No rest for the wicked...

Despite lugging an "Instrument Rating Manual" all the way around the world and to China and back, saying "Yeah, I'll have like 10+ hours on all those long haul flights to study"... the manual came out of my bag once... and that was because I needed to use the bag for something else at the time :P

However, I haven't been totally deliquent in my studies... so at 0800 this morning, I rocked up to the "ASL Examination Centre" (read as: a small upstairs area in a small commercial unit in a small business park in East Tamaki with some computers), ready to once again engage in a battle of wits and english comprehension with the ASL question writers...

30mins later, I walked out a little disappointed that I didn't get an immediate result, which I had thought was one of the benefits of the computer based exams... especially after I got this nice green screen after clicking submit which I initially thought was a "Congratulations! You're totally awesome and kicked ass on that exam!!!"-type screen...

Instead, it was a "Congratulations, we didn't lose all your answers when you clicked submit. They're now safely stored in some super secret data centre in a super secret location. So you won't have to do the exam again... unless, of course, you failed! We'll be in touch"-type screen :-/

It turns out that they only mark the exams when everyone sitting an exam at that time has finished. As ASL also do various exams for the LTSA, and most of those exams are at least 2 1/2 hours... I was in for a bit of a wait... Thankfully, I am a posterchild for patience *cough*

So, I just logged into the results website and around 11am (after hitting refresh every 30seconds or so for about 2 hours ;) my results had been posted...

w00t! 93% for Instruments and Nav Aids... guess I'd better get that Instrument Rating Law study guide out :P

A complete set

Well Euan was right... I did indeed kick some arse on my CPL Met exam... 96% to be precise ;)

So now I have the full set of CPL exams completed, which has now earned me a 'CPL Exam Credit' which is valid for 3 years. I'm really hoping it does not take me that long to actually get the CPL :P

Seeing as how I am in 'exam mode', I have decided to push on and do my Instrument Rating exams as well... so it is more book time for me. I am hoping to get started on the CPL cross-country syllabus as well.

I have also been tagging along with Trevor on some of his Instrument Rating adventures... Eyes Open, Mouth Closed... 'Sponge' mode engaged!

I have picked up quite a lot and I'm hoping this will pay off when I am the one in the hot-seat trying to do fifty million things at once :P

I successfully managed to miss the Whenuapai Open Day... but I was in the back of a PA28 going around the hold at Tauranga and shooting the missed approach etc... so it was a fair trade-off ;)

On the "New Gadget" front, my boss made me an offer I could not refuse... and I have upgraded from the Nokia 6275i to an Okta Touch (Windows Mobile 6.1) PDA-Phone. Was bummed to find that it had no GPS or wifi... until I found out a firmware upgrade enabled the GPS ;) (Still bummed about the lack of wifi tho)

I have successfully got Garmin Mobile XT running on it which allows routable car navigation and am investigating my options for airbourne GPS. Unfortunately the Windows Mobile version of the software I had been using on the Nokia, TrackMyJourney, does not seem to work with the GPS on my phone... I will continue to test it, but am thinking I may need to look at OziExplorer...

Which means I will need to redo all my maps *sigh* :(

Deadlines...

Nothing provides motivation like a deadline ;)

1 more week to figure out how "The Weather"(tm) works... Not sure how I am supposed to understand it all, given that the MetService, who get PAID to understand this stuff, still can't seem to figure it out! :P

All quiet on the western front?

Despite the mostly good weather[1] we have been fortunate enough to enjoy over January and February, I have managed about 3 hours worth of flying.

This is not to say that I haven't been flying, I just have not been doing the actual flying.

Went with one of the other club members up to Whangarei as safety pilot so he could rack up some instrument time under the hood. I commented it was the first time I had been to Whangarei in the daytime... I got that same "WTF?!?!?!" look I usually get when I tell people I like flying around doing cross countries in the dark ;)

And the past few weekends I have been down in the Tron picking up tips on an instrument rating again as Trevor has been preparing for his Instrument Rating Flight Test. I did actually fly us down one trip. Just to help with the currency.

Also, I have been told to consider doing an IR before I do my CPL... as a bonus I can use the IR hours towards the 200hr minimum requirements for a CPL, so in a way, the hours are 'free'. Plus it also teaches you about precise flying.

One stumbling block however will be the 50 hours PinC Cross-country time as I currently have around 35. So I would need a couple of decent 4 hour trips to top it up to the minimums. Maybe a weekend down to see my folks near Palmerston North.

And of course, the exams required... *sigh*... I am currently struggling through the study book for my last CPL exam, which is meteorology. If only it were as simple as the weather rock ;)

Something to think about anyway...

In other news, I received a new mobile phone from work as we recently moved from Vodafone to Telecom... not really news, except for the fact that my new phone (a Nokia 6275i) has built-in GPS. And a really shitty built-in GPS application which does little more than give you your co-ordinates. Which got me thinking[2]... I wonder if anyone has written any cool little GPS apps for these phones???

I found a couple of things... MGMaps, which was relatively easy to install and setup and I even found a complete copy of the GoogleMaps street maps for New Zealand that someone had thoughtfully compiled for this application, so you could put it on a memory card and not get horrendous data charges for downloading maps on the go.

I thought it would be useful to get a 'rough' idea of where I was while flying around the countryside, as a handy little backup device. I even tested it when I was safety pilot for Joseph on the trip to Whangarei and it worked really well. I even had the crazy idea of scanning in my aeronautical charts and using them instead of googlemaps, and had some initial success, except the application kept crashing if you scrolled around and zoomed in or out too much.

Aside from the odd crash, this program had one serious flaw. It did not do 'tracking'. So, at the end of the journey, you cannot see the path you took. It has an online service so you can see live updates of where you are, and people have written scripts that simply poll the server every 30 seconds and log all the individual points as you move about... but that was a bit clumsy and too much like hard work[3]...

So I went looking for a better solution. Which is when I discovered TrackMyJourney. At first it looked like a service similar to the live update feature of MGMaps... but it turns out that is just part of it. This application is pretty much a full-featured GPS system for your Java capable phone/pda etc...

It did not suffer from the same application crashes when scrolling about or zooming in and out... it offers all sorts of views, options, waypoints, routes and most importantly tracking! :)

So then this idea of scanning in my aeronautical maps popped into my head again. TMJ provides a little utility for generating your own maps from picture files. So all that was needed was images of my maps, so I:

• 'Patiently' scanned in all my VNC's for the North Island (thank heavens for the A3 sized colour scanners at work!)...


• Then I stitched them back together using photoshop...


• Then I loaded them into a really nifty tool called 'MapCruncher' by Microsoft Research... essentially you take "your" map and load it into the application which displays it alongside "Virtual Earth". Then by lining up exact locations on each map, you calibrate your map to the 'real world'. In my case, the aeronautical charts have the latitude and longitude graticules printed on them, so I could mark fairly precise locations all over the map giving a decent rendering. I actually had to write a Perl script that would go through and 'edit' the map (or Mashup) config file generated by MapCruncher, as it was just too tedious to edit 50 or 60 points on each of the 6 North Island VNC's...


• Then I rendered out the re-projected map using MapCruncher... which broke it down into little 256x256 pixel tiles, named in 'Quadkey' format... If you're really interested you can read about it here, but be warned it is not exactly riveting!


• As this format is not in nice rows/columns, it was going to be a total mission to stitch these tiles back together to create a nice copy of the map to load into TMJ. So I wrote another Perl script that renamed the files into the format Y_X_zoomlevel.jpg so I could use some handy cut+paste and macro's to generate some commandlines to stitch these back together using the commandline batch processing options of a handy image utility called IrfanView...


• Once I had stitched all the tiles into a big giant map, I could load it into the TMJ image utility, and use it to generate the required map files the program needed... only I need to know the "Top-Left" and "Bottom-Right" 'Real World' Co-ordinates of my image... but I only had QuadKey's and/or X,Y values... so I wrote a third Perl Script that would automatically calculate it for me...


• Once I had those I was able to generate TMJ map files and load them onto the phone... and then repeat the entire process of stitching/aligning/rendering/stitching/re-aligning etc. for the other 5 maps!!!!

Quite simple[4] really! :/

All in all, it has been about 2 weeks of trial, error, head+desk, face+palm, lightbulb moments and extreme elation upon finally getting it all working.

The end result is a fairly useful little backup tool that should come in handy should I ever find myself situationally challenged while out flying.

I have already started 'upgrading' the functionality, as my scanned map is effectively still just a picture, so you cannot search for an aerodrome or anything like you can with a 'normal' aviation GPS. So I have also started messing about with the "waypoint" features of TMJ... I've added in all the North Island Aerodromes listed in the AIP with their co-ordinates and frequencies, so I should be able to pick an aerodrome and generate a direct track to it etc. and even do some basic 'flight planning' if required.

Now I just have to pray they don't update the charts in the near future ;)



[1] I'm choosing to ignore the ridiculous 30+ weather with 98% humidity ;)

[2] Always a dangerous thing

[3] Kind of ironic when you see what I ended up doing :/

[4] See... told you!

Proper Preparation...

prevents piss-poor performance... or so the saying goes.

After passing my Principles of Flight exam a couple of weeks ago, I had been studying for my CPL Nav, hoping to squeeze it in before Christmas. Things had been going fairly well so on the closing date for applications, I had booked my exam. According to the timetable, it would be next Tuesday (16th December), or so I thought!

The exam acceptance slip and practice paper duly arrived, via CourierPost, about a week after booking (like it always does). After checking the bag to make sure everything was there (but not actually reading any of it), I put it all to one side, intending on doing the practice exam over the weekend (most probably the night before the exam!)

Thankfully, I went to check the practice exam on Wednesday afternoon this week, as I wanted to see what 'area' the planned flight was in, to see if I had the appropriate chart(s). That is when I just happened to notice that the exam date was listed as 12/12/2008.

Me: "WTF?!!?!? The 12th?? That's this Friday... not next Tuesday... something must be wrong, I'd better call ASL to double check."

Then I noticed the little box that said in somewhat small writing, 'Dear Mr Yates, please note change in date due to heavy bookings'

Me: "OH SH*T!"

That only gave me 1 day to finish all my study... instead of the 5 that I had budgeted for! Thankfully my boss was very understanding and let me take the day off at short notice, so yesterday was filled with revision and practice exams... I finally went to bed around 1am, satisfied that if anything CPL Nav related was not already in my head, it:

A. Wouldn't get it in, in my half awake state
and
B. Wouldn't fit anyway


Woke up late this morning as my alarm didn't go off, despite the fact I checked it twice before I went to bed! Got ready and headed off to find the exam venue which was different from the usual location. Was a bit of a mission trying to find it... somehow I missed the building with 'Taha Wahia Woodside' emblasoned in big letters on the front... twice! :)

Apparently, several other people seem to have fallen into the same trap. There were supposed to be around 18 people sitting various exams this morning, but only 5 of us showed up! I imagine there are going to be some unhappy campers making phone calls to ASL...

Despite everything, the actual exam went surprisingly well!! There were only 1 or 2 questions that caused me to pause and scratch my head, so I am fairly confident that I have passed (famous last words ;). This, of course, means one of two things... I have either passed comfortably or failed spectacularly.

I always considered Nav to be one of the easier subjects. As it is essentially learning processes, and then applying them to the situation given... which I find relatively easy. It is the exams that rely on you remembering obscure 'facts' (ie. Air Law and P of F) that cause me the most problems.

Now I get to play the excruciating 'Wait for your Results' game... However, we were told today that ASL are shutting down for the holidays next Friday (19th December), which is why they have moved everything around, so it should be marked before then. Yay!


Fingers Crossed...

P of F and level 6 Engrish...

After stressing out about what I thought was a pretty poor 'Principles of Flight and Performance' exam on Monday... it turns out that I got 89%!

Don't tell ASL, but I think they may have mixed my answer sheet up with someone elses :-/

Oh, and apparently after 33 years of being born in and living in and attending school and university in an English speaking country... I can, officially, speak English! Wow... amazing! Who would have thought?!?!!

Apparently not the aviation overlords... hence my heading along to Heliflight on Tuesday morning to do a "Level 6 English Language Proficiency Demonstration" (aka. the 'Engrish' test, aka. how to 'tax' pilots another $99)

Basically, you talk to an automated recording on the phone for 10 minutes and then a couple of days later they tell you that you can speak english. As you have probably figured out, I am not exactly a fan of this ridiculous system... and had to bite my tongue when one of the questions during the test was:

"People in Aviation have differing views on the need for English Language Proficiency Testing. What are your views on this subject?"

Talk about red rag to a bull!

Somehow, I resisted the (very strong) urge to tell them what a complete waste of time and money this whole process was! Instead, I gave them an answer that expressed my disagreement with methods and costs but viewed it as a necessary evil for safety reasons, citing historical incidents involving break downs in communication.

Anyway, I have Level 6 which is valid for life (or until they decide to change the system!)... now I just need to pay another $50 to get it endorsed on my license! I reckon I should just get my pay direct credited to the 'Campaign Against Aviation' (CAA)...

meh.

Online Results

are not necessarily a good thing... because you end up spending all day constantly pressing F5 to reload the webpage to see if your marks have been posted! :-/

It does not help that, for the last couple of days, I have been in bed with the 'Man Flu'(tm) as the missus likes to call it... so have had nothing better to do that watch daytime tv and refresh the results page.

Thankfully mine finally have been posted... and even more thankfully, I need not have been so concerned about my results for Air Law...

ASL Exam Results for
[ZK-JPY]

Date      Subject            Result  Mark
29/07/08  CPL Air Law        Pass    90
28/07/08  CPL Human Factors  Pass    100

I am not sure how, but I got 90% for Air Law... wtf!?!!? Still, I'm not complaining, that is $108 I definitely did not want to have to spend again!

And I guess I was right to feel confident about Human Factors... 100%! woohoo!

On to Air Tech now... not exactly my strong suit :-( I do electronics and computers... not internal combustion engines, carburettors and fuel systems... I thought that was why we had LAME's? ;-)

(Hopefully) Two down...

CPL Air Law... *ugh*

Yesterday was not a pleasant experience... needless to say I am not as confident about that exam as I was about Human Factors :(

It was 30 questions... and you need 70% (or 21 questions for those who aren't good at maths)...

I think I knew about 22 or 23... and after the exam, I checked a couple that I had guessed and found I had got them right.

There was also one question that appeared to not have any correct answers!?!?!! It was asking about GAA areas (specifically G277, Lake Waikare) and what the Frequency and ATC requirements were. I think the reason why it was wrong, may have somthing to with the fact that the entry for G277 in the AIP had been updated on 10th April 2008... I am guessing that the exam question had not been updated to match. So, I wrote a critique at the end of the exam explaining why I thought there was no correct answer and why I picked the answer I did.

So, hopefully, I have passed... but it will definitely be a nervous "7 working days" waiting for my results to be posted.

One down...

Five to go!

Had my first CPL exam this morning... at 8am!!!?!!?

But now I know why people say you should start off with Human Factors. It is only 40 multi-guess questions and they give you 1 1/2 hours... I took 25 minutes ;)

I think I did OK, as there were only 3 or 4 that I was unsure of and of those, I checked the study guide after the exam and I know I got 2 of them right! So I am expecting a mark somewhere around 90% (you need 70% to pass). 7 working days until the results are posted...

I have Air Law tomorrow morning... at 8am!!???! Unfortunately, I am not feeling quite as confident about this one, but I have been studying hard which was made a little easier by my decision to start taking the train to/from work again, which 'gifts' me study time that would normally be wasted on road rage! ;) And, I have completed a couple of practice exams and did OK, so hopefully I can keep all this info in my head for 1 more day!