Today, my copy of Opera 10 for Mac did a particular stunt for the third time I can remember. It freezes completely, uses in the neighbourhood of 50% of my CPU, and treats me to a repeat of this performance despite re-launching Opera and rebooting my Mac.
Students enrolled in Algonquin College’s Commercial Pilot and Aviation Management program will be interested in the distance between the college and the flying club (OFC).
By car, it is a short 10-15 minute drive on Woodroffe Avenue then Hunt Club Road. During rush hour this is not an enjoyable route, however.
If taking a bus, there is a direct link provided by the 116. It can be boarded near the college at Baseline Station Stop 1B. Stops near the flying club are limited to ones along the side of Hunt Club. They are only a three minute walk from the Club, though. At most times of the day, this route can be traveled in approximately half an hour.
Judging from the keywords visitors are searching for to find this site, I think many people are looking for information on a specific topic, rather than general info on Canadian PPLs. Unfortunately I realized that there is not much of that kind of material here, so I am offering this page as a happy medium until there is more.
Don’t waste time scrolling through dozens of webpages to find the one tiny thing you were looking for – just ask me. Write a comment below, and I’ll answer it as soon as I can, and wherever possible mention any references I use.
A couple weeks ago I filled out a bunch of forms and got a Transport Canada “Authorized Person” to sign the back of my license. That signature officially gave me my Private Pilot’s License.
Getting a private pilot’s license (PPL) can be described as
The requirements for getting a PPL say that the two final exams a student must pass are, guess what:
As of four days ago, I had only these two exams between me and my license. I scheduled a written exam slot for Wednesday morning, wrote it, and passed! I could just leave this post as it is now, but maybe I should share some details in case someone reads this while preparing for their exam.
Exams are over, and I am getting tired of having to tell people I still don’t have my PPL. There is going to be a lot of free time for the next couple weeks for me, and hopefully a lot of good weather too, so I’m making a push while I can.
I flew last week with Mark, and did a pre-flight test including two hours of ground material and two hours in the air covering everything I have learned so far. I did okay, but while he is on a trip for the next week or so I will make a couple solo flights to practice my weak areas.
All right! I passed my flight test, so I will get my new license after doing a bit of paperwork 
Here are the details.
As anyone even casually checking will have noticed, prices for GPS units have dropped steadily over the last few years. One month ago, I came up with enough excuses to convince me that a GPS was in my future. I’ll save the details and comparisons for another post (maybe), but the point is that I bought a used Garmin nuvi 760. Now the question was how could I use it for flying?
Although this isn’t really recent, it is a related milestone, so it’s in here. This was the day I flew solo for the first time.
I have the amazing fortune to live across the street from a couple, both pilots, who own a plane (PA-28 – see pictures) and invite me for flights occasionally. We have flown to Morrisburg and Pembroke, and this weekend Mike asked me if I was interested in going to the Canadian Aviation Expo being held in Hamilton. You’re reading this, so obviously I eagerly accepted.
Although the weather was not supposed to be too good on Saturday, we decided to go then rather than Sunday just in case it took a turn for the worse and we got stuck in Ottawa. As it turned out, we had a 30 knot headwind on the way down, and clouds and precipitation on the way back, so we had some excitement after all
Since I tend to ramble when I tell stories, I’ll restrain myself this time and just mention some highlights. I flew the trip down including communication and the landing (which I think I did pretty well). It was a very cool feeling flying past the downtown core; I took a couple pictures of the CN Tower – here is one.