I really wanted to blog about yesterday yesterday simply because it was just one of the best days I've had in ages, but was really tired after getting home and had a flight first wave this morning, so I decided to go sleep instead and do the blogging today.

So yesterday was a navigation trip to malacca for chieng, ziyang, cherie and myself with cherie's instructor baldev, and another instructor raman. More like joyride for all the rest of us, and for the instructors to maintain currency of their license.

First thing when I got to the ops room, my instructor comes in and tells me that my r/t oral lessons begin today, and goes on to brief me alot about what to do, and told me to make the calls all the way up or back, whichever I was sitting in front for. Of course I was  but I should've expected it cause when alex went, he flew all the way up and all the way back, but this time I wasn't going with my own instructor. In addition to the r/t portions of it, he taught me a teeny weeny bit of navigation and how I should help with VOR and ADF settings, and got down all my frequencies for radio, so I could help with the changing of frequencies (cause I cannot be a lazy co-pilot, that's what tansk said).

The seating arrangement (as we already found out on wednesday) was that ziyang and I were going to be with raman, and cherie and chieng were going to be flying with baldev (this was decided after all the CG calculations which I still don't know how to do). This was much to our (cherie and I) disappointment cause obviously we had wanted to go together, but tansk said cannot cause then the other instructor will be jealous that whoever we fly with has all the girls to himself.  

Initially Seletar was IMC which meant the we had to wait till it became VMC, which gave tansk plenty of time to teach and for me to learn and absorb like some sponge (hopefully). So instead of leaving at 9am as per flight plan, we left only at 10 plus I think.

We took the van to the seletar airport terminal, and it was the first time in my life leaving Singapore from our other civilian airport. I was looking at all the other people there and wondering if they were all filthy rich and had private jets and that's why they can be flying off from Seletar. Anyway, that was besides the point, we were waiting for the instructors to taxy the planes over, and come and give us permission to go when we wondered if we were supposed to take our own headsets. We thought we were screwed, but apparently not, cause the headests were already there.

Anyway, ziyang and I decided that he'll sit in front on the way there, and we'll switch for the inbound (I was scared of raman). So I sat in the back, and the headset and the phone jack at the back sucks, and initially I really barely heard anything which was terrible cause I'm supposed to listen out for the sake of my r/t oral. about 20 minutes into the everything (and missing all the clearances), I decided to switch to the phone jack on the other side which wasn't perfect, but was much better.

The whole time, was listening out on the radio, and trying to match the ground features to stuff on the 4 part map that tansk had lent me. Quite alot of it I couldn't identify, but the best and most reliable stuff were the waterways, and the random islands. Of course, the whole time, I was also thinking about how ohmygods this is so surreal. I felt like a lucky ass, to be sitting in a small aeroplane at 2000ft, watching the world pass below me, to fly above the hills. It was pretty cool.

Okay, we were more high-tech than tansk's ADF and VOR settings to navigate and we used GPS, and the funniest part of it all was when the battery of the GPS died halfway through the flight. He tells me to take the spare batts out of his blue file, and tells ziyang that he has control to maintain the heading, while I hand him batteries and he passes me the dead ones. It was quite funny.

Yeap, but it was really quite nice the journey there, seeing the other "airstrips", and when we got there, the circuit there is like some anyhow can join, then just land, and the parking place was just like this circle patch of gravel, and we had to push the plane back after we parked. And the terminal was interesting.

We got there before the other plane did, so we hung around abit, waiting for them to come, and ziyang and i were looking forward to watching them push their plane back. HAHAHAHA, so mean right, anyway, when they finally got here, we were just laughing alot, before we go onto taxies that were going to take us for lunch.

Now lunch was interesting, we ate at this chinese restaurant that had this salad prawn thing that raman reccomended and it was really really good. Best was dessert, tau huay with vanilla ice cream. Sounds funny but it turned out to be nice, and like we were like BURSTING, and the instructors still wanted to go for second round of dessert. Us students instead decided to go shop for stuff people wanted us to buy.

Oh, and then there was this cab driver who was seriously abit mad, but like it was baldev's reaction that was killer, we just laughed and laughed so much.

Wells, everyone was hoping for squall line (which would mean that we get to stay for the night) but unfortunately we got to go back, they made us change course halfway, and I had to make some measurements for raman with the emergencies page of the FRC. AND, seletar was IMC when we came back, so we nearly got to stay, but well, and ziyang and cherie fell asleep halfway on the way back.

When we finally got back to the club, I realised that I was flying first wave this morning with 91 (who is now my new favourite instructor of course ) and cherie last wave with baldev. And naomi also told me that she called skylark 94 THREE times on her flight with 91. Crazy girl.

Also, cherie ziyang and i went to go catch made of honor (FINALLY which was also ziyang's and my first movie for the year), and AFTER that, we went to eat ice creammm. Or rather, cherie and I had cheesecake and ziyang had ice cream.

It was a good day, although it meant that I came back and just rushed to bed, so that I won't die this morning. Flight this morning was alright. Solo was okay. Didn't think it was as good as the last solo though.

Yup, that's all for now. long post. Photos.

After my flight today, I am extremely tempted to agree with certain instructors that my intructor's standards are lower than everyone else's, but I will not because I don't think it's true.

I screwed up today, and I seem to have been screwing up every flight with my new instructor. Maybe cause I haven't mental flown enough, maybe cause I didn't get enough sleep, maybe cause I'm trying too hard to not fly the way I normally do, maybe one million and one things, but I'll learn from today and make the next one better.

If this is the way grown men behave in the air force, then thanks for showing it to me early in life.