Interesting Commercials

Just wanted to share two of the commercials i downloaded via Metacafe, a program some what like Kazaar, which allows you to download video clips and images automatically to your computer.

The first one is quite a pretty old ad. Had actually seen in a few years ago, but decided to post it again, cos i think 1) it's really funny, 2) it has a great punchline, 3) there's great acting by the 3 'actors', presumably Thais.

























The next one is a Korean commercial. Well, i dont think i can call it a commercial, its more like a message that it's trying to bring across. Hopefully if you intend to have kids (or already have), you'll let your kids pursue the stuff they are interested in, and not stifle their creativity and imagination! :-)

Navigation

I've commenced the 2nd part of the training here, which is the visual navigation training phase. Army guys would know it as "topo", short for topography. Of course, being able to do it all alone high up in the sky, enjoying the scenery along the way sure beats those army kind of topo exercises. The features to find while "topo-ing" are usually prominent, such as large towns, airstrips, mountains and lakes.

Rockingham

nice coastal scenery

A typical navigation flight (whether with the instructor or with me alone) usually lasts 3 hours (unless I'm unfortunately lost or even worse, crashed). The preparation for the flight starts the night before the scheduled flight, with the drawing of the track between waypoints to waypoints. The magnetic degrees of the track and the distance between the 2 waypoints are found and written into our flight planning sheet.

cant remember why i take this picture, i think the mountain is supposed to be Mt Solus

Blue skies

On the next day, usually 2 hours before the estimate time of departure of the flight, a copy of the day's weather forecast will be obtained from our operations room. This copy of the weather forecast will tell us the cloud base, the significant weather, the wind direction and strength and other miscellaneous stuff, such as airstrip condition, parachuting activities at some areas etc. With this forecast, we will plan according to the altitude we'll fly at, and obtain a forecasted groundspeed. The groundspeed will allow us to estimate how much fuel we'll need for the flight, and the time we'll reach our destination.

Mt Saddleback, name given for the saddleback shape of the 2 peaks

more mountains, not sure what's the name

Again, our training is divided into flights with the instructor and flights by yourself. Solo flights are the best, as it is almost always a photo taking session for me. Flying by the coast enjoying the scenery almost made this whole thing so unreal. I would never have imagine myself doing this 1 year ago.

Serpentine Reservoir

North Dandalup Reservoir

Lake Cooloongup & Lake Walyungup

Yenyening Lakes

Lake Banksiadale

Instrument Panel: (Top L to R) Airspeed indicator, Artificial Horizon, Altimeter

(Bottom L to R) Turn and Slip Indicator, Directional Gyro Indicator, Vertical Speed Indicator

update in a long long while

Its been quite a while since i last logged on into Blogger and updated this blog. Perhaps part of me didnt know what to write, or partly I have been busier recently flying and etc.


During this 1 1/2 months, I was lucky enough to be able to fly back to Singapore for my elder brother's wedding banquet, held at Meritius Mandarin on 21st June. 3 days leave wasnt alot, but it was better than nothing. I was expecting I would be able to get a free ride back, but since it was for personal reasons, the company deemed it NECESSARY for me to purchase my own tickets back.


So with just 1 week to go to the expected wedding date, I sourced the net for the cheapest way back. Turns out there's no cheap way, with the cheapest tickets i can find at $900 Aussie dollars. That's like my one month's pay allowance!

Luckily, I came to know that we, as staff of the airline, could use our Concessional ticket entitlement, which on paper looks a great deal with 85% discount of the retail price of a ticket. Plus airport tax and other stuff, the ticket came to about S$520, still much cheaper than the $900 AUD one.

It felt good going back to the place i call home. Nothing much has changed in Singapore (anyway its only half a year since i was gone), although the most significant difference was the humidity. Adapting from cool dry days to hot humid days wasn't easy. Shopping centres were more crowded, roads were more busy. I could feel a significant increase in the tempo of life in Singapore compared to Perth.

When I was in Perth, i wanted to go back to Singapore asap, but while i was back in Singapore for that 3 days, i sort of miss the life in Perth, with its slower pace, friends just conveniently around the corner, and the free food and lodging.

I think i will look back at the days spent in Perth fondly if i do complete my training here, hopefully in another 3-4 months!