For my second video of the day, here's one where a flight instructor intentionally shuts the engine down on a student for forced approach practice. I think I'd probably beat the instructor unconscious after the landing - shutting down a healthy engine is just plain retarded. What if another airplane was on the runway or a moose ran out, or what if the student screwed up the forced approach? The mind boggles.

Australia's Helicopter Cowboys. Pretty breathtaking - I'd be scared to do this in a video game, let alone real life. They lose an average of ten (TEN!) helicopters per year to crashes, and unfortunately not all the pilots walk away either. I wonder if they can even get insurance?

Well, I certainly didn't like that. Blogger toasted my blog for about a day - apparently I did something to set off the spam alert. My guess is that it didn't like me logging in from Toronto, then Quebec City, then Montreal within a few hours. Anyway, I begged shamelessly to have it restored. And so it is! The first thing I did was make a complete backup of this blog, which I had never done before. You know, just in case. More flying stuff coming up soon!

Here's the other ILS we did yesterday. This one was considerably less challenging from a technical perspective - the ceiling was 1200' and the visibility was 2 miles. The only notable thing was the direct crosswind from the left at 25 knots, and you can see a classic crosswind landing technique being applied here - drop a wing into the wind, keep aligned with the runway using rudder. Touch down on the left main gear first, then the right main gear, then the nose gear. Other than that, not much to it. Like yesterday's post, a few minutes of boring "solid IMC" was removed from the middle of the clip.

Now onto the gross stuff - I have two things that may cause you discomfort. They are both kinda gross, you have been warned!

The first one happened last night - I got back from supper and passed out on my hotel room couch while watching Oprah reruns, and woke up around 1am. I decided to reposition to my bed, but first I had to brush my fangs. I didn't want to turn the lights on and destroy my melatonin buildup, so I fumbled around in my overnight bag for my toothbrush.





Instead, I found my razor. If you look closely, you'll see that I actually peeled back a long thin strip nearly all the way to my first digit. Atomic hangnail! So much blood! I feel bad because the people will likely have to steam-clean the carpet before they can use the hotel room again.


Now for the other disturbing thing, and it's mostly because it showcases my bloated ego.





I found these at a pilot supply shop at my current airport. After chuckling and thinking "who on earth would buy these", I immediately bought them. Lots of people have what it takes to be a Captain, but only a certain few have what it takes to be a dictator! I'm officially a terrible person :)