I made an appointment for flight test on Thursday because the checker's very busy. Sad thing is health check has been re-scheduled on Thursday too (just realized this after I'd talked to my checker). Will talk to Boat to see whether I can go to Aviation Medicine on Friday. Anyway that means I have to stay for 1 more day, but I heard a few more friends will also have to stay too.

Hmm... gotta prepare for another flight test (cross-country check) no later than Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday all students have to go to Institute of Aviation Medicine in Bangkok for yearly health check.

Submitted leave form for Dec. 7th-9th already. This means I'd be on holiday from Dec. 2-12!! (Dec 5th = King's birthday, and Dec 10th = Constitution Day) Hooray!

Just got back from a very short Pattaya trip with Luktan and her girl friends. Imagine how tired it'd be to drive from Hua Hin-Bangkok-Pattaya on Friday afternoon and back from Pattaya-Bangkok the next day. Here's what we did during this trip:

Friday night: sleep.
Saturday 8am: breakfast at the hotel & sleep.
Saturday 11am: check out & have lunch (Som Tum).
Saturday 1pm: at Ripley's Believe It Or Not!
Saturday 3pm: at Swensen's.
Saturday 6pm: leave for Bangkok.

Very very early tomorrow I have to drive to Hua Hin. Have to fly as many sorties as I can cause I'm gonna be on vacation during 6th-10th of December. Also I got new AO sunglasses for Kru Mual (his old glasses were stolen). Gotta convince everyone to donate some money. hehe *evil smile*

NFT04 Checked

NFT stands for Night Flying Test. Lots of traffic tonight. Poor me. I was put on hold for 3 times (2000' over airfield, 1 orbit on downwind, and went back to 1500' over airfield) but did good on landing/touch-down though.

Took first cross-country flight yesterday to Prachuap Kiri Khan (DXC02). This type of flight is difficult in a different kind of way. I mean, controlling the aircraft is not that complicated, navigating through the map, maintaining time+speed+heading en-route, and keeping track of aircraft are more important. I failed to maintain neither of them. One word: disaster. Have to practice more dry-runs.

Tonight there was a night flight which also didn't go very well. Maybe because I had to land on a different side of the runway (RWY 34) I used to land at night due to wind direction. My IP told me to prepare for night flying check soon (maybe tomorrow -_-).

Flight experience: 80:20 hrs

Yesterday we (me, Boat, Jon, Jazz, Yoh, Bask, Pop, and Aae) went out for evening cake (before dinner) at Anna's Cafe. Toffee Banoffi is the most favourite (delicious!). After that we went to Baan Ratchadumnern (บ้านราชดำเนิน), a small but good-looking resort, to pick up Aae's cousin, who's visiting Hua Hin, for dinner. They wanted some seafood so we went to Chao Lae. (ชาวเล) We ended up drinking and talking at the resort till midnight. Very sleepy.

IFT03 Checked

Done. (Yeah!!!) Few mistakes. De-brief session today afternoon.

As I mentioned there will be another flying exam. At first I was thinking Monday or Tuesday, but when I heard P'Ake also had to check with the same checker as mine and he already made an appointment with the checker, I decided to take the exam on Sunday so I can brief (briefings with checker before and after test flights required) together with him. This would save time and we could help each other during briefing.

The pre-mission briefing went OK, because of too short time to prepare myself, there are questions I couldn't answer but that's not a big deal. To prepare for tomorrow's test, I've flown 3 flights today, more than the whole past week combined, to make sure I'll do good. I'm not happy with the practice but I guess I've to concentrate more tomorrow.

Bad News

Got back home yesterday at 4pm and brought the car to service center for changing defected part then went to Sam Yan (สามย่าน) to meet P'Ann, P'Kae, and Jack and have dinner (Thai e-sarn style). It's been a long long time since last seeing these guys. Sorry no pictures.

Went to Australian Embassy in the morning to apply for visa. Picked up the car and drove back to Hua Hin. Attended TB-20 class at 2pm. (Busy day)

The bad news is changing the part doesn't help, shaking and small vibration still exists. T_T Will have to wait for response from engineer team in Japan which I don't know when. Should I call and rush them? Maybe next week.

This week I'm not going back to Bangkok. Have to prepare for another flying test.

Nissan called yesterday that they got the missing part. I was so excited I couldn't wait for one more day and I went back to Bangkok yesterday evening, got the car checked in. Hope it will be in good shape after replacing the part. 2 more hours till finish..

Just got back from Australian Embassy. Visa applications here take 5 working days to process! Will have to go back there again next week for the result. (Oh, did I tell you I'm going to Australia?? hehe)

Happy Birthday..

.. to me! One more year just passed by. -_-

Thanks..

• .. my friends at Hua Hin especially Boat, Jon, Aae, Yoh, Jazz, Luktan, Bow, and Pui for a delicious (a bit salty though) Anna Cafe's blueberry cheese pie. Also, everyone who were at Hilton that night.
• Luktan for the special gift and being there with me.
  
• .. for calling: Or, Song Salueng Gang, and a few more calls I can't recall (sorry).
• .. for HBD SMS: Nong Yu, P'Kae, P'Nong, Toey, P'Ning, Nong Som, P'Bank, Jack, Anonymous, Jump and Ed.

On Oct 11th, there is a chartered Thai Airways flight to Hua Hin. It was a Boeing 737-400, callsign HS-TDF, flight TG8862. This doesn't happen often and it's my first time seeing one. 

Rear view of the Boeing with Hua Hin Airport terminal as background. 

Mozilla Firefox

I've been waiting for a very long time for this Mozilla browser, code name Firefox. Mozilla code is based on GNU public license and is available to everyone for free. For the past few years, programmers all over the world have worked together to create softwares, including this one. Now it comes to a pre-production stage, which means it's usable by the general. I've installed version 1.0RC2 (release candidate - very very close to 1.0 release) and it works just fine, even with Thai language. With better security, no adware or spyware, better resource management, and more features, I definitely go for Firefox and would recommend others to switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox. Give it a try, at least they deserve a chance.

Get Firefox now! (Latest release as of Nov 5: 1.0RC2)

Picked up the car yesterday. Unfortunately, it's not fixed because of missing parts. They told me to wait another 3 or more weeks for the parts to be shipped from abroad. Damn!

It really hurts when you realises you've got a brand new car with defects, even small ones, you know. I was thinking to myself "why does this have to happen to me?" To look at the bright side, at least the service center didn't deny their responsibilities and admitted that some parts may have defects and they tried their best to solve the case.

Now 3 weeks and counting..

GHT01 Checked

GHT01, first flying exam completed this morning. Mission GHT01 contains: turns std/30/45 degrees; power-on/off stalls; simulated forced landing; landing with full/take-off/no flap configurations; and low-level flying. Did OK except the navigation part cause of VOR failure/couldn't intercept specified radial outbound and inbound.

Happy Halloween!

There was a body paint show last night at Hua Hin Brewing (Halloween Party night). Disappointing show, really. (2 guys and a girl dancing wearing underwears painted with poster colors, got the picture?)

Happy Halloween to you all!

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