Hello everybody!

I hope all is going well with everyone! I am doing well, just working to finish up the semester. It is about time for finals and the due dates for semester projects have come and gone. In nearly every aspect of my academic life, things are starting to wind down. Just a final push and I will have a nice month off to relax! Several things have happened since I last wrote. For one thing, Thanksgiving was last week. It is hard to believe that it is already that time of year. This year, my family decided to try something new for Thanksgiving, so instead of me going home as usual (which often didn’t make sense because I would fly home and back just to fly home two weeks later), my family came to Florida and we spent Thanksgiving at Walt Disney World.

If you’ve read my other entries, you already know how crazy I am about Disney World. Next to flying and aviation, Disney World is truly my other passion in life, from going there for fun to its technical workings and operations. In any case, it was truly a great time. We stayed at my favorite Disney resort on the property, Disney’s Boardwalk Inn. This resort recreates Atlantic City, New Jersey around the turn of the century complete with a full wooden boardwalk and vendors to boot. It is quite something. It is also within walking distance of both Disney’s Hollywood Studios (formerly Disney’s MGM Studios) and the EPCOT theme parks.

My grandparents came on Thanksgiving morning and we enjoyed a day together at Hollywood Studios where we later had a great dinner at the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant in the park. It was actually one of the best Thanksgiving meals I can remember and I for the first time understood the full-to-capacity feeling that people get after Thanksgiving meals. Being my grandparent’s first visit to Disney World in many years, it was fun showing them all over the parks. One of the greatest parts about Disney World at this time of year is the decorations for Christmas. All of the resorts and parks are decorated for the holidays. Perhaps the most impressive of these decorations is at Disney’s Hollywood Studios where the “Streets of America” facade is decorated with 5 million LED lights amongst other decorations in the style of the Osborne family’s house in Little Rock, Arkansas. It is truly amazing, particularly when they have the lights dance to Christmas songs.

Other than Thanksgiving, my focus this week has been on my Instrument rating checkride, which I have this Saturday. I am very nervous but I know I am prepared for it. Checkrides are something that take a lot of effort and energy and cause a lot of stress, but it is important to remain calm and remember what you know. Nonetheless, I will be glad when it is over. For any future pilots wondering what is involved for this rating, essentially you must learn to fly solely by reference to the flight instruments due to you now having the ability to fly in clouds. This includes learning approaches to airports without being able to see the runway until you are a few hundred feet above it. Wish me luck!

Now that the majority of the semester projects themselves have been completed, it is time for the associated PowerPoint presentations that must be presented to the class. This is usually the easy part of the project and somewhat enjoyable, and once this is completed, I am totally done with the associated classes.

I sort of lucked out this semester in that I only have 1 final exam, and that exam is not cumulative. In addition to that test, I have to take the Commercial Pilot Written exam which is required after completing AS321, or Commercial Pilot Operations (the ground school for the commercial rating). After that, I head home December 15!

I am not sure that I will talk to you all again before then, but even if I am not writing, please do not hesitate to e-mail me your questions. I love hearing from you. If I don’t talk to you, Happy Holidays and talk to you next year!

Pete

Attention ladies and gentlemen, we are now beginning our descent to the end of the semester. We are now coming back from Thanksgiving break, where most of the campus, including myself, went home for the holiday. We had Wednesday before Thanksgiving off until the Friday, so I decided to leave Tuesday night and not come back until Sunday. So it was definitely a pretty decent sized break.

 I believe I said this in my past entry but I feel the need to reiterate the idea. After becoming a student pilot, you take commercial flying so much differently. You understand more things like the delays. When you’re approaching the hold-short line, you know the pilots are contacting ATC and going over their final items. I also met a fellow Riddle student, who sat next to me on the flight back. We talked about school for a bit and who we going home to see. I should take this time to give you a notice. When traveling home for holidays or breaks, you have a choice of flying out of MCO (Orlando Intl) or DAB (Daytona Beach). Those are the 2 closest main airports. I have flown home in both of those airports and they both have their pros and cons. Pros of MCO is that usually is cheaper because you have access to cheaper airlines, like Southwest and JetBlue.

Also, MCO has more routes so you can generally get home quicker. Cons of MCO is that if you don’t have a friend willing to drive, you will have to use the shuttle which is a bit costly, or the cost of parking, if you drive yourself. Some pros of DAB are that it is close and cheaper. Cons of DAB is that only 2 airlines fly out of the airport, Delta and US Airways, who only fly to their hubs, Atlanta and Charlotte, respectively, which means it will take longer to get home. Especially since Atlanta has bad weather and in either airport you could get delayed or have a large layover. So, overall, if you have someone to drive you, choose Orlando, if not, it would probably be better to fly out of DAB.

Once home, I got to visit my brother and his fiancé, who were a pleasure to see. I spent Thanksgiving at my aunt’s and cousin’s house. It was amazing to see everyone and to tell them about my experience. Great food, great friends and family, that’s why Thanksgiving is my 2nd favorite holiday, after Christmas of course. After living in Florida for several months, many people, including myself, adjust to the heat. I used to despise the heat, now it’s not bad at all. 80‘s in November and probably a little bit for December is nice, but disappointing because it doesn’t feel anywhere close to Christmas, which is sad. Flying home, the temperature went from 85 in Daytona to 45 in Annapolis. A huge difference, so I made sure to pack plenty of pants and sweatshirts.

During the holiday, I also reviewed the itinerary for the upcoming weeks at school. I realized that once we fly home, we only have 9 days of classes left, I have 1 exam, and then we fly right back home again. It’s a dream compared to high school, where you come back from Thanksgiving break and have about a month left, and then exams.

Overall, it was a great break and can’t wait to finish my classes, my 1 exam, and get back to Maryland. I will definitely miss my friends and the atmosphere of college but more on that next time. I believe that I have 1 more entry until the end of the semester. Until then, make sure your seatbelts are fastened, seats and tray tables in an upright and locked position. Thank you. 🙂

Hello everybody!

I hope that everything is going well. By now, you are probably in the middle of the application process and maybe have even heard back from some of the schools you applied to, including Embry-Riddle. I remember going through this process and the stress involved with it. Not to worry, though, you will make it through it and you are almost done.

I have kept busy since I last wrote, both with work and leisure. We are getting towards the end of the first semester, so the workload has naturally gotten a bit heavier with final papers/semester projects, tests, and preparation for final exams coming up in the not-too-distant future. It is key in these times to stay organized and keep a schedule of the work that must be done. Otherwise, it is easy to fall into traps of missing assignments and tests. Fortunately, I have Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the associated breaks from school coming up as well—sort of the light at the end of the tunnel.

Since we returned to school after fall break, my friends and I have done several things that were very fun. The first of these activities was going to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando. Universal does this every Halloween season, but this year, due to it being an anniversary year for the event, it was bigger and scarier than ever. The Universal Studios Park was transformed into a giant haunted event, with 12 individual haunted houses inside of it. In addition to that, several of the normal rides were open and the “city” streets were crawling with zombies wielding chain saws, smoke, and more. It was really fun, and we didn’t end up returning to Daytona Beach until 2:30 am.

This past weekend, I took the 3 hour drive down to southern Florida to visit my grandparents at their house there. This was a nice change of scenery and a break from school life. It was very similar to going home for the weekend, just a lot closer. It was also good to see my grandparents and study by the pool for a bit. It is amazing that there is about a 10 degree temperature difference between the two places this time of year, which really makes a difference.

Some of my friends and I also flew down to Titusville, Florida a few weekends ago. We grabbed lunch at the airport restaurant called the Outer Marker. It was a fun flight and the food was good. We were even able to take advantage of the Veteran’s Day free admission to the air museum on the field. They have a former Blue Angel there as well as several Vietnam-era fighter jets and even World War II era fighters. It was a neat place and was filled with history. My roommate James Dingell took some of these pictures from that day.

Toward the end of each semester, in addition to the workload increasing in your classes, you must being planning your schedule for the next semester. By consulting the list of classes required for your major and the course schedule for the next semester, you piece together a schedule that works for you, including flight block, if you are going to fly. Then, if you are a freshman and even a sophomore or junior, at 12:00am on the morning of the first day of registration for your particular class standing, you log onto the registration website and with essentially everyone else in the same class standing, you click submit to register. This way, you can ensure you get into the classes you want, however you can imagine the chaos that sometimes comes from this process! This will occur tonight in just a few hours, but I am ready!

Since I last wrote, I also observed my friend Alan Larsen’s commercial-rating long cross country to Key West International Airport in Key West, Florida. It was a long flight but it was a great time. We got down there in about two hours and ate lunch before heading back to St. Petersburg and then Daytona. The water in Key West is a great color and it was fun flying down the chain of Keys. I was also amazed at the amount of air service at the airport considering it has only a 4,500 foot runway.

I have also been working with the Airport Operations department at Daytona Beach International Airport recently, and that has given me something to do. It is a busy time at the airport as they have just begun resurfacing the main runway, 7L/25R. Due to this construction and corresponding runway closures and/or decrease in the useable runway, the crosswind runway, 16/34 has been in use recently. This is good for me as this runway runs just outside my window and I have been able to see several Delta DC-9’s takeoff and land on it. I don’t think I will need an alarm clock while this construction is going on!

Well, I guess that is about it! If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to send me an e-mail. I will talk to you soon!

Take care,

Pete

Welcome back! We’re half way through November and that means that Thanksgiving break is upon us. We have classes the rest of this week and Monday and Tuesday of next week, and then break begins. Until last week, I had plans to stay and possibly fly and build flight hours but my brother and his fiancé gave me a Southwest Gift Card, allowing me to fly home, without spending much money.

Tomorrow, November 15, is also registration day for sophomores. Even though this is my first year at Riddle, I earned 28 college credits for taking AP exams in high school, enough for the university to view me as a sophomore, which is to my benefit, since I get to pick classes sooner, meaning my schedule might look a little better. Oh, the benefits of being in college and getting to pick your class times. I changed my flight block so that beginning in the Spring Semester I will fly Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, rather than Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. I really didn’t like having to wake up early on Saturday morning. One benefit I saw was that it was less busy, making it easier to taxi and just maneuver through the airspace.

Speaking of flying, I am coming up on my Pre-Solo. I have a flight or two this week, then, I have an oral where my instructor and I review a Pre-Solo Aeronautical Exam, making sure I understood everything. Then I have my Pre-Solo Check ride, which is where instead of flying with my instructor, I fly with a check pilot, who asks me to perform some maneuvers, like stalls, slow flight, steep turns, then asks me to do some traffic patterns to another airport, rather than Daytona Intl. If I pass, which I hope I do, I will be able to continue and solo the following module with my instructor. Basically what happens is that my instructor and I fly to an uncontrolled airport, meaning there is no control tower, we land, he hops out, and I fly a couple traffic patterns, then I come and pick him up, and we fly home. I am extremely excited and this is probably the one stepping stone, all pilots look forward to.

Also this couple weeks, many students and staff, including myself, got very upset to see the Discovery Shuttle launch get pushed back several times, until finally being delayed until I believe late this month. The push back was due to weather and mechanical difficulties, but we still were disappointed. The campus gets extremely excited when an event like this goes on while we are here. The university had planned on setting up a broadcast of the launch in one of the auditoriums and broadcasting the audio for the launch over the radio. Professors told us how most of them would either drive down to the Canaveral and watch or even stay here on campus, watch the broadcast in the auditorium, and as soon as it got so high, run outside and stare up into the sky and see it for yourself. It was a laugh for all of us, but it was extremely cool to know that we could see it from our dorm windows.

Other classes are going well but, because of Thanksgiving Break approaching, teachers have decided to get everything done before then, which I would rather because that means fewer things I have to focus on and prepare during break. I still have several tests before the break, an essay due, a team presentation to prepare, and a lot more, but I would rather get it over with.

On a side note, today, November 14, is my Residential Advisor, Fiona’s, birthday. My whole wing is extremely lucky to have such an amazing RA as her. I am very thankful that we have such a close and awesome relationship with her. I hope you guys get such a great RA, because they are there to help you and by being a good resident, you make their lives easier, more fun, and allow you to stay on their good side. So Happy Birthday Fiona! Well, that’s pretty much it and I won’t talk to you guys until after break, so I hope you guys have a great Thanksgiving. Over