My anxiety level increases.

I look at the licence sticker. It has the same type ratings, endorsements, expired instructor rating and English language proficiency certification as the old one. I dig out my licence booklet to compare. Yep, everything is the same except there's no expiry date printed next to my instrument rating. What? My anxiety moves sideways.

I have a hunch. I google Transport Canada instrument rating expiry and quickly find Advisory Circular 401-004. Transport Canada in its wisdom has decided that instrument ratings no longer expire. Anxiety goes way down. Pilots still need to take a biennial Instrument Proficiency Check to ensure we still know what we are doing. Anxiety level reset to where it was before I opened the mailbox. All this means is that the format of the instrument test has changed slightly, it has a different name, and I need to keep track myself of when the thing expires, instead of having it conveniently printed on my licence. I have to keep track of it anyway, because as chief pilot I have to track it for all company pilots. Plus I am required to do a pilot proficiency check for each type I fly every year. Under the old system we simply paid a little extra every second year to have the test also renew the instrument rating. So no difference at all for me.

I read some more. The document says, "failures of instrument flight sequences during Pilot Proficiency Checks (PPC) or IPC no longer invoke suspensions of instrument rating privileges". That takes some stress off. Under the old system, you screwed up on any ride, even if you were just being the other pilot for someone else's test, and you lost your whole instrument rating. The examiner was instructed to scratch it off your licence. So it's a small difference, but worth going to the mailbox for.

I may blog later on the new IPC format. Anyone taken it yet? These changes took effect November 1st, but I was distracted.

ForeFlight versus Nav Canada

A company called ForeFlight has released data for their iPad app that covers IFR procedures in Canada. It includes all volumes of the Canada Air Pilot (approach and departures plates, plus taxiway diagrams) and the IFR high and low enroute charts, and is legal for inflight IFR use. It's not clear whether the database includes the terminal charts, but it kind of has to because the information density around the big cities isn't sufficient in the regular LO charts. It doesn't seem to include the CFS data, but I can't think of information you need for safe IFR navigation that is in the CFS but not the CAP. We'll also have to wait for VFR chart data. Nav Canada is not forthcoming with its data.

There is Transport Canada guidance document and an FAA equivalent governing Electronic Flight Bags, as these systems are called. Page ten of the US version explains how the paper documents can be completely phased out once the system is verified reliable in a given operation, and wording in the Canadian version implies that it allows for completely paperless applications as well.

This isn't something astonishingly new, and I'm sure lots of you are already using such products. What caught my attention today was the price. As far as I can tell, you download the core of the app for free and then pay to add a subscription to the data you need. A ForeFlight Canada subscription costs US $149.99 for a year. For comparison, a subscription to all the editions of the CAP and the high and low charts costs $441 a year, plus taxes. If you only fly in only two regions of Canada, an annual mailed subscription of paper charts will cost you $142, so if you already have an iPad, that's the same cost for paper or electronic. The iPad is probably also about the same weight and the same difficulty to stuff in your flight bag as one LO and one region of the CAP.

Advantages of paper documents over the iPad are that they are unattractive to thieves, still work after they have been dropped or slammed in the trunk door of a cab, will probably dry out to a usable state if you get drenched by rain, are better for starting a fire in an emergency situation, you can write clearances on them, you can unfold them all over the hotel bed to have a wide-screen view of your proposed trip, and the batteries cannot run out. Also they make good auxiliary sunvisors, if you don't have a newspaper.

The iPad wins on staying the same size even if you are flying in all seven regions of Canada, being self-illuminated, allowing scrolling without having to flip the map over, letting you zoom the scale in or out and it probably has a search function. I don't know if you can mark it up with virtual post-its, but you can play Plants versus Zombies on it and check your e-mail while waiting for maintenance to release the aircraft.

What's it like flying with one of these? Does it have a function to do your cold weather corrections automatically or is there a way to mark up a plate after you get the latest METAR, to show all the cold weather corrections and the time to go on a non-precision approach? An iPad seems kind of bulky to mount on the yoke. Where do you put it? How far did you get on Plants versus Zombies?

Five Freaking Kilograms

A pilot licence is not valid without an accompanying medical certificate. The medical 'certificate' is now a rubber stamp initialled by the doctor in the same booklet as the licence sticker, but the terminology of 'certificate' and 'accompanying' persists, just like 'dialing' and 'hanging up' a telephone. When I'm working I usually get the medical renewed in the month before it expires, or occasionally I have to get it done the month before that, if I'm going to be working in the states right through the last month of validity. I thought of not renewing my medical when I wasn't sure when I'd be working, just to save a few dollars, but one doesn't want to be applying for jobs with an invalid medical, risking being called for an interview the next day and not being able to get a renewal in time. And I'm kind of wary about running around with no medical. It seems as though I might be scrutinized more closely renewing a lapsed medical than a current one.

A pilot's medical certification expires at midnight on the first of the month, and I have a nine a.m. appointment on the second. For nine hours I'm not certified to fly airplanes. I can cope. Maybe I should have stretched it for another month. But I didn't. I woke up, dug my licence out of my flight bag, looked up my flight time in the last ninety days (zero!) and in the last twelve months in my logbook, drank three glasses of water, and went to the doctor's office.

On arrival there's a form to fill out. These guys print out the usually persistent information from last year's form and just ask me to make any corrections. I also fill in the flight hours, check "no" to the question about aviation accidents since my last medical, and answer the question about consulting a physician since my last medical. Let's see, there was the eye infection, a routine cervical cancer screening test, and all the vaccinations for going to Cambodia. I can't remember anything else. I always feel like I'm going to be arrested later for forgetting that I sought medical attention for some long healed malady. Maybe I should keep a special file. I fill in everything I remember and hand the form back.

Now I'm given a paper cup. (That's what drinking all that the water was for). Unlike Sulako's experience, I'm not subjected to the sight of other people's urine samples. I can't find the link. He must have taken the photo down. It was pretty traumatic. I just leave mine on the toilet tank as instructed, wash my hands and proceed to exam room one.

I know the drill, so I take off my shoes jump on the scale and start sliding the weights to my weight. Except that the pointer on the balance is still hard against the upper stop. I slide the weight forward a kilogram. Another. Another. Another. Another. I have gained five freaking kilograms since my last medical. I start looking for what can be wrong with the scale. The tech comes in and I'm trying to inspect my own butt to figure out where I'm putting five unnecessary kilograms. I continue to rant about it right through the eye test. Stand here, cover your right eye, read the lowest comfortable line on the chart. Repeat with other eye. Repeat with glasses on. The chart is badly lit and I have to go a few lines up with my glasses off, but I can read the bottom line easily with my glasses. I take the glasses off again and read the small text on a piece of card she hands me. I think it's something from Dickens. I always wonder how many people memorize eye charts to keep their licence. She also has me go through a few pages of the Ishahara colour blindness test.

Next is the ECG. Clothes off except for underpants, wear a little paper vest and lie on the table. Technician sticks gel stickers all over me, from clavicle to ankle, and then hooks up electronic leads to them all. She looks at a machine for a few minutes and then unhooks me and peels off the stickers. They don't stick tightly enough to hurt.

I weigh myself again with the clothes off, but it only brings me by 1.5 kilograms (how do my clothes weigh that much?), and besides I am always weighed in my streetclothes. The doctor wants to examine me in the next room. The scale there is in pounds, but when I do the conversion it is giving the same result. I really have gained five kilograms. I continue to rant about this while he asks me questions that presumably test my mental health. I think a woman ranting about her weight is considered normal, so I pass, but hmm, I put on some winter weight last year too. This is not a good habit. There will be no sugar, alcohol or snack foods until I am back where I'm supposed to be.

The doctor has me follow a bright light with my eyes, stare straight ahead while he moves a pen around to test my peripheral vision, and then shines a light in my ears, one after the other. Usually I try to bring home a picture of some cool piece of apparatus, or a new medical fact from these things, but I'm too traumautized by the weight gain. Five kilograms is half a shopping bag full of butter. Where is it?! Maybe I need my eyes checked again. According to this chart I have BMI of 21, putting me in the normal weight range for my height, but there has to be something wrong with that. It thinks I could gain twelve more kilograms and still be a healthy weight. I'd have rolls of fat hanging off me at that. I don't weigh that much with my flight bag.

The doctor uses his stethoscope to listen to the noises my heart, and lungs make, from the back and front, and then probes my throat and abdomen for abnormalities. I am sufficiently normal to pass his inspection, so he stamps and signs my licence and then I pay at the front. Including the ECG it's just under $200.

Place Instructions in Appropriate Orifice

Once I get home I collect my accumulated mail. There's an envelope from Transport Canada containing what would once have been my new licence, but is now a sticker for updating my licence booklet. The sticker is the shape and size of a credit card, and is identical to the licence information already printed on the second page of my booklet, except that it has an updated expiry date for my instrument rating, and a little Transport Canada airplane and maple leaf logo stamp on it. The sticker comes with instructions.

Label Insertion Instructions
To insert the label correctly please follow the instructions below:
Step 1: Open booklet to the appropriate page
Step 2: Determine a new position for the label (next open space on the applicable page).

For label on the left hand page:
Step 3: Peel off label from the label carrier.
Step 4: Carefully place the right short edge of the label within the alignment marks at the spine side of the booklet.
Step 5: Keep left side of the label away from the page.
Step 6: Smooth the label onto the page from the spine out toward the left edge of the page.
For label on the right hand page:
Step 3: Peel off label from the label carrier.
Step 4: Carefully place the left short edge of the label within the alignment marks at the spine side of the booklet.
Step 5: Keep right side of the label away from the page.
Step 6: Smooth the label onto the page from the spine out toward the right edge of the page.

That's right, there are detailed instructions on how to apply a sticker to a piece of paper without wrinkling it, a skill I think most Canadians my age mastered around grade two. The difference is that the licence is not scratch and sniff and has no bunnies on it. The thing that the instructions are vague about is where the appropriate place might be.

I open to the page that matches the sticker in content. Looks appropriate to me. Without the instructions, I might have placed the sticker over top of the original information that it replaces, but thanks to the instructions I put it in the next available spot, underneath. Then, after it has adhered to the page, I realize that I probably should have stuck it over top of the place where the examiner signed me off for the renewal. Yeah, it even says "Place next licence/permit label here" in faint writing. The place I put it is probably reserved for if I get another aviation licence: for a helicopter, balloon, glider or ornithopter. There are actually only four spaces in that area, but I suppose if you manage to collect all those licences, you can spill one over into the area for renewals. There are sixteen spots for renewals, but according to page one the whole booklet expires in 2014--I guess they figure my picture will be out of date by then--so I think I won't run out of spaces before then.

If I had a scratch 'n' sniff bunny sticker I would put it in my licence booklet. Except, what does a bunny smell like?

On the topic of bunnies, I think I'll keep this in my flight bag to help bring me or another crewmember down if we feel like throttling someone.

Sometimes It's Monday on a Friday

Just before I wake up I have a dream that the front gear collapsed. I jump out though the crew door and survey the damage. Both ends of both propellers are curled under, so there's engine damage to contend with to. I berate myself that if only I had gone out the back door instead of the crew door, it wouldn't have overbalanced. That makes no sense, seeing as I only got out to look, but the whole thing makes no sense. For example, this particular machine doesn't have a crew door. It's an option for cargo flights, but it's not installed on any of our company aircraft. The crew can go out the airstairs door, through the emergency exit beside row two behind the FO, or by kicking out the front window. And my airplane has three-bladed propellers, not two-bladed like the airplane in the dream. And, you know, the real airplane isn't morphing into a whale or whatever else seemed perfectly normal in the dream world. Looks like my subconscious is really worried about that nosewheel tire. Or my brain is just processing back to work stress, and channelling it through an easy target. I'll bet parents have some spectacularly horrible nightmares about things happening to their children.

Back-to-work also includes not having all the luxury of my own kitchen full of food. The hotel only has flavoured yogurt, and I prefer plain, but it's the fruit-on-the-bottom kind, so I eat the white off the top and leave the sugary flavouring at the bottom. And I have a bagel with marmalade. Commercial marmalade might contains gelatin, so this is a bit like eating matzo with bacon, but whatever keeps my engine running. I find out what the job will be and promise to do what I can to get the airplane fuelled before they need it.

It's Good Friday, a public holiday here, and many Canadians take a four day weekend. Given that there were biblical themed children's books (e.g. God Made Outer Space) on the stand at reception that typically contains postcards or tourist brochures, this may not be an easy town to get things done in on Easter weekend. I start with the fuel callout number listed in the CFS, but no one picks up the phone. I leave my name and number then I look around the chart and use Google and the CFS try to find somewhere nearby I can fly to for fuel if no one calls back. There used to be a flying school at this field, but it moved to another airport just last month. I momentarily thought I had found a 24-hour cardlock pump, but it was at an airport with the same name in the states. The obvious one takes cash only, which isn't out of the question, but how am I going to get several times my ATM withdrawal limit of cash on a holiday? Google offers me "The Best <my location> Online Dating Sites." I hate those things that hijack your search terms and offer you a useless page on the subject. I pick another airport close by and then realize that it is across the border in the United States. I try calling the FSS to see if I will luck out and get a briefer with local knowledge, but this FIR is so huge that he can't help. Once upon a time I could have called the FSS on the field and they would have known.

I call back the fuel callout number to give my cell number instead of the hotel number, and to make sure he hasn't been trying to call me. Still no answer. As I listen again to the outgoing message, I realize that the company name is that of the flying school that just moved out. I'm probably calling a phone that is dead in a drawer. I go to the airport to see if there is a different number there. There is, but just as I'm dialing it, the fueller I had given up on appears. The company that ran the flying school is still running the fuel pumps here, and he just left the phone upstairs. Yay!

He's brought a team with him: a two or three year old daughter wearing a purple Tinkerbelle coat, and a shy but energetic dog with silver ear tips. The dog had a very short coat--no winter pelt, even though this area is just creeping out of winter--and I first described it as brown, but it's an interesting colour, maybe a bit grey, also almost purple. She has silver ear tips. I think it's some kind of German hound, a Wehrmeiraner or something. (It's funny, I could always Google things like that and act as if I were already an expert on everything I encounter, but I'd rather be my natural self and let some reader who is expert on dogs tell us the details). The dog drinks from a puddle by the airplane. I cringe, wondering how many toxic substances are in that puddle, from the fuel pumps, deicers, airplanes leaking fluids and the sealed tarmac itself. The dog doesn't drop dead, though. The fuller tows my airplane to the pumps, his daughter riding on the tug and the dog dancing excitedly all around. He fuels, goes in to get the bill, then realizes he has forgotten to copy the number of litres off the pump and comes back out.

It's a few degrees above freezing, but it's windy so seems cold. I thought I put my winter stuff in my flight bag, but there's only one glove and no toque. I go inside with the fueller and pay, then explain that I will need one more load of fuel this weekend, but it can be any time between this evening and Sunday morning, does he have a preference for when I call him out? At first he says anytime is fine, then amends it to "not Sunday morning." He wants to enjoy the Easter egg hunt with his daughter.

I had anticipated fuelling and then going back to the hotel before flying, but I brought my flight bag just in case. And the case comes up. Fly now. I finish my flight preparations, taking off the tents and putting them in the wing lockers, the mission specialist catches the fact that I have the cord hanging out of the locker and that I have left the electrical plug cover open, before I do. It makes me look sloppy. I feel icky about it, and I'm also not certain the engines will start. They really don't like freezing weather overnight. Remember the right one freezing in a couple of hours at Watson Lake? They were tented all night, but that's just to contain their own heat left over from the flight. With no plug in, they weren't producing any heat of their own.

I bribe them, promising them nice fresh oil if they'll just start for me. They are champions! I praise them out loud for their sterling performance. During the run-up I turn on both heaters, but the sun coming in the cockpit windows warms me up so I flick off the front heater. I stick my hand back behind the cockpit partition to test the temperature in the back. The client is on the phone and thinks I'm trying to get his attention. Oops. There are some ground delays related to the computers in the back, then we finally take off, and yes, I manage to do that right. It's just before noon, and I had breakfast at seven. Day in the life. I eat some Arrowroot cookies out of my flight bag. They're soft because they've been there for months and the package is open. It's cold at altitude and I turn on the cockpit heater again. It gets colder. I only had it on for a few minutes on the ground. It is approved for ground operations, with a squat switch linked fan to keep the air moving in the absence of forward motion, but sometimes it overheats while sitting on the ground, and this is one of those times. Oh I'm having such a great day.

I also didn't have a blank OFP form with me. I just came out to fuel, thinking I'd be back to the room before I left. I usually have spares in my flight bag, but it turns out that all the ones on my clipboard are used. I had an old one that had been partially filled out but not actually used, from a day I didn't go to Montana. I reworked that form messily before I left, just to have the weight and balance and a place to fill in the times, not changing everything else because I'm going to recopy it properly when I get back to the hotel. It still says I'm going to Montana, with 100 pounds of baggage instead of a passenger, but I have the correctly worked weight and balance on my computer. It's Good Friday: I'm not going to get ramped today, if anyone ever gets ramped here.

We do the flight and I'm rusty, so waste a bit of time, but the work goes reasonably well until the last half hour when weather conditions don't allow us to finish, so we turn around and go home. There are two runways at destination: a long one and a shorter but still long enough one. There are four airports in the CFS for this town, and they all have two runways. It's a windy area. There's currently still a howling north wind, so I land on the shorter into-wind runway, which despite my landing with lots of runway to spare and not using aggressive braking I find out afterward made the client uneasy. I turn around and taxi in. As I'm parking a voice from the back says, "Hey it's Transport Canada!" You've got to be kidding. I look. It's one guy in a multicoloured toque and a nondescript coat. No, it's not TC. They travel in pairs, with matching jackets and ramp passes. They stick out like sore thumbs at little airports where no one has a ramp pass. It was probably the met observer for the local weather station.

Dinner is yesterday's leftovers nuked in their takeout container in the breakfast room microwave. The styrofoam warps alarmingly. Inside the potatoes are still frozen and the vegetables dehydrated. It's not quite enough for one of only two meals I get to eat today. There's a Tim Horton's next door so I walk over, but once I get there I question whether I am really hungry or just bored and in need of comfort food. I ponder for a while then order two Timbits. That comes to thirty-six cents, which I count out carefully. The server gives my my Timbits in a bag and I thank him and leave the store. When I open the bag I discover I have three Timbits. Do I look so impoverished that a Tim Horton's employee has taken pity on me and snuck me extra food? I eat all three. I really would have preferred vegetables, but there aren't all-night vegetable stores.

I recopy my messy OFP, and prepare new one for the next day. I call the fueller and we agree on a time tomorrow morning.

Fake Pilot Licence

A Swedish pilot flew airliners for thirteen years even though the only pilot certification was no longer valid and for smaller airplanes. It wouldn't have been too hard to forged advanced qualifications on my old licence. I have to produce my licence and medical at every flight test and written test, but they are mostly just looking for the name and address.

Most employers just see a copy of the licence, because they either ask for faxed documents before an interview, or want photocopies for their files after hiring.

Mine is real.

General Aviation Woes

General aviation hassles. This time it's not security regulations, airspace restrictions, or exorbitant airport fees. It's just small town council that doesn't want to invest in public facilities. It's nothing that hasn't happened to small airports across Canada, and even one so large that it was a designated alternate landing strip for the NASA space shuttle, but this one includes a personal angle from a Cockpit Conversation reader.

Julian, whose story this is, passed the Transport Canada instructor ride in December and went out and applied everywhere, in person for the nearby schools and by e-mail for places further afield, like Kawartha Lakes Flight Center in Lindsay, Ontario. Julian describes the thrill of that first don't-know-what-to-expect aviation job interview.

A few weeks later, I got a reply and I had my first interview! I wasn't sure how to dress though because so many schools are so laid back in their attire, but I thought I'd dress to the nines anyway. When I got there I was way over dressed. The interview went well and we went for a little .5 flight. Then he said you got the job if you want it. I said, "There is only one thing: I have a volunteer job from the 12-28 at the Olympics in Vancouver."

They were really supportive and said something like, "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity!" And it really is. So they let me have the time off whenever I wanted to leave. Cool.

So in January, Julian moved to Lindsay, a farm town of 17,000 people an hour's drive north east of Toronto (assuming you're not trying to leave Toronto in rush hour traffic). The school itself has four two-seater Cessna 152s two four-seater Cessna 172s and a twin-engine Piper Seneca. The school owners were upfront about winters being slow with little flying. The first week he did a bunch of rental checkouts and logged six hours of flying. He was so delighted to be flying at all, that he kept up his spirits through a few days of unflyable weather and then as much flying as he could handle for the rest of that week.

The first fine weather weekend brought Julian his most amazing sight ever: little Lindsey was swarmed by more airplanes than he had ever seen fly into an uncontrolled airport. Even a C130 did a low and over. People would fly in and go to the restaurant or come and talk to them at the school. His students were keen and doing well, with one scheduled to solo the weekend before Julian left for the Olympics.

The school had an instructor meeting, about an approaching Transport Canada inspection. These are regular occurrences at aviation businesses of all kinds. Julian had questions which were discussed and answered. The owner came and told him that he had flown more than all the other instructors despite not having any students to start. The other four instructors have second jobs and instruct only part time, but Julian is putting everything he has into it, and it's paying off. As the only instructor there with an instrument rating he also has some multi-engine instrument flying to look forward to, a lucky coup for an instructor so early in his career. But every opportunity in aviation seems to have a stumbling block laid across its threshold. It's not just my stories that read this way.

Julian came into school early the morning after a snowfall to prepare for for an eight a.m. flight. As he looked out over the ramp to see how much deicing he would need to do, he noticed pink ribbons on the props of the Seneca. "Geeze TC is here already," he thought. He walked into the office and there learned that the City of Kawartha Lakes had put locks around all the propellers and were seizing the aircraft for unpaid bills.

You never know whose story to believe as a peon in this industry, but the school's story is that yes, they do owe for rent and fuel but not anywhere near the value of the property seized, that the city has gone about everything illegally, as they should have only seized something of equal value not seven aircraft and the school's only means of producing revenue. I can tell you that December and January are the worst revenue months for a flying school, and as this was the beginning of February with a quasistationary high was parked over the area, giving clear skies and perfect training conditions. Julian alone would have flown over twenty-five hours that week, bringing in revenue for the city, but the airplanes stayed parked.

The locks were supposed to come off Friday, but they didn't. They were supposed to come off Monday. But they didn't. As far as Julian knew while he was on the bus up Whistler mountain they were still on. The school is suing the city for damages. Word is that the city is trying to close the airport so they can put in a new subdivision across the street on the approach for runway 31. There is not a shortage of usable land in the area.

Julian managed to have a blast at Whistler, meeting athletes, celebrities and other young people. He said it was kind of a mood kill for someone spending money and enjoying the mountain scenery when he could and should be trying to find work. But it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. He still has a good attitude, as he wrote me offering an Olympic postcard (which I told him to send to Elizabeth) and I had to talk the tale of woe out of him.

It's a typical 'getting started in the industry' story, unfortunately it's typical right down to the setback just as the solos are approaching. (Solos are important for a new instructor, as he needs to teach three students to solo and three to licence before he can upgrade his instructor rating). I was going to make this into an ad for Julian's services as a Class 4 instructor, but the school reopened and he'll be able to go back to work.

Nooooo! Don't Take My Future!

Just to show you how serious I am about owning a flying car, I started on that to do list. I picked up the phone and called the regional Transport Canada office. And I am crushed. The airplane is not only not registrable in Canada until the manufacturer applies for it, but it's possible that I won't even be able to fly it in Canada.

I started with a generic question, "Would there be any impediment to registering a new, US-manufactured, FAA-certified aircraft in Canada?" The receptionist said tht was a tough one and transferred me to a superintendent. Before I even mentioned which airplane I had in mind, he said that there were US aircraft that could not be imported to Canada because they had never received certification. Doesn't this seem silly? Shouldn't two technologically advanced, safety-conscious countries like Canada and the US be able to agree on a reciprocity arrangement for the certification of manufactured products?

"So," I said, ready with a fallback plan, "I would have to keep it N-registered and fly it on an FAA licence." That's not much of an obstacle.

"Only for 90 days," he says.

"But," I sputter. "How come I know people who have owned November-registered aircraft for years in Canada?"

"Not as private owners. They must be owned as corporate entities."

"I can be a corporation." (Add incorporate to to-do list).

"But," he continues, "If the manufacturer doesn't apply for Canadian airworthiness certification, the aircraft cannot be operated in Canada."

So now I have to raise $200k and shift a government bureaucracy. I have a busy two years ahead of me.

The Future is Here!

I made a to-do list today.

Before Buying My Terrafugia Transitions Flying Car

• check with Transport Canada
• that it can be registered in Canada
• if it needs separate aviation and car insurance
• check with car insurance company on
  • how to insure it
  • how to transfer licence plate from old car
• check with aviation insurance company on coverage options
• telephone some US and Canadian airports to find out how to get airside access from the parking lot
• find out from Terrafugia
  • available delivery dates
  • can I get mine in yellow?
  • maintenance schedule/parts requirements
• Design and make silver spandex jumpsuit
• Get asymmetrical spiky haircut
• Get bizarre sunglasses
• Practise using Skype video phone
• Arrange financing (buy lottery ticket)

Did I miss anything?

People, it costs less than a new Cessna 172. And it's a FLYING CAR! How can this not be my new goal?

What Happened to Kansas?

By now I'm sure there are a few people eagerly awaiting my arrival in Kansas, so they can direct me to the hilly bits where people know how to use pi correctly, or get me a tour of the Cessna factory. In my job, however, the fact that I have been told to go somewhere, that I have filed a flight plan, filled out a complicated webform, and advised customs officers of my intended arrival time never means that I actually went there. So no, I didn't go to Kansas. I pulled up the airline websitebooked a flight home instead.

Then I called back the US Customs people to say I wouldn't be coming after all. They couldn't find the e-form that said I was coming, so just as well. Then I called back flight services to tell them the flight was cancelled. "Mind if I ask why?" asked the specialist, in exactly the tone used by the guy at the newspaper when I told him I wanted to cancel my service forever. "The aircraft registration and certificate of airworthiness are missing," I explained. (To the FSS guy, not the newspaper guy. I cancelled the newspaper because the presence of a newspaper on my doorstep bore almost no relationship to the "vacation" status registered in their computer).

And then I took a cab to the airport, and flew home.

On the way I overheard a quintessential Canadian conversation comparing snow and rain, "In the snow it's cold but you can do things. In the rain you get all wet." Winter is coming. I don't remember if it was the same or different people who while discussing transit options came up with this arithmetical theory, "We could take the #44. Or we could take the #22 twice and maybe we'd get there."

Kansas, presumably, is still there, and maybe I'll get there later, too.

Choose Your Own Misadventure, Part II

A reader sent me this Air Taxi Pilot Decision-Making Simulator. I hate it. I hate it because it's true and accurate and needed. It's hauntingly, terribly familiar. I've been there on almost every branch of every decision tree. For the branches I haven't explored to the end, I have attended the funerals of friends who did. It's even set up so that you can do the wrong thing and still live. Just like real life it means you can get away with something and think you made the right decision, reinforcing that behaviour for next time.

Work your way through the scenarios and then consider what your life is like when this kind of thing is is what you do every day, but the end of the day doesn't bring a neat lecture on lessons learned and the ability to know that you chose the best possible route. All you know at the end of the day is that you survived the decisions you made. You are still being questioned for every decision by your copilot, chief pilot, passengers, room mates and yourself. You don't know if the airplane is misbehaving, if you're incompetent, if every company is like this and this is what the rest of your career will be like, or if you're at the worst company in the world.

I showed it to one pilot who thought it was ridiculous, that the decisions were simple to make and that they were just playing mind games. But it's well-researched and based on a lot of pilots who got caught out in such situations. The scenarios are drawn from real experiences and accident reports, and there are a hundred more they could add. I've always been more likely to ask those questions before departure, but there's a price for that, too. Within your cadre of pilots, asking questions may be perceived as weaker than simply fumbling on in ignorance, even when the people you asked the question of don't know the answer either.

Some people think that flying airplanes is hard, but it really isn't. You learn how in a few hours from watching someone and reading the manual. The hard part is never being complacent, and always deciding what to do when the airplane isn't following the manual.

It's not like that for me these days, but before you have the experience and knowledge it can be. I admire the way aviation safety research has gone beyond understanding why airplanes have accidents and delved into why pilots have accidents, even when they have and understand the information on how not to.

Muddled Mouth, Standard Head

Next morning the hotel wake-up call works, but the cellphone alarm doesn't. I don't investigate why, just shower and dress. I forgot to check the tag, but I haven't broken my rule to never get on an airplane, any airplane, without toothpaste, deodorant, my cellphone charger and a change of socks and underwear. And I have my computer, of course, and Internet. The weather looks fine, but Westjet has no new news about my luggage.

Off to the airport. The airplane is parked on the Esso ramp. It's been based here for a couple of weeks. The chief pilot and another pilot flew it up from Calgary in May. We walk around the plane, add a couple of litres of oil and determine ourselves ready to go. My co-worker informs me that we're testing in order of height, tallest person first. It takes me a moment to realize that's me. Oh well, someone's got to go first.

I have my headset--that was in my carry-on--but I don't have my kneeboard, my IFR timer or any of the little gadgets that make life easier on a ride. And did I mention having plates so old they didn't have the tower frequency on them? For that reason I didn't even look at them. The ride is mainly VFR handling stuff anyway. It's just as well I'm getting an opportunity to fly the airplane with just my boss and coworkers on board, before I fly with paying customers.

I know it was close to freezing overnight, but the engines start easily. I let everything warm up, pick up the ATIS (VFR with broken layers starting about 4000' agl) and get a taxi clearance via G and F for a runway 25 departure, contact tower holding short. Taxiway E is a huge wide one, so I pull off there and do a runup, plus a completely mangled pretakeoff briefing, on which I received notes after the flight. I have to practice that in the shower or something.

My problem is that I think too much (surprise, surprise) so I think about the words while they are coming out of my mouth instead of just spewing them out, and then they get all tangled up, and I miss some out.

The briefing most companies want is not actually what Transport Canada wants in a takeoff briefing. Specifically, TC wants only what changes from departure to departure to be recited, where most companies have a long memorized script with only a couple of points that may change. Transport says if it is standard to always abort the take-off in the event of a malfunction before V1 (and it should be) there is no need to repeat this fact. But every takeoff briefing I have ever been asked to use includes the statement of what I will do in the event of a failure while on the take-off surface, airborne with sufficient landing area remaining, and after takeoff with insufficient runway remaining. And the actions are pretty much the same whatever you are flying.

Any critical failure before rotation or after rotation with sufficient runway remaining I will reject: power idle, land/stop straight ahead. After rotation with insufficient runway remaining, it will be a single engine go-around: control, max power, gear up, flaps up, maintain Vyse, confirm & secure failed engine, inform ATC and land with the single engine checklist.

I think about this before every takeoff, but I have to say the words out loud more or I'm going to look like an idiot again.

But I get through looking like an idiot, including in a radio call where I get the alphabet in the wrong order, thinking for a moment that I am on F and have to go further east to taxiway E, when it's actually the other way around. I take off, set climb power, use the appropriate checklists, deal with the electrical fire described, perform a 45 degree banked steep turn to the left, all the way around to the original heading. I use a trick that I learned long ago, and that is to first make a couple of "clearing turns" to look out for any traffic. This is a normal safety procedure, but I do mine at slightly over 30 degrees, making the clearing turns a warm up for the correct horizon position and the tendency of the airplane in the bank. Whether it worked or not, I don't know, but my turn is passable. The next assignment is a turn to the right, this time at 30 degrees bank for the first 90 degrees and then at 45 degrees for the remainder of the turn. This I suppose would catch up someone who had memorized the rhythm of the exercise as opposed to having conscious control over airspeed, bank angle and altitude, but as I haven't been flying enough to have anything memorized, I'm just happy not to have to hold 45 degrees all the way around.

Next are stalls. The first assigned configuration is power idle, flap 25: an approach stall. I'm asked to recover at the first indication of a stall, which in this airplane I know will be the stall horn, unless by some coincidence the stall horn has just broken, in which case it will be either a pre-stall buffet or the chief pilot yelling that there's something wrong with the stall horn. The stall horn works. I shove all the levers forward and recover, wings level, but am told that while not losing altitude is good, I did not check the nose forward sufficiently. For any stall recovery demonstration considered perfect by one examiner, you will find another examiner who considers the recovery to have been performed too soon or too late, and one who considers the pitch to break the stall to be too little or too much. The next exercise is a clean stall, at a power setting that simulates hot day performance at climb power, in a climbing left turn. When the stall horn bleats I keep the wings level with the rudder pedals, overemphasize my pitch change and put the mixtures, props and throttles full forward. That one is approved.

I'm asked to turn left towards that pond over there. The chief pilot is twisted around facing backwards talking to the pilot in the seat behind me. They're trying to find a C172 we know is nearby. It's a trick to distract me as one of the throttles is pulled to idle. I don't see the throttle go back, as I too am looking for the C172, but it's the sort of thing you expect on a ride, so I control the yaw, increase power to hold altitude, and confirm the dead engine matches my "dead" foot -- i.e. the foot that isn't pushing hard on the rudder pedal to keep the airplane straight. I ask as I check the magnetoes, fuel selectors and gauges if there is smoke or fire issuing from the victimized engine and am told no. I simulate a shutdown, indicate that I will advise ATC and return for landing at Ft. Mac, and then am given my engine back. The pilot in the back mutters something like "tabarnouche!", caught off guard by the yaw from the suddenly simulated engine failure.

I'm handed an approach plate and brief a mercifully simple approach. I would have liked to fly the DME arc, but am told not to worry about that part and just fly a full procedure VOR approach. The HSI isn't working today, so this is done on a standard head VOR in the bottom right corner of the panel. I use the VFR GPS for situational awareness to help me find the radial that will take me direct to the VOR, and distinguish between being off track and simply coming up on station passage. As I turn to the outbound I spend a moment deciding whether to set it for the inbound and use reverse sensing on the outbound or to set it outbound and then reset it for the inbound. I decide on the later, and then there's a moment when I'm still waiting to intercept the outbound track when I think I may have set it incorrectly. But I haven't and complete the procedure turn to intercept the inbound. I remember to start the timer every time, something I tend to forget on time-based approaches, and am psyched for the missed approach, but am asked to do a touch and go. Just before I reach my MDA the chief pilot calls in sight and I maneuver back over to the right where the runway is. The runway heading is seven degrees different from the radial tracked on that approach, so I don't know if the radial needs recalibration or the VOR just happens to be offset a little. The last moment maneuvering takes the place of flaps as an altitude adjusting tool and I touch down with just approach flaps before taking off again.

The next approach is a vectored ILS, again on the standard head VOR, for a full stop. I overcorrect, weaving down the approach, but manage to be on the localizer, on slope when I call "should be visual" at the DH and the chief pilot says I have the runway in sight. I'm still at approach speed, but apply landing flap and bring it right down to the centreline for what my colleague in the back calls a greaser. Anything that makes the people in the back happy is okay with me.

Post-flight notes praise my handling even after three months off, criticise me for the mangled briefing and pick up other items I can improve, but the scoresheet is a row of only Ss. Other possibilities are SB ("satisfactory with briefing" i.e. you're getting away with the error because you understand it and I chewed you out for it) or U (unsatisfactory). I would have given myself a few SBs on that, but I won't complain for not getting them.

Oh and we're not staying in Fort McMurray now. The customer changed his mind. We check out and go for lunch before flying to where we're really supposed to be. I call WestJet and get put on hold for twenty minutes only to find out that there is no news on the suitcase. I tell them to send it to Grande Prairie when they find it.

And in an ugly segue regarding things that are missing, as I write this an Air France A330 has gone missing en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Much of the trans-Atlantic route is without radar coverage, so radar contact was lost three and a half hours after departure. Forty-five minutes later the airplane (not the pilots) sent an automated signal documenting an electrical fault and a possible pressurization failure. (Any automated message following an electrical fault is suspect). There were no further messages from automation nor crew. The pilots also missed a planned radio call to Brazilian ATC. There were extensive thunderstorms in the area. I expect they will have found confirming wreckage by the time this posts.

New Pilot Licence Format

While I was getting my photos taken for my passport, I had an extra set done for my new pilot licence. As I mentioned, Transport Canada told me I need to have a new photo licence by the end of March.

That application was very much like a passport application, right down to the square where I had to sign my name without going outside the lines. (But did. It's like failing colouring in kindergarten, and I had to fill out the whole form over again). Then, to my surprise, the new licence arrived inside a week.

It's passport-style, i.e. a little booklet with a blue cover and lots of pages for stamps and notations. It's a bright cheap-looking blue colour, so looks very much like the passport of some obscure third world nation you've never heard of. The cover is embossed with a gold "Canada" (in the government logo with the flag), "Aviation Document" at the top and "Document d'aviation" at the bottom. The first page inside has my photograph twice (not green), my signature (not cut off at the edges) and some logos and personal information. It even has the codes at the bottom of the page, like you use in a passport scanner.

The next page has a little rectangle with my picture again, and abbreviations indicating what licences I hold. Sadly, it says SMELS which, while fortunately isn't a physical description, still isn't nearly as grand as the old All single and multi-engine land and sea aeroplanes. Following that are a whole bunch of pages for examiners to fill in subsequent qualifications, and me to stick official labels affirming them. It includes a page that will replace my PPC card, and a section (with another photograph) replacing my separate medical certificate. The only thing it doesn't include is my radio licence. I'll glue that in the back with rubber cement, so it's all in one place. Unless doing so constitutes defacement and voids the licence, in which case I'm only joking about that.

Oh and the passport code bars even get recognized as a passport. I used it to check in for an international flight at a kiosk recently, and it worked.

Segmented Weights

When I blogged about how to calculate the loaded weight of an airplane, lots of folks pitched in with other related issues, like how much a planeload of passengers really weigh. At my current job, I work with the same people for weeks at a time, and if I'm going to pick up someone new, the people I'm with can tell me, often with mirthful laughter, how much I should allow for the weight of their colleagues. So I always use actual weights or my own best estimates based on looking at people and lifting cargo.

I linked already to the recently revised Canadian standard weights for males, females, children and infants, and reader Christopher linked to a Transport Canada document proposing new changes to weight and balance practices for small airplanes.

The report describes the limitations of applying standard weights to small aircraft weight and balance calculations.

Companies will naturally try to maximize the load to optimize the service and remain competitive with other companies. This means that, on any given day, many flights operate at close to maximum gross weight on paper when, in fact, some of these flights are operating above maximum gross weight.

Statistical probability dictates that the smaller the sample size, the more the average of the sample will deviate from the average of the larger universe. Because of this, the use of standard average passenger weights when transporting 9 or less passengers does not provide an acceptable level of confidence for ensuring compliance with aircraft weight limitations.

The TC document points out that the law requires the operator to ensure not that the airplane is within limits on paper, but that No person shall operate an aircraft unless, during every phase of the flight, the load restrictions, weight and centre of gravity of the aircraft conform to the limitations specified in the aircraft flight manual. It suggests two solutions, using actual passenger weights and something called segmented weights.

The situation it describes is absolutely true. Pilots do the weight and balance according to standard passenger weights and not according to the size of the actual passengers. When you fly a charter in an eight-passenger airplane, you're generally flying a group of related people. People in a family share eating habits and genetics, so if one is heavy, you typically have a group of eight heavy people. The northern diet is heavy on pop and potato chips, and thus the northern resident is heavier than the average Canadian.

Using actual passenger weights is already an option, and some operators already use it. Northern passengers put up with all kinds of indignities, and I didn't see anything to indicate that the culture of thinness was ingrained to the point that people would be grievously offended by a weigh in before boarding. One problem is that the passengers don't usually show up in time for the pilot to do the calculations between when they arrive and when they board. A smart pilot precalculates the weight and balance for the whole day, before she sees a single passenger. So what is this segmented weights, thing? I've never heard of it before. It looks like statistics. I have some mathematics training including one pathetically easy statistics course, so I should be able to figure this out.

It's like I'm returning to the original purpose of the blog: learning things!

This concept involves adding a portion of the standard deviation to an average weight in order to increase the confidence that the actual weight of a passenger and carry-on baggage will not exceed the resultant, increased weight value called segmented weight.

For a large sample, like two hundred people on a large jet, chances are good that the pounds carried on board by people who weigh more than population average will be balanced by pounds not carried on by people who weigh under that average. But as the number of people boarding decreases, so does the probability that their average will be significantly different than the population average. So as the number of people boarding decreases, you need to add a fudge factor to hedge against the possibility of having a load of biggies throw off your W&B. As the seating capacity goes down, the fudge factor per passenger goes up.

People with more statistics training than I have have worked out a table and state that if I use the row appropriate to the seating capacity of my airplane and the column appropriate to the male/female ratio, I will have a "95-percent confidence level and a 1-percent tolerable error." That apparently means "good enough for the government." This all assumes that the current standard passenger weights do accurately reflect the overall average weight of that portion of the public who travel on airplanes, weighted by their frequency of travel.

The chart has a bit of a problem for someone doing row-by-row seating. Lets say I have an eight passenger airplane, full in the summer, with two guys in the back, a man and a woman in the next row, two women in the next and two guys up front. That's five guys and three women, a 62/38 M/F split, so I guess I'll use the 60/40 column. Therefore according to the Canadian summer chart, I count my eight people at 215 each, for a total passenger weight of 1720 lbs. That works fine for the weight, but how am I supposed to do the row-by-row balance? My best guess is that I should use the figure of 192 lbs for the women and 231 lbs for the men, because those are the figures I'd use per passenger if the load were all female or all male respectively. That would give me a total of 1731 lbs in the final W&B. So can I put on that extra eleven pounds of fuel or not?

Okay, maybe it's because I rounded the 62% to 60%. If the load were half men and half women, the average would be 211, for a total weight of 1688. Four women at 192 lbs plus four men at 231 lbs adds up to 1692. That's only four pounds off, but what is the pilot supposed to do with those four extra pounds in the paperwork? You have to do the math row by row, because you may have to swap men and women back to front to get the CofG to work out.

I don't think these new weights will change the amount of weight on a typical charter flight. If the pilot would have flown with the load under the old rules but it comes out as overweight using the new rules, the pilot will either take fuel out of the paperwork, but not out of the plane; or they'll officially use "actual weights" and pilots can be really bad carnival weight guessers.

Meanwhile examining the tables closely tells me some interesting things. We're told that Transport Canada allowed eight pounds for summer clothing in determining passenger weights from the health survey weights, but they advise pilots to add ten pounds to volunteered weights. That means that Transport Canada assumes the average Canadian passenger lies about his or her weight by taking off two pounds.

Comparing the FAA and Transport Canada tables, we see heavier passenger weights in the former table in each category. I thought the difference might be carry-on rules but they actually mask a greater difference, because the American table includes only six pounds per person for carry-on baggage while the Canadian table includes thirteen pounds of carry-on bags per passenger. Both tables are recently updated. It's not a clothing difference either, because I'm comparing summer weight to summer weight. Canadians add six pounds for winter and Americans add five. Conclusion: Americans weigh more than Canadians, but Canadians have heavier parkas and boots.

Also: airplane missing in the Bermuda Triangle.

New Licence

As you may remember, I renewed my flight instructor rating this summer in order to allow Lite Flyer to log our ferry time as a student pilot. The examiner signed the back of my licence and filled in the rating renewal information there. That allowed the old licence to serve as a new licence for 90 days, or receipt of the new licence, whichever came first.

It's been more than 90 days, but when I got home and went through all my mail, none was the characteristic brown envelope containing a blue paper from Transport Canada. I called my local Transport Canada office to ask about its whereabouts. The clerk looked up my record and said that no licence had been issued, but admitted that they were well behind. She transferred me to another office where I spoke to someone who looked through her pile of paperwork and declared that nothing for me was there. No paperwork had been received for my licence renewal. I called the examiner, who fortunately remembered me, and vowed that he had submitted the paperwork. He made some phone calls himself and then called me back. Apparently there was an office reorganization that week and a number of people just didn't get their licences.

He thanked me for following up and promised that it would be reprinted and mailed ASAP, then offered to fax me a temporary licence immediately. I didn't need it urgently, so I said I'd wait for the mailed one. It arrived the next day. Wow. I didn't know our postal service could be that good.

Inside the envelope was my new licence (I still haven't got used to seeing lower case letters on a Transport Canada document) and an application for for a new one. A new one? Transport Canada has finally moved on the issue of photo identification on licences, and they want commercial and airline transport licence holders to apply for them now. I have to go and get a passport photo taken. It says that all ATPLs and CPLs in the old format will be replaced by March 31, 2009. Considering they are just getting the application form to me now, I'm not really confident their timeline is going to work, but I'll apply now. My actual passport expires soon too so I can get all the photos done at once.

Also, an Air Canada Jazz Dash-8 slid off the end of the runway in North Bay, Ontario. The article says it overshot the runway in fog, but it's not clear whether they mean that it touched down late, or that it touched down normally but had insufficient braking action. No one was hurt and the landing gear didn't collapse, either.

Airwothiness

Zenflyer's comment on mandated placards in view of the passenger reminds me that the official warning on Lite Flyer's dashboard is missing an R.

Ground Grilling

I recovered from food poisoning, got a practice session in and prepared my notes for the flight test. That morning I arrived at the flying school just after it opened, so I had lots of time to get the weather, preflight the airplane and be ready for the examiner's arrival. That done, I sat down and read ten year old aviation magazines, featuring airplanes still too new for me to have ever flown them, and avionics I would still love to get my hands on.

Eventually a guy in a Transport Canada windbreaker came in. He expressed a desire for a cup of coffee, and knew where it was, but as he poured his cup I didn't recall seeing anyone make coffee that morning, and remember I arrived as they opened. I checked with the dispatcher, and warned him just in time that he was lifting a cup of yesterday's coffee. "Here," I offered, "I'll make you a fresh pot." I should have thought to do that while I was waiting, shouldn't I have. He decided, however, that it was enough to reheat the old coffee in the microwave. Yikes.

We went to a briefing room for the examination. The first part of the test is administrative, like every other Transport Canada test. I hand over money, my licences and medical and he gives me a receipt and copies my information onto a form. Next he gave me an excellent, patient explanation of the whole process of the exam, even though he knows from my record that I've been through this many times before. He was really quite expert at putting me at ease.

Next he asks me questions designed to determine my knowledge and judgement level for running a flight school. The instructor rating I wish to renew qualifies me to do that, so he has to test me for it. He isn't too impressed with that. He thinks that it should be a separate test, such as the test to be a chief pilot or a person responsible for maintenance, so that the flight instructor test can concentrate on instructional ability. I knew I wasn't going to be able to have all the regulations he could ask about at the figurative fingertips of my brain, so I have brought in a printout of the parts of the CARs applicable to flight training, and answer his questions by looking them up and reading them to him. He asks me some questions to be sure I understand what I am reading and is satisfied.

He has printouts of the flight test records of my most recent students, years ago. I'm embarrassed not to remember all of them. (Their names are not on the printouts, but I should remember who failed the 180 power off landing, and have no recollection of that happening. Perhaps it was someone I signed off to take a flight test before I left the school, and I never found out how he or she did.) I'm also embarrassed that there are a few poor flight tests. I start to explain that towards the end of my time as a flight instructor I worked at a big school where I was the troubleshooter and the patron saint of lost causes. When a student was doing well, I handed them off to a less experienced instructor, in exchange for one who needed my skills and attention. He understands completely and isn't holding the record against me.

My rating also qualifies me to supervise brand new instructors, so he asks me about the minimum supervision required of a class four instructor. I tell him succinctly that I must fly with the student prior to solo and prior to flight test, and then start off on a long winded explanation of my philosophy of when to do what with whom. I rein myself in when I realize I'm answering more than he asked, but he asks me to continue. He wants to see that I understand and take responsibility and I do, so this part is truly just relax and be myself. he asks me if I have to see all flight test items in my preflight check. "Yes," I say. "I have to sign a form that certifies that ..." I scrabble in my papers for the form. He suggests that I am countersigning the form for the class four instructor who certifies that she has seen all flight test items. I'm just certifying that I don't think she's lying. I look at him dubiously and he admits that he agrees with me, but that the other interpretation is accepted in some quarters.

Next he wants to see me teach a lesson on the ground. He asks me to brief him on spiral dives and slips, and then left the room to allow me to prepare. This is standard for flight tests, even though in real life students just arrive and you may have someone else's student to fly with at the last moment with no time to prepare. I read over the Transport Canada lesson plan and my own notes and am ready to begins. The scenario he asked for is that of a new inexperienced instructor who is having trouble with this briefing and has asked for a perfect demonstration. It's a set up that is sort of grooming me towards the next level of instructor rating, which would qualify me to teach others to be instructors. There are only 467 people in Canada who are qualified to do that, and many of them are working as examiners, like this guy, or have moved on to the airlines and their ratings just haven't expired yet. I was encouraged even at my initial class two exam to think about a class one rating, so it's not surprising to have this intermediate scenario.

I set up the whiteboard and when he returns I explain that there is no such thing as a perfect presentation that I could give so he could watch, memorize and regurgitate. if that were so, Transport Canada would produce them and distribute them on DVD. You would show them to the student, see if they had any questions, and then go flying. No, the reason this briefing is one-on-one is that it is adapted to the particular student and it is as fully interactive as you can make it. I then elicit the topic and the definition from the student and develop the lesson by asking him questions all the way through, so that it is built out of what he knows and understands, using words and concepts he can identify with. This can be awkward when the 'student' knows the material well, but I have confidence in my knowledge and know that as well as assessing me he is looking for useful techniques he can steal, so I show my stuff. He's happy. We go flying. I'll describe the flight tomorrow.

Rental Checkout

I arrived home and the next day turned up for a rental checkout in the small airplane I would take my instructor renewal test in. A rental checkout is like a little mini flight test, just to ensure that a pilot is familiar with the area and can operate the airplane safely. It's for the club renting me the airplane, and for their insurance company. I have flown with this instructor before, back when she was a student pilot. Now she is a assessing me. This is a pretty normal thing in aviation.

I ask to sit in the right seat, the instructor's side, and I demonstrate the maneuvers she asks for. She closes the throttle to simulate an engine failure. I choose a field and set up to land in it, and then realize that at idle power the airplane floats a lot better than my regular ride. I have to sideslip aggressively and do S-turns so as not to overshoot the field. Everything was good enough to demonstrate competence for the rental checkout, and the instructor gave me full marks, but not everything was good enough for a "perfect demonstration" to introduce a student to the maneuver. The instructor thought I was ready to go and retest, but I will come back and practice. I want to get the landings better, too.

This being my time off I have a number of social events and other obligations crammed into the days I have home. One of them is an outdoor concert, with performers that were big when I was in high school. I thought when I said I'd be home for it that it was an evening concert, that I could go to after a practice session, but it starts in the early afternoon. I call the Transport Canada examiner and beg out of the flight test that booked the day after the concert. He offers and I accept a later date for the test. Wait, wow! I have a life! And I'm putting something of it before aviation! This is an important occasion for me.

Instructor Renewal

Now that it's determined that I will not be plunged into a B727 training course in the immediate future, and since it's becoming more probable that I will live out my days as a contract pilot, I think it would be a good idea for me to renew my instructor rating. That will give me more areas in which I can contract, and some more stress.

My instructor rating has expired, but recently enough that it can be renewed without much trouble. The trouble required is specifically a one-on-one examination with a Transport Canada inspector, both on the ground to assess my level of knowledge and classroom instruction skills and in the air to make sure I can both fly and teach the maneuvers to the required standard. The former should be easy, but the latter means going back into a type of airplane I haven't touched in a while. It will need some practice.

I know for sure I'll be going home for the first of the month, because my medical expires then: the first is the last day I can fly. In three days can I

• renew my medical
• check out in a rental airplane
• practise the maneuvers to flight test standards, and
• do the flight test?

I'm not sure, but it's worth a try. I book the medical and flight test by telephone, and the rental checkout and practice sessions over the internet. It's not a very smart schedule. I'll probably have to cancel it all. But there's no time like the present.