Winter Flight

Here’s a few shots from the flight I did during Christmas Day. The sunset that day was unbelievable!

Mountain Flying

Had a chance to go for a couple of flights since got back from Mexico. We had unusually hot days in our region, and that created many forrest fires in our area, covering our city and the surroundings completely with smoke. I attempted to try to fly to one of the major fires by Pemperton to take some shots from the sky. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get close to it since the smoke got too dense and I had to turn around.

The second flight I did a week later when the smoke had cleared up. Took a couple friends for a ride and was able to take some nice pictures of the mountains and the nature we have in British Columbia. Enjoy!

Smoke in the Sky

Evening Flight

One of the perks of flying is being able to see a whole new perspective of the environment you’re in…

Flight Check

It has been over 4 months since the engine failure incident, and haven’t flown since. I have been asked by my aviation club to do a check flight with an instructor before resuming my flying. That is to make sure that I’m in good condition to fly and don’t begin to panic when airborne. Last evening I finally got my check flight done with, and can now resume flying!

Now that summer is around the corner, I’m excited to plan many different areas to explore around this beautiful place where I live!

Too Cold to Fly?

Ever since my last flight when I had an engine failure on take off and had to make an emergency landing two months ago, I haven’t flown ever since. The aero club that I belong to wants me to fly with an instructor once before I resume my regular flying. So to start the year fresh, I though it’d be a good idea to take the plane out first thing as the sun comes up.

I have made arrangements with my instructor to meet at the airport at 8 am. As we got to the aircraft, it was completely covered with frost, making it unsafe to fly. I have never used de-icing equipment, so it was a good lesson for me to de-ice the aircraft.

After 45 minutes of spraying the wings and control areas, we were ready to go. As soon as we started the propeller, and the air started to flow, it froze the windshield and the frost started to build again! We had to call off the flight since the product that the aeroclub had wasn’t sufficient to keep the frost off the aircraft.

Either way, even tho we didn’t get to fly, it was a good learning experience.

My instructor applying de-icing to the critical areas

Frost on windshield after the propeller started to spin

Emergency Landing after Engine Failure on Take Off

Here’s a video from my go-pro of my emergency landing after the engine failed on take off. Read full article here.

I’m also very surprised how fast this video traveled without any sharing or advertising on my part. Here’s a couple popular sites that I noticed where this video has been featured: Right this Minute and Daily Mail.

Still to this moment I’m in disbelieve that this happened to me, and glad that my friends and I walked away from it.

Near Death Experience – Surviving an Engine Failure on Take-Off

Last night, I have decided to have an evening local flight, a couple friends came along. During the time when the sun was setting down, we were on the runway, engine fully on, accelerating until the airplane had enough speed to take off. Wheels off the ground now, I was staying in ground effect (low to the ground) to build some speed before climbing to altitude. As I was coming close to the end of the runway, I noticed a drop in RPM, and the engine started to go haywire. At that moment, I was in a very vulnerable position: I was low to the ground, and there was a river in front of me (where I didn’t want to land). So the only option I had was to do an unsafe turn close to the ground towards the grass and put the plane down there. Everything happened so quickly. Luckily I had just enough time to do that, and I landed in the muddy grass, and luckily I flared enough that the airplane didn’t flip upside down. No one was hurt, and the airplane seems to be in one shape (inspection is happening now).

Now there’s tons of thoughts going thru my mind at the moment, lots of ‘What ifs.’ I am very thankful that I was able to land the airplane in that circumstance, and that no one was killed or injured. I don’t know what I would of have done if a friend would of died, or be seriously injured. It makes me not feel so good thinking about it.

At the same time, it reminds me that anything in life can happen unexpectedly. So while everything is going fine, enjoy it to the fullest! Make every moment count! And stop with the excuses that stops you to really enjoy life! Life is a gift, and it won’t last forever!

I did have a gopro recording this incident that I hope turned out well, I will upload it in the next few days along with a  full story of what happened.

The Last Weekend of Summer – Day 2 – Sunday Sept 21, 2014

I woke up on Sunday morning a little more rested than the day before, still not wanting to get out of bed. I jumped in the car and headed to the airport where I met the rest of my friends. We all had breakfast at the airport café, I did a quick flight plan, after which we all hopped on the plane and took off heading towards Nanaimo, Vancouver Island.

Most of the time I avoid flying through the control zones, because I don’t really like having to do additional radio work (I’m not very good at it). But this time I decided that I could use the practice on the radio, plus it’s a more direct route to flythrough the control zone. So I requested to fly through Vancouver Terminal Airspace at 5,500 feet, which is a safe altitude to fly across the water from Vancouver to Vancouver Island. The view was spectacular!

 

Once I got over to Nanaimo, I decided to fly around and do some sightseeing, since it was one of the areas that I hadn’t been flying much to. We flew by some of the little islands East of Nanaimo where we were planning on taking the kayaks later that day. Once done sightseeing, I contacted the tower at Nanaimo airport and notified him of my intentions to land. I’m not too familiar with that area and I had a little trouble finding the airport when he asked if I had the airport in sight by the tower. That was slightly embarassing at first, but I managed to find the airport and land safely.

I parked the airplane on one of the stalls at the flying club, and met a few other pilots who assisted me in finding a spot for the day. Next we walked into the terminal to grab lunch for the day. They only had pre-made sandwiches that didn’t look very apetizing, but we had no other option. We jumped in the cab and headed to the kayak rentals.

We met the rental guy at the boat ramp, he was very helpful and showed us great places to go and explore. I helped him take the kayaks to the water, my friends and I got on and took off kayaking. We couldn’t ask for a better day to do this, the weather was perfect: it was sunny, not too hot, not too cold, there was no wind at all and the sea was calm… It was just perfect! We kayaked to the first little Island (Round Island) where we noticed a family of seals who were watching us approach. As we got closer though, they all just jumped in the water and swam away, which was a shame. Wasn’t able to go and pat them! Lol

After Round Island, we paddled our way to Link Island. On our way there, we stoped to have a quick snack to eat, and I gotta say, I really dislike pre-made sandwiches, but that sandwich was good! At that time, my buddy Reza said: “I wish we had brought beer with us!” To wich we all agreed… So we decided that we had to get  beer from the passing boats. We right away noticed a fishing boat in the vicinity that was slowly coming our way. So we started to paddle towards it, shouting that we want to buy some beer from him! It was an elderly man with a dog on board, he kinda chuckled at our request, and gave my buddies a beer each.

We continued our way towards Link Island and arrived at the its cliffside. We found a really cool spot where we got out of our kayaks and ate more food.

With our bellies now full, we continued kayaking to the south end of the island where we found another cool spot to chill. There was also a very small cliff that we dived from a few times.

Afterwards we circled the island and made our way back, stoping at Round Island again to lay on the rock and chill, it sure felt nice to relax! I also tried to come as close as possible to the seals without scarying them away.

As it was slowly coming closer to sunset, it was getting colder outside, and we were getting close to the end of our kayaking adventure… I suddenly got a hit by a wild idea (which turned out to be not so funny afterwards lol). I thought: “Hmmm it would be funny if I tip over the kayak.” So without any warning whatsoever I just tipped it over! My friend who was on the other end of the kayak wasn’t impressed in the slightest. She also happened to lose her sunglasses when I tipped her over, which sucked. We flipped the kayak back the right way up, and I was the only one who was able to climb back in, she had to stay in the water and I pulled her all the way back to shore. She was cold and totally unimpressed… I think I can be a little too mean sometimes lol

We got back to the airplane, and took off right when the sun was setting. It was a beautiful to see the sunset from above!

This weekend was definetely a great way to end summer. It was perhaps one of the best summers I’ve had so far!

I am now excited for wintertime, and looking forward to all the upcoming winter activities J

The Last Weekend of Summer – Day 1 – Saturday Sept 20, 2014

Summer has ended… As I’m writing this, the rain is pouring outside my window. But luckily, we had two gorgeous days over the weekend before the weather turned ugly. To end the summer on a good note, I decided to do two day-trips on the airplane: Saturday fly to Osoyoos, and Sunday to Nanaimo.

Saturday morning I woke up not very well rested as I hadn’t been able to sleep, needless to say I didn’t wake up as early as I had planned lol. But as I got to the airport, the excitement woke me up completely. I had never flown to Osoyoos before and flying to new places always makes me so happy! Also I had a nervous passenger next to me, Carrie, who was fun to tease. After a morning coffee at the airport café, I finished my quick flight planning, we jumped on the plane and took off.

The flight to Osoyoos from Vancouver on the little Cessna takes roughly 1 hour and 40 minutes. The flight is very spectacular, my eyes were hooked on the view, flying over the valley through the mountains. After arriving at a place one has never visited before, it can be tricky sometimes to find where the airport is, but the airport in Osoyoos was very easy to spot from the air. I took some time to observe what the winds were doing and joined the correct circuit for landing. The winds were really powerful, gusts blowing in a slightly crosswind pattern, they gave me a good sweat while landing on the tiny landing strip. There’s really not much to Osoyoos airport, it consists of a very small landing strip, and a couple of gravel roads I found to park my plane. There were no other people around, no other aircrafts at all. After securing the plane, we got our folding bikes, and headed straight down to the city!

Osoyoos is a very small town, great place to get away in the summer time for a relaxing weekend on the lake. We rode through the town center on our bikes to find a spot to eat (one of my favorite things to do J). After a great lunch our appetites were very satisfied, and we noticed the Stand Up Paddle Board (SUP) rental not so far away.

The SUP rental shop is an interesting little shack on the main road that runs in front of the beach. The service was really good, and the girl who greeted us was very impressed that we had flown there on a Cessna to go paddle boarding for the day. She even gave us a ride back to the airport to see the airplane and watch us take off. We accepted the ride gratefully because most of the way back was uphill! Would have been tough to go up by bike! As for the SUP-ing, it was very relaxing and nothing too crazy.

The flight back was a little strenuous because we were flying facing right into the sun. When I was finally landing, the sun was right in my face and I could barely see the runway, had to rely heavily on my peripheral vision to land smoothly.

Overall it was an awesome day! Really enjoyed making this trip with great company!

Hang Gliding – Intro Lesson

During one of my surfing trips to Oregon, I drove by a big sign that said “Hang Gliding Lessons” in Pacific City. Learning to hang glide had been my dream since my childhood years. So on this 4-day trip, I decided that I would find time to call and book my first lesson.

The lesson started at 10 am at the instructor’s house. He had a small area where everyone sat around to watch the PowerPoint intro to the lesson. He showed us a quick history of hang gliding and very basic information on flight theory and aerodynamics. After that, we moved outside, to the corner of his street on the simulator where we practiced a few techniques, such as how to launch the hang glider. Next we helped set up the glider and moved to a small sloped hill at the beach. The conditions weren’t in our favor, we needed some wind to help with launching the hang glider. But there was almost no wind at all. The teacher suggested to wait around till the wind picked up or to come back the following day, but I was very eager to try to launch the hang glider! I thought that perhaps I could run super-fast and I wouldn’t have any problems taking off. To my surprise, I realised it’s not all about speed, good technique is important as well. And I was a clear example for everyone else of what not to do lol…

“Don’t be a Bull” said the teacher, referring to my wrong posture and eagerness to just go ahead and run as quick as possible. The next couple of tries weren’t very successful either. So we agreed to wait till next day to resume the lesson, hopefully the wind conditions would be more favorable for a beginner.

The next day, we arrived to resume our lesson around 4pm after a nice surf session. I was sore and tired, but I was really eager to give the hang glider another shot! This time, I knew my previous mistakes and what to work on, and the wind was actually more favorable, which was a good sign. I hooked myself in, picked up the glider, and was telling myself “I got this!”

I began to run slowly, accelerating with every step down the hill. Once I felt a good tug in my harness, I pushed the control bar and felt myself being lifted into the air. I glided down the hill and repeated the process several times that evening. Even though it wasn’t the craziest experience I have had, it was still very cool. After that day, I decided to slowly continue my training and get certified in flying hang gliders!

Here’s a few more pictures from the rest of our trip: