Category Archives: School

Aviation, School

Enter December

Here we are, it’s already December. It seems like just yesterday I was all jazzed about starting a build project, a new weight loss program, and going back to school.

Let’s get the ugly out of the way first. The build project was basically abandoned. I had only built two bulkheads and had not spent that much money, so it wasn’t a painful decision just a pragmatic one. The airplane would not really meat my needs in the long run, so it wasn’t a good choice in the first place.

Going back to school was a bit more interesting. My initial plan was to work towards an aeronautical engineering degree. After some thought and talking with some other people it seemed wiser to work on a more practical program like getting my FAA Airframe & Powerplant certificates.

I signed up for the Spring semester at San Jose City College and began working on my general education requirements. In the Fall I signed up at Gavilan College in the AMT (Aviation Maintenance Technology) program and work on my A&P.

One of my instructors and a fellow student are electrical engineers and they both confirmed that going after the engineering degree, while interesting, wouldn’t really help me with my plans.

My first term is just about over now and things are going well and I’m looking forward to next term. Admittedly, at the moment I am looking forward to winter break a little more.

Till next time,
~FlyBoyJon

Aviation, School

A quarter of the way… almost

School is going well. As you can imagine taking 21.5 semester units, I have been very busy with my classes.

In General we have covered the basics like mathematics, physics, and tools. We have also covered fluid lines, fittings, and most recently under the heading of Materials & Processes lots and lots of hardware. We still have Cleaning & Corrosion Control and Weight & Balance to geth through before semesters end.

In Airframe we have covered aerodynamics, metallic aircraft structures, cabin atmosphere control systems, and instruments. We are currently working on comm and nav systems, and fuel systems with only aircraft inspection to do before end of term.

Throughout the program we have been working on shop projects and though I tried to take my time with the last one, an aileron section, but alas, I finished it so I don’t have any more project work to do… well, regular project work anyway. I have been doing a side project on helicopter flight control systems (an RC helicopter) to demonstrate how the swashplate works and the principals of rotor wing aerodynamics. There is also talk about the possibility of another project as the helicopter project comes to an end.

Now with only a few weeks left in the semester I am almost half way to my Airframe rating and almost a quarter of the way to my A&P. As for other stuff, there aint none. Too busy for anything else.

Until next time, blue skies and tailwinds,
~FlyBoyJon

Aviation, Health & Fitness, School

three months in

It’s been quite a while since my last post. I know, I know, I swore up and down that I would spend more time on the blog and keep it up to date on everything going on now that I am in a Part 147 AMT program. For those who may not know, a Part 147 AMT program is a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certificated school teaching people what they need to know to get there Airframe & Powerplant mechanics certificate or A&P. The AMT stands for Aviation Maintenance Technician or Technology depending on usage. I was hoping I could keep the site updated on a frequent basis but I have been much busier than expected.

I love my A&P classes, I just had no idea that the work load would wipe me out to the extent it has. Between the constant cramming, fixing flaws in previous assumptions, and trying to keep up with “day-job” stuff, I am just too tired to do as much as I would like to.

Speaking of the day job, talk about taking a back seat. I have been lucky to get a measelly ten hours or so in each month and that has had a rather negative effect on the old pocketbook. I did manage to get some headway on a long-standing project today, not nearly as much as I would like but something.

Progress on the weight loss project has been in a bit of a stall as well. I haven’t been putting weight back on, but I haven’t been loosing it. I’m not all that worried about this one though, I have plenty of time and I am ahead of schedule in this endeavor.

There has been a bit of a shift with regard to the airplane build project. My mission goals and priorities have shifted making the VP-I/II an insufficient aircraft for my needs. I suppose this is more than a “bit of a shift” but it has come down to two options; build an airplane that won’t really meet my needs, or stop it now before I spend more money on the project. Fortunately I haven’t put much into anything that can’t be used elsewhere. Most of my current investment has been in tools, books, raw materials, and hardware.

The materials I have can be used for a couple of “practice projects” I have in mind to keep the hands busy, as if I didn’t have enough to do. Getting back on track with the build was adding to the stress pile in my mind so off-loading it has helped quite a bit. I have some options as far as getting involved in a couple repair/restoration projects and there is even the possibility of acquiring a restoration project of my own, though for the moment, I think it best not to pile anything else on my plate and focus on the tasks at hand, school and health.

That’s it for this installment, blue skies and tailwinds,
~FlyBoyJon

P.S. I am no longer using Facebook, my user account is still there for a while, but I have deleted all content and connections so if you want to connect or keep in touch, find me on Google+ and Twitter.

Aviation, School

AMT school and projects

It’s been a few weeks since I posted last. School has bee going well, it’s a lot of hard work but I am having a great time. Lot’s of quizzes and tests and we are covering a lot of material. It’s hard to believe we are already half way through the first semester.

Classes are a combination of lecture and shop time with a variety of shop projects. Projects so far have included steel bar stock forming, riveting, sheet metal layout and bending, stock drilling, taping, broken bolt/stud extraction, Heli-Coils, and safety wire. we have several more projects lined up as well.

Outside of the class room, I got myself hooked up with a repair/restoration project. It’s a late 1950s Cessna 140A. I spent much of Saturday working on airplane. After removing the doors we set to work on removing the wings. After the wings were removed we set to work on the tail section removing the vertical and horizontal stabilizers. After all that and a bit of a bath, we got started on stripping the landing gear down.

With the airplane now on a rotating frame, we need to remove the spring steel gear legs so we can get started on skin section removal here-n-there and a really dig into a thorough structural inspection.

The best part of this project is that I am getting some real-world repair, maintenance, and inspection time in. I am looking forward to our next trip down to work on the plane again.

Until next time, blue skies and tail winds,

~FlyBoyJon

Aviation, Health & Fitness, School

A month into AMT School

AMT classes started on August 10th at Gavilan College so it has now been a month since I started the program. For those who are not familiar with what an Aviation Maintenance Technology program is, it is a course for people who want to become an FAA certified Airframe & Powerplant mechanic often referred to as an A&P.

As one might assume, there are two primary mechanic certificates, airframe and powerplant. You can earn one or the other if you wanted to, but most people do both, hence the general reference to aircraft mechanics as A&Ps. The program is broken down into three segments General, Airframe, and Powerplant and it is completed over a two year period. Since this is through a community college they break it down into 4 semesters, sounds logical to me. Because this is an FAA recognized program (Part 147) the students have a slightly lower requirement in hours to complete for each segment, it really is a great deal.

Anyway, first year students do General which covers math, physics, aerodynamics, tools & equipment, regulations, basically all of the fundamentals and administrative stuff. The rest of time for first years is spent on Airframe where we cover material, processes, metallurgy, structures, and pretty much everything aft of the firewall. Second year students focus on the Powerplant side, or firewall forward.

I spend seven and a half hours at Gavilan Monday through Friday, 08:00-10:30 in General and 10:30-15:30 (less 0:30 for lunch) in Airframe. The first two semesters follow the same schedule and are a whopping 42 units for the two terms; next year it will be a little lighter, 08:30-15:00 (less 0:30 for lunch) Tuesday through Friday for 28 units, the whole program is 70 units, now in case this sounds a little like complaining, that couldn’t be further from the truth, I am having a great time.

Another exam on Monday so I better get back to the books.

Til next time, blue skies and tailwinds,
~FlyBoyJon

Aviation, Health & Fitness, School

This time next week I’ll be sitting in class!!!

I have some more fiberglass work to do today that requires me to leave the house and pick up some materials and supplies over at TAP Plastics. With stuff in hand I can finish the big patch of repairedness by the front door and move on to the next spot tomorrow. There are three spots I have not gotten to yet. If I can get one more done before school starts that will be good. The rest will need to be done on weekends. before the wet season begins.

Not nearly as many projects got finished over the summer as I had planned, and nothing got done on the airplane mostly due to buttstucktochairwhileoncomputeritis; eh, it happens. With any luck being at school will help motivate me to work on weekend projects and if I chunk them down into smaller pieces like paint a wall and not the paint the entire stairwell including floor maybe I can find and keep my motivation to get them done.

It’s kind of funny how I am great at planing and running projects and events in the real world but when it comes to maintenance around the homestead I seem to get stalled-out. Not sure why that is, but I have ideas. We have been here 15 years as of April 1, no joke, that’s our anniversary date here, and I have been itching to move on for several years now. Not like it’s a bad gig or anything, on the contrary, it’s a really good gig that has saved our butts through bad times and has given me opportunities to pursue my own business interests, learn a ton of new skill sets in the outside world, and is now allowing me to go back to school. I have absolutely nothing to complain about.

Speaking about stalled out, the last few weeks have been one of those weight loss plateaus that picks at your resolve to hold fast and keep on track. Well I have kept on track and I am starting to see results again. I am within a few tenths of a pound of my lowest weight in several decades and a few pounds from reaching a benchmark goal. I am still logging my food and exercise and plan to continue with that. A friend recently gave me a bike so now the wife and I can go hit some of the bike trails before the weather turns, in all of my copious amounts of free time of course.

I have made a two year commitment to complete my FAA Airframe and Powerplant mechanic certificates which will be followed with some real world work experience, with any luck anyway. The plan is to start cultivating the contacts and experiences in the restoration world that will position me as a vintage/warbird restoration specialist.

There are other certificates and ratings I want to pick up along the way, most notably a senior parachute rigger certificate which ties in nicely to test piloting aircraft I restore. Another thing high on my list of certificates is to finish my flight instructor and instrument flight instructor tickets. It’s all part of the master plan that I have been working on since 2006.

Sometimes it is hard to believe I have been a pilot since 2004. I want to finish of my first decade as a pilot by reaching several aviation goals but time is quickly slipping away. The AMT program will wrap July of 2013, that will give me till ether April 24 2014, the anniversary of my first flight as a student, or October 11 2014, the date I earned my private pilot certificate. Most likely I’ll run with the October date. That will give me 15 months to reach my other goals after earning my A&P. Hey, all it takes is money and time, right?

FlyBoyJon’s First Decade of Flight Goals

As you can see I am a little better than half way there. It has certainly been an an interesting decade for me and I am looking forward to several more with a lot more aviation.

✔ Private Pilot
✔ Instrument Rating
✔ Commercial Pilot
✔ Advanced Ground Instructor
✔ Instrument Ground Instructor
O Airframe & Powerplant Mechanic
O Flight Instructor
O Instrument Flight Instructor
O Senior Parachute Rigger

As always my friends, blue skies and tailwinds,
~FlyBoyJon

Aviation, School

Counting down to AMT School

Time has been flying by at an alarming rate and not in a good way. I have lots of day job stuff to get done and a short time to do it all. Motivation is sorely lacking on the mundane tasks that just need to get done. I really need to get boots on the ground to get it all done.

I haven’t had a lot to post about airplane project wise, but I have been working on my welding and composite skills for day job projects. With everything going on, the workshop has become a bit of a mess and needs another good cleaning. I only have 20 more days to get it all done because AMT school starts in three weeks.

Aside from wrestling with the lack of motivation I have been working through some technology issues for the home network. We changed ISP’s from Comcast to AT&T just shy of two weeks ago. HUGE mistake. I don’t really like ether one but in the battle of the lesser evils, Comcast wins this round.

We DSL for many years. Our line was one of the first ones in our area nearly 15 years ago, back then it was awesome. Over time service became cludgy and outages more and more frequent. We tried to go with a higher level of service but they couldn’t get good service out to us because of our distance from the switching station. Enter Comcast about 5 years ago. The service is much faster but Comcast filters some traffic for load balancing every now and then and they prioritize traffic flows in ways that don’t benefit me (selfish I know).

Since it had been some time since we switched to broadband and technology has improved over the years, Pac Bell, our original DSL provider became SBC, then AT&T, we thought the equipment in the field might have improved a bit. No such luck. Our connection was almost as slow as dial-up! Okay, that might be an exaggeration but it did take 15 minutes to load a 5 minute video and Netflix was constantly stopping and restarting, a problem we did not have with Comcast.

Saturday night I called Comcast to see what it would take to get back on line with them. I still had all of the equipment so after a 15 minute phone call we were back on line with them and our internal network was completely switched over. I was very pleased with the results of the call. With everything switched over and running back up to speed I called, well tried to call, AT&T to cancel service.

After navigating there Byzantine help system I managed to find an article on how to cancel service. The 800 number has two notes; call during business hours (Monday through Friday 8-5 Central) and In order to route your call quickly please say “cancel service” when prompted. NOT.

The first call (yes, first call) took me through there again Byzantine phone-cyborg who routed me to the wrong department who then routed me through another phone-cyborg loop which eventually put me on hold for several minutes before hanging up on me. The second call routed me better, I think the system is trained to recognize certain phrases including expletives. Once with the right department I was put on hold for 53 minutes before an agent answered the phone.

By this time I was at the point I really wanted to bite someones head off. Seeing as it isn’t the agents fault, and with the system that busy, it’s likely that most of there other callers were pissed off and they didn’t need my help in getting into a bad mood, I played it cool. The agent was very pleasant and took care of the task at hand quickly. At least the last five minutes of the ordeal was not bad. Unless AT&T runs fiber right up to my modem for free, they wont see my business again any time soon.

On the good news side of things and having a bit to do with aviation, I redid the header graphics for the site, go ahead scroll back to the top of the page if you need to but it’s just a little house cleaning. I did make some changes to the social network links. I removed the Foursquare link, mainly because I don’t think I will be using it that much longer. I added a new graphic and link to Google+. If your scratching your head saying “What’s Google+?” take a look here.

I am hoping to do more with G+ in the future. There are some great tools for group sharing and communications. If you are interested in G+ but need an invitation please let me know and I will be happy to invite you. So far I find it very promising and I am looking forward to seeing what they have in store before it is released into the wild.

Until next time, blue skies and tailwinds,
~FlyBoyJon

Aviation, Health & Fitness, Ramblings, School

Fitness – Mind, Body, & Soul

In my quest to be one of those old guys working from a nearly forgotten airfield out in the middle of nowhere, restoring aircraft thought lost forever to the ravages of time, I have been restoring myself, bring the old crate up to date.

We Can Do ItOf course there is school, and degrees are important after a fashion, but the real meat and potatoes education was from flight school, soon from AMT school, and there will be other schools too as I move forward eventually earning some sheepskin. If only one thing were true about aviation it would be that you are never really “out of school”, it’s a lifelong commitment to learning, maybe not in the classroom, but still a lot of learning.

This post is not so much about the continuous pursuit of knowledge in all things aeronautical, no this post is about personal growth, and like the never ending commitment of aviation, personal growth is a lifelong exploration as well.

While preparing for this career path, I committed to making some changes in my life. I am a big guy, always have been always will be, but there is a lot of room for improvement. Over in the sidebar you may notice a Health and Fitness tab and under that tab a box, today that box reads 37 pounds lost. At 323 pounds, I am at my lowest weight in nearly two decades, but there is a long way still to go. Ultimately I am shooting for 200, which by the way would be my lowest weight since elementary school. I wrestled when I was in Jr. High in the 280+ weight class.

A big part of this has been altering my way of thinking. I have had to replace an ill conceived thought process about what “waste” and “saving” are. This old, mental attitude invoked hording and stockpiling impulses making me think that a filled plate or a filled garage was was a good thing. This thought process could have been applied to nearly anything. “If I don’t take it all now, I might not have the chance later” it’s just wrong headed. One step in the process has been learning to let go of perfectly good clothing that just doesn’t fit, too big or too small, it doesn’t matter. With the frequent changes in size, most of my clothes come from a second-hand store these days anyway so even if I rotated my entire wardrobe annually it would be at a pretty low cost and I donate cloths back when they no longer fit.

While I’m on the subject of clothes; anyone who has known me since high school can tell you I very rarely went out without some sort of loose over-shirt, sweater or jacket of some kind. It could have been 120 in the shade and I would most likely have had a jacket on. This was totally a body image thing that I have struggled with my whole life. I am still a big guy and still have those body image moments once in a while. Since the beginning of 2011 when I started this weight loss plan I have been going out in t-shirts, in public, with lots of people around! For most of you this may not sound like a big deal but this was a huge mental shift for me. I am not planning on running around in a speedo any time… well… ever, and I apologize for the image, but being free from the self imposed torment of jackets and flannel during the summer swelter is very liberating.

All of this freedom to go out into the world makes it much easier to get out and exercise which is of course helping shift my body chemistry along with the dietary changes. Lower blood pressure, faster pulse recovery, longer endurance, less pain, no insomnia, no depression, the list of quality-of-life improvements seems to grow longer every day.

With AMT school starting in 51 days (yes, I am counting) I’m looking forward to seeing how this new healthier me does in the study department.

There are always more things to do and ways to improve. In my case, the slow and steady application of change works well and I look forward to a regular cycle of New & Improved editions of me.

Until next time, blue skies and tail winds,

~FlyBoyJon

Aviation, Health & Fitness, School

Big changes continue…

I started this post a couple of days ago. I had to be sure things were going to happen before posting. There have been some big changes in my education plan over the last two weeks.

My first full semester at San Jose City College is just about done. Nothin’ left but finals next week. I have been doing well, I like all of my classes, my instructors are great, and I have made some new friends. My classes have all been GEs because I was planning on transferring to San Jose State to work on an engineering degree.

After doing some research and chatting with persons in-the-know I came to the realization that spending six years to get a masters in engineering just might not be a good idea. Statistically it is unlikely that a newly minted, 50 year old, engineer will be able to find a job as an engineer. Further more it doesn’t get me much closer to my career objective of restoring vintage airplanes and warbirds, with instruction and aerobatic competition on the side.

Another fly in the education ointment has been that I have little to no exposure to aviation folks. I have been focused on getting my GEs done, but there have been many distractions diverting my attention. Let’s face it, I have a lot of diverse interests. What I need to be doing is getting back to eat, sleep, dream, and live aviation like I was back in flight school.

With that in mind, I found a place semi-local, to work on my aircraft mechanic certificates. This would give me what I need to actually start working in the field. It also brings my objectives into focus on a practical level. A two year FAA approved A&P (airframe & powerplant) certificate program is available down in Gillroy at Gavilan College. It’s a bit of a hike and will cost a lot in fuel and auto maintenance, but over all well worth the effort.

One of the nice things about this is that I am still only a few classes away from finishing my AS in Aviation Operations at Mountain State which I can get done slowly over the next 2 years. I will also be able to get credit for my A&P, enough credit in fact that with a hand full of other classes I would qualify for my BS in Aviation Management. As for the Masters… I can work on it through MSU, SJSU, or another institution if I choose, but it really isn’t a necessity. The engineering stuff, well, that I can do on my own. The engineer provides data as needed to the FAA but is not a “Certificate holder”, It’s the A&P/IA who signs off on work done and mods.

In other areas…

Weight loss going very well. I am just shy of 30 pounds lost since the beginning of the year That is half of my goal for this year. It feels good to be getting into shape. Getting up early every day is still lax but I am getting better about it. School will held a lot since I will have to be in Gillroy by 08:00. I have also been getting a lot more exercise, though it is not every day yet. A lot more walking on the schedule and I have been much more active over all.

I have been keeping track of my food on MyFitnessPal.com and that has helped a lot. If you struggle with weight I recommend this site. Calorie counting is not for everyone but this tool makes it a lot easier. Recently I made some changes to the automatic plan they calculate by lowering my targets for calories, sugar, and carbs while increasing fat and protein. None of the changes are drastic, just tweaks to see if they achieve the desired effect. Boy have they worked out! 11 pounds of that 30 have been over the last 14 days. I am expecting a plateau soon but I am hoping for 10 more pounds before it happens.

The day job is still not getting the attention it needs but The plan is to focus on a kick-ass-and-take-names short summer with three projects that I want to finish before school starts on August 10th.

Building the airplane has been on a bit if a hiatus. I want to be in the shop working but I just haven’t had the time. It will get done, I just don’t know when. For now, it is not a priority. Once I am working on my A&P I may be able to use the VP as shop project time.

All in all things are going well and moving forward. And really, what more can I ask for.

Until next time, blue skies and tail winds,
~FlyBoyJon

Aviation, School

life on campus…

Back in January I made some decisions about major changes in my life. I know that making more than one big change in life(style) has consequences and it usually makes it more difficult to succeed in any of the proposed areas of change. Having this information going into this year I set up several goals for myself.

First off was the decision to pursue my aviation career whole-heartedly. I have a large and complex design of what that means, but this is not the forum to go into great detail on that, let’s just say that much of it comes down to credibility, and developing that credibility. Step one is to do the traditional credibility builder and get that sheepskin.

For me the sheep skin includes finishing a distance learning program I started in 2006 for an AS in Aviation Operations, second is to go back to school full time while still working the day job. I enrolled in classes back in January for a GE AA at San Jose City College that fulfills transfer requirements to San Jose state where I intend to earn a BS then MS in Aeronautical/Aerospace Engineering.

Another big change/goal is to get back on the weight loss train and get down to a weight more acceptable for a test pilot and competitor in aerobatics competitions. I set up an ambitious but very doable plan to loose 150 pounds in a about two and a half years, 60/50/40 ponds a year respectively. To do this I am using the calorie counting method.

So far school is going well as is the weight loss. I have a mid-term 4.0 at San Jose City College, and I just wrapped my first quarter with a 15 pound weight loss. I am tracking weight loss success by quarter rather than daily or by month, it seems more practical.

What has not gone so well is that I have not been getting as much done on the day job as I would like. School has been taking up much more time than I had anticipated, mostly due to the way I scheduled classes. This is something I can fix relatively easily. Changing my schedule next term and knowing how much time I need for study I will be able to make better use of my time.

Another goal that has not gone as well as planned involves building the Volksplane. It has been several weeks since I last posted here and it has been longer since any work was done on the airplane. I have been keeping up with my time-cards which points out vary clearly just how poorly I have been doing in this area. Frustrating yes, but I am not stressing out on this one, I know life happens and I know I am trying to do a lot all at once, so this is not a huge surprise. With any luck this too will be fixed with my scheduling changes next term.

Things that have just not happened are, getting up much earlier consistently to get personal stuff done and any last minute homework before classes, and going for daily walks and stretching. I also toyed with the idea of starting ether yoga or Ti Chi as part of the early morning regimen. Here again, not all that stressed out. These were set out as part of the over-all move towards getting fit. As long as the weight loss continues, I have time to add these in as I get closer to my goal weight.

As you can see, I am 2 for 6 as of now. It is still early though, the second quarter of the first year of a ten-year plan has just begun. All things considered, I am pleased with how things are shaping up. I hope to have my goal ratio up to 4 of 6 by the end of this year.

There are still lots of things in motion and school is a very fluid thing, being engaged with three institutions and having opportunities from outside my major come up keeps the decision making cycle in high gear. Right now the major stress is figuring out the particulars.

As Cornelius Robinson would say “Keep moving forward!”

Until next time, blue skies and tail winds,
~FlyBoyJon