Friday 21st November 2008
This week my flying school Basair has moved to a new location, only a few hundred meters from the old one. The new building is, after my first impression, much nicer than the former one. The school now has a larger surface and even owns a small hangar. The walking distance from the building to the aircraft parking grass surface is very short, about 1 minute. Inside, the walls are decorated with huge posters of airplanes and cockpits, which strongly enhances the flying spirit of the people that walk around.
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I've been wearing invisalign® clear, removable teeth aligners for 6 months now to straighten my teeth, and I'm close to the end of the treatement. In a few weeks Dr Duncan might place the wire behind my teeth that I'm going to wear for most of the rest of my life to keep them where they are.
Although it is more expensive than the traditional brackets, I recommend this as it is faster, painless, and most important of all, totally invisible, which for some might save the embarassment of looking like teenager.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisalign
And last but not least, I'm going to write that I just sent out 10 Christmas greeting cards, so If you're lucky, one of them is now travelling with your mailbox as the final destination. If that's the case, congrats, you're somewhere in the TOP10 meaningful people to me.
Friday 23rd November 2008
Sunday 07th December 2008
The photos above are of last Sunday's trip with my friends James and Fede. We flew in a Tobago TB10. We met at my flying school at 8.30am, after submitting the flightplan to ATC, loading the a/c with backpacks and survival equippment and performing a careful preflight inspection, the takeoff at 9.58 was followed by a CTA departure (through controlled airspace). Tracking to Canberra over Bindook VOR and Goulburn, we cruised at 8500ft, VFR-on-top (above broken clouds).
We landed in Canberra's smaller Runway 30 at 11.20, just for a quick 'pipi-stop' and refuelling. It took us more than 20 minutes to get an airways and takeoff clearance due to traffic load and big jets operating.
I had requested a Canberra city flight alpha1 before departure to Moruya, which allowed us to overfly the city with its beautiful lake and the Australian parliament house (1st photo).
The landing in Moruya was accompanied by a light crosswind (estimated 15 knots, which is nothing for a Tobago) and a smooth touchdown. Two pilots and an airport assistant were loading suitcases in a REX (Regional Express Australia) Saab 340 to take off 5 minutes later. We walked down to the beach, where we picnicked sandwiches.
On the flight back, we transited the GA (General Aviation) lane of the Nowra military airspace, which was not active as it was Sunday, so I could just cross it after broadcasting intentions. We overflew Jervis Bay and Huskisson, which was really nice because it was where we spent the easter holidays earlier this year. The turbulence was extremely bad, so we landed in Wollongong for a pause. Every chance is worth it to stare at the Super constellation (last photo) for a while! We almost got stuck there because I couldn't start the plane as there was no power when we boarded the plane again, but after some checks, it was just a circuitbraker.
We had dinner at Bass Hill Plaza, a huge steak with salad and chips. It was a wonderful day!
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Yesterday we had the Christmas party with the people from Georges Manor, at the Regents Park golf club.
There were about 40 people and we had turkey&ham. On the top photo, you can see the general manager Sandy, who came in disguised as an oldie and saying that she had escaped from the residence (the one we work in, obviously), this was very funny. She gave a beautiful speech, thanking us for our collaboration as this is a brand new company which started earlier this year, so we are all playing an important role in being the first persons to do what we do. Then there were the employee of the month, and so on. Drinks were free, so that was nice, on the following two photos I'm with the cook and the maintainance guy, then with some of the nurses.
The following photos are from my workplace during dinner time, which is my shift (4-8), and is now nicely decorated for christmas.
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