The Singapore Flying College (SFC) and Aeromil Pacific, the exclusive distributor for Cessna Citation aircraft in Australia and New Zealand, announced today that the College has signed contracts for the
purchase of five new Cessna Citation Mustang jet aircraft. The Mustangs will form the future of Advanced Training at the college into the next decade.

Singapore Flying College is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, responsible for ab initio and Advanced pilot training. It has a substantial Advanced Training facility on the Sunshine Coast Airport in Queensland and currently operates four aircraft, two simulators and a college campus, producing up to 200 graduates each year. A considerable investment has been made by SFC in infrastructure and employment on the airport. Aeromil Pacific already provides maintenance and other support elements for the College and will further develop its Citation service capabilities in Queensland later in 2009.

The announcement today is a further development of the very successful relationship between Singapore Flying College and Aeromil Pacific that began in 2001. Captain Len McCully, Singapore Flying College Principal and General Manager said “the partnership with Aeromil Pacific will play an important part in the integration of the Mustang into our Advanced Training program and for the ongoing support of the aircraft. We look forward to our continuing excellent working relationship”.

The introduction of the new Citation Mustangs into the SFC pilot Advanced Training program will bring with it more efficient and cost effective operations associated with the new, advanced jet aircraft. Steve Padgett, Aeromil Pacific Managing Director, said “we are delighted with the selection of the Mustang by Singapore Flying College; it is a natural choice going forward in this current economic environment”.

The five new Cessna Citation Mustangs will be delivered by the Cessna Aircraft Company to Singapore Flying College over the next three years, replacing the existing aircraft that are currently in service. The arrival of the first Mustang on the Sunshine Coast Airport is scheduled for early 2010, along with two full flight level D Mustang Simulators later in the year.

Guest: Peter Lang from Aeromil Pacific
Location: Pilot Chat
Date: 9pm AEST, 16th July

It's with great pleasure that we will be welcoming Peter Lang from Aeromil Pacific to the Pilot Chatroom this Thursday night at 9pm. Peter first learned to fly in 1997 and has attained a Commercial IFR-ME. A few years later he was working as the Group Marking Manager at Australia Zoo and flying a Cessna 210 and 310 around regiona Qld and NSW with Steve and Terri Irwin.

In 2007 he moved to Aeromil Pacific and some of his highlights to date include:

• Developing the Citation Mustang program  and Australian/New Zealand market launch and being on-board for the demonstration tour of the region.
• Being a part of the Citation X(ten) demonstration tour in 2008, at 41,000 ft seeing 525 kts on the cabin screen and watching the 737’s below going backwards.
• Developing the new Cessna Store in the Sydney CBD.
• Attending NBAA in Orlando Florida in October last year (140 business jets on the airport on one side of town and over a million square feet of exhibition at the Convention Center on the other side of town;
• Spending 8 days in Wichita-Kansas at the Cessna factory.

So don't miss out on a great opportunity to ask Peter all the questions you've ever wanted to ask about business jets, Cessna's and his great aviation experiences.

I was recently sent this video of a flying car developed by some students at MIT in the USA. The nice thing is that it uses unleaded fuel! It looks like the world of the Jetson's is just around the corner.....only a decade or two behind schedule.

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Due to a number of posts I’ve recently made in the Downwind forum some of you will have been aware that I was planning on heading to Adelaide for the kids school holidays. There’s nothing quite like visiting my sister and her family while indulging in my passion for flying.

Last weekend I sat down with a bunch of new maps worked out my flight plan which took me from Moorabbin (YMMB),Point Ormond (PTOM),Werribee (YWBE), Ballarat (YBLT), Horsham (YHSM), Bordertown (YBOR) and finally to Murray Bridge (YMBD).

I completed my check flight at Moorabbin Flying Services with Nick (great guy) in LFP (Arrow) and was really looking forward to the whole experience. I even dreamed of possibly heading up to Wilpena Pound and William Creek while I was over in South Australia.

I’d planned on flying on Thursday, 2nd July but found that when I checked long range forecasts on Monday that it looked like we were in for a week of hellishly bad weather. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a low pressure system as big as the one that was bearing down on my proposed flight path.

It looked like I’d have to leave immediately to make the weather window prior to the cold fronts, toughs and other nasties were going to hit. So about 1pm on Monday I found myself in the interesting predicament of juggling discussions with my sister for accommodation, a niece that was going to travel with me (who also suffers from motion sickness – oh great!), re-booking the plane, calling Murray Bridge to make sure everything was OK at the destination and finally re-checking the weather for the whole route. I then worked out that I’d only be about 45 minutes before last light.....

In the middle of all of this Roselyn (my wife) not unreasonably asked me for help in deciding what direction that the rest of the family should take as they were travelling by road. I could feel my tension rise and the pressure to get wheels up immediately build. It was not a nice feeling.

I stopped for a minute and thought about all of the things I would be juggling while I flew an Arrow that I’d only had about 12 hours in. I’d only need my niece to start throwing up in the growing turbulent air to make the trip miserable for all of us. Worse yet, how about if the wind moved so that it was right on the nose and slow the aircraft up and I ended up trying to land in the dark.

I’ve found that in aviation it’s rare that pressure builds instantly from my limited experience it’s more of a cascading effect, one little thing leading to another. Pushing to leave on Monday when I wasn’t really prepared is a prime example.

Whenever you feel under pressure can I recommend you just top for a minute and think about what you’re doing and the possible ramifications. In my case I decided it just wasn’t all worth it, flying as a PPL pilot is supposed to be fun, not highly pressured. I cancelled the plane, niece, flight plan, sister, Murray Bridge refueler and everything else that was necessary for the flight and sat down with my wife over a cup of coffee and worked out the road trip.

The flight to Murray Bridge will happen but just not this week. The weather conspired against us and one of the great things about being a PPL pilot is that you don't have to go, you choose to go. Once the decision was made not to go I felt a huge amount of pressure release and life was once again looking much better.

I’d much rather live to fly another day then to become a statistic in the next CASA magazine where pilots shake their heads at the insanity of the flight preparation and the decision to go. I keep on saying it, pilots have the most fun in one of the most unforgiving of environments. Let’s all keep on enjoying ourselves into the long, long future.

Aircraft: LFP
Airfield: YMMB, YWBE, YBLT, YHSM, YBOR, YMBD
Company: Moorabbin Flying Service
(Help Downwind keep expand the airfield directory - click here to add an airfield.)

This is a great video of a guy who does a wheels up landing of a plane absolutely perfectly. What's incredible is that despite the speed of the twin engine plane and the pressure of the situation he's remembered to feather the props and absolutely nail it down the centre line. The best part is that the pilot and the passengers all walked away with no apparent injuries.

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I recently saw this video at a conference in the USA and I nearly split my sides with laughing! I highly recommend that you take the 2 minutes to view this comedian talking about the wonders of the modern age and in particular flying.

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There was a comment in my wife Roselyn’s post about what is the procedure for orbiting the Melbourne CBD and how long did it take for a loop around Port Phillip Bay. These are all good questions.....so hopefully here are equally good answers.

As always I first start off any flight plan by drawing all over my maps. The nice thing about this one is that it’s only on the VTC so taking any other maps are just precautionary. My flight plan went from Moorabbin (YMMB), the CBD, Point Cook (YMPC), Avalon (YMAV), Barwon Heads (YBRS), Queenscliff (YQCF), Portsea (YPTS), Carrum and back to Moorabbin. Essentially, it’s a great big loop around Port Phillip Bay.

After taking off from Moorabbin and head towards Albert Park Lake change your transponder to 0100 and then dial up Essendon Tower on 125.1. Essendon will be expecting your call from your submitted flight plan and also because your transponder is popping you up on their radar.

The radio call goes something like this, “Essendon Tower, Hotel Alpha Bravo, Arrow is Albert Park one thousand five hundred, request airways clearance for right hand orbit of the Melbourne CBD.” They will either give you airways clearance or tell you to stay outside of controlled airspace. Make sure that you do the call when you are just about at Albert Park. I always do a right hand orbit so that my passengers can enjoy the view out their window.

Assuming you have received clearance then you can enjoy the orbit and then continue onto YMPC. When leaving controlled airspace Essendon will give you permission to change frequencies and you’ll need to reset your transponder to 1200. You’ll have to be reasonably fast here on the radio because you’ll need to do a radio call to Point Cook CTAF to let them know that you will be overflying.

Once past Point Cook you need to head to Werribee South as it’s an entry point for Avalon controlled airspace. This is very soon after Point Cook so once again you’ll have to swap stations pretty quickly to 120.1 (Avalon Tower) to request an airways clearance.

The radio call for Avalon is, “Avalon Tower, Hotel Alpha Bravo Arrow is Werribee South one thousand five hundred request airways clearance.” Remember that the air traffic controller will need time to look up your flight plan so you may want to make your call just before Werribee South (not a long way before as you will be at Point Cook!).

Unless you like a lot of paper work do not go into Avalon airspace without a clearance. I ended up doing a quarter of an orbit to keep out of controlled airspace before I received my airways clearance. Avalon tower will also provide you with a new transponder code to squawk.

In my case Avalon Tower asked me to report overhead and they then vectored me along my flight plan to Barwon Heads.  Avalon Tower will give you permission to change frequencies when leaving controlled airspace and you will need to reset your transponder back to 1200.

You will need to make sure that you are listening to 119.1 for the Queenscliff/Barwon Heads area and do a CTAF call to let other aircraft know your intentions. The rest of the flight is a walk in the park as you sit back, relax and enjoy Port Phillip heads and follow the coast around to Carrum.

I personally like to listen the ATIS about 5 minutes before Carrum and then swap frequencies to 123.0 (35L) so that I can listen to the traffic. If there is a change in the ATIS then the tower will broadcast the relevant updated information on 123.0.

I like listening to 123.0 so that I can settle my situational awareness  with all of the other aircraft in the area. Entry points are a great idea but can be dangerous congestion areas so I prefer just to let everyone else go ahead of me so that there is a reduced risk of a collision.

Just on the Carrum entry point make sure that you do your broadcast at Patterson Creak NOT Frankston or anywhere else. If you say that you’re at Carrum then be at Carrum because other aircraft will get pretty confused if you say you’re at somewhere that you’re not. I know that last time I did!

I think that this pretty well wraps up the whole flight plan. I hope that I haven’t left anything out, let me know if I have.

Aircraft directory: HAB
Airfield directory: YMMB, YMPC, YMAV, YBRS, YQCF, YPTS