Hi everybody! I hope you all are doing well. Things are pretty good with me. My instrument rating flight training has been progressing very quickly recently and has been going very well. Since I wrote last, not all that much has happened here at school. We had our fall break this past weekend, and that proved to be a very well needed and well-deserved period of rest.

Luckily, this semester, my professors decided to be nice and not give any real homework over the break. I remember at this time last year sitting in front of the fireplace at home and typing an essay for my COM122 class. This year, I didn’t bring home a single book and it felt great.

I know you all are reading this because of your interest in Embry-Riddle, but due to the fact that the majority of the time between my last entry and this one was spent in class or at home, I will share with you some of the aviation-related things that I did at home over the break (unless you want me to talk about sitting in lectures—just kidding!)

I flew home via Orlando International Airport. Actually, it might be a good idea to talk about your options for getting to Embry-Riddle, especially if you live out of Florida and need to fly home, so I will do that for a bit.

Basically, you have two primary options when it comes to airports. Daytona Beach International Airport is the first, which, as you know, is next to Embry-Riddle. You could literally walk to the passenger terminal with your suitcases and fly home. The downside to Daytona International is that it is only served by two airlines, Delta and US Airways, and all of the flights are exclusively to either Atlanta or Charlotte, respectively. As such, you may find the fares to be a bit higher at times, especially (and unfortunately) around the Embry-Riddle breaks.

The other option is Orlando International Airport, which is about an hour and fifteen minutes from school. If you don’t have a car, don’t worry, there are two shuttle services—DoShuttle and DOTS—which can take you. Obviously, Orlando is a major international airport so you can fly practically anywhere from there. The downside, though, is obviously the drive and the earlier time you must get there before your flight.

Anyways, I was happy to find that I was on a Boeing 737-800 on this particular route. For years since Delta Song was disbanded, Delta had been flying McDonnell-Douglas MD-88’s on the route, and I was getting very sick of those. Even better was the fact that the aircraft I was on was equipped with in-flight satellite TV. That made the 2 and a half hour flight go by much more quickly. Then, before I knew it, we were on final approach to Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut.

When we landed, one of my good friends who is an Airport Operations Specialist at Bradley met me at the gate and we were able to catch up a bit while I waited for my mom to pick me up. I hadn’t seen him since the summer and it was good to be able to chat for a while. When I walked outside, I remembered one of the reasons I went to school in Florida—the warmth. It was about 50 degrees and raining, when in Orlando upon departure it was 90 degrees and sunny.

When I walked in the door of my house, my dog jumped up and was all excited to see me. I also saw my family and had the first home-cooked meal I’d had in several months. You really take that for granted when you are living at home through high school. I then went to sleep in my own bed, which was also something that was very nice after months away.

The next day, I paid a visit to my airport in Connecticut. It was a very busy day at the airport that day, which made it even more fun. For one thing, it was Parent’s Weekend at nearby Yale University and the General Aviation ramp was full of private jets. Then, due to President Obama’s planned visit in the area, a C-17 Globemaster filled with his motorcade landed. A convoy of vehicles emerged. Finally, the last phase of the runway resurfacing project began that night which entailed carving the grooves into the runway asphalt. These grooves prevent aircraft from hydroplaning on the runway and they allow the rainwater to drain more efficiently. Unfortunately, it is also the loudest portion of the project, and the neighbors did not like this at all.

Other than that, though, the rest of my break was spent relaxing with my family and some friends who were also on break. I then flew back into Orlando and drove back to Daytona. Now, we are back in classes and into the swing of things.

I apologize for not having more to talk to you all about this entry! Going home really was the majority of what I spent my time doing. Next time, I promise I will have some more stories to tell you. Please ask me any questions you might have—I would be glad to answer.

Talk to you soon!
Pete

Trick or treat! We all know (mainly those who are from the US, Canada, UK, and Australia) what this holiday phrase means. It means it is Halloween time and it was my first Halloween experience here at Riddle and what fun it was. Being in McKay, the university has kids from the community come to the dorm and trick or treat because it’s an open dorm, unlike Doolittle, Adams, or Woods, where you need a key to get access. Friends from those other dorms came over to give out candy with us and we had a blast and so did the kids.

We had dry ice flowing over the floor, creepy music, and we were all dressed up. The event began at 5pm and ended at 7pm. The RAs helped with event by holding a Halloween Carnival in front the dorm with games and food. Our RA, Fiona, was the fortune teller for the kids in the study lounge and played the part very well. Over all it was an amazing weekend and a good break from school work, but sadly reality comes back, but fortunately, reality isn’t too bad.

Also this weekend was the Open House 2010. Adriana, a fellow student journalist, and I helped out by talking to you prospective students who attended. It really did put a smile on my face when I saw the high schoolers because that was me last year. Although I didn’t attend the Open House, I did attend the Accepted Students event which is usually sometime in the spring. Side note, I encourage you to join the Class of 2015 Group on Facebook, where you can ask us questions, meet fellow students, and even look at pictures that we take because we can’t fit all of them here.

Flying has been amazing. The past week I had a flight mainly focusing on approach and landings. If you are completely new to flying, like I was, you learn that landing is the hardest part, and supposedly, you can judge a pilot on how he lands the plane. After the flight, my Instructor and I felt that it would be better if I had to repeat that lesson, which I was a little disappointed about but I realized that it’s okay and that it’s better to get that extra practice. So the next flight block we completed an oral on flight emergencies and systems, like the Hydraulic system that controls the brakes, the fuel system, the engine, and the propeller. There are many more systems that are to be discussed, which we will do in the near future. I may note that with my flying, I take a ground class called “Private Pilot Operations” which basically is a class to reinforce concepts you need to know to fly. Although the classes are in the same steps or flow, it’s a great benefit to have two sources of learning the material. In the class, we had already discussed the systems, so when my instructor went over them, I had previous knowledge, and so he didn’t have to spend as much time as originally planned. Then on the third flight block, we repeated the one lesson on approaches and landings. We went up to Flagler, which is one of the airports in the practice areas around Daytona. It went so much better than the first time. There are mainly three parts to the landing, after completing the traffic pattern entry and lining up with the runway. Once you begin your final decent and are aligned with the runway, you use your final notch of flaps, which help you steepen your descent without increasing airspeed. You descend and descend, then once you use believe you are at the point, you begin your flare where you become level and “float” over the runway. Your airspeed then decreases and then you begin descending again and then you continue your flare and pull up so that you your nose gradually points up, which causes your main landing gears to touch first. Then once they touchdown, you can slowly lower the nose and touch it down. At the airport, we didn’t want to do a full stop landing, so we perform a touch-and-go, which means you take-off as soon as you land. So once your nose gear touches and you slow down enough, you can go full throttle and decrease flaps to 20 degrees. Once you are at the rotate speed, or 55 KIAS, you pull up. Once above obstacles, you can eliminate the flaps. We took off and because we wanted to practice again and again, we turn once we enter the traffic pattern altitude and contact tower requesting another touch-and-go. So it consists of a lot of actions, within a small period of time. This contributes to making it one of the hardest parts of flying.

So it’s back to school for me and no big events, like Halloween are coming up but fun things seem to always happen here. I hope you all had a great Halloween. Over and out.

Hi again everybody! Hope you all are doing well. Everything is going well for me. My workload has finally calmed down, and I think I will be able to take a much-needed relaxing weekend this coming weekend when I will be going home to Connecticut for our four-day Fall Break.

As I mentioned, my workload has finally decreased. In my previous entry, I mentioned how the work comes in waves, at least for me. Gladly, for the most part, I am in a trough, so I have some time to relax. Going home this weekend will be nice; I haven’t seen my dog and family since August. I will also be able to pay a visit to my airport at home and see the newly resurfaced runway and my friends and co-workers.

One thing that I like to do to relax is fly. One thing you will realize if you are coming to Embry-Riddle as a flight student is that it can get pretty intense. Especially in the middle of a rating, when the beginning is in the distant past and the completion is just past the end of the tunnel, it is easy to want to give up and stop flying. Literally every single pilot goes through this at some point. I remember that during my Private Pilot Certificate training, I had just finished a bad training flight and was very angry. I was nearly ready to give up flying when the next day, my friends (who were already pilots) offered me to fly to Gainesville for dinner with them.

That is the key, flying for fun every once in a while. It is truly essential because it serves as a reminder of what you are flying for in the first place—because you love it. Not because you are in school for it, because you will make a fortune from it (because, as we all know, you will not), not because you are being pressured to, but just because you love to fly. If you ever start feeling worn out, take a friend or two and go fly, it is a great way to build back up your enthusiasm, and, after you get a rating, to have fun and relax.

So, what I have found myself doing a lot recently is flying. Being in the middle of my instrument rating, I have felt a bit worn out with flying a few times recently, but after the two days of flying that I had this past weekend, I am refreshed and ready to go. I will tell you guys a bit about the flights I did, but first I want to mention something about Embry-Riddle’s Flight Department.

The flight department at Embry-Riddle is as good as it gets. It is recognized in this way around the country and around the world. You know it, employers know it, and it is just a fact. It is why you are interested in becoming a student at Embry-Riddle. But, if you haven’t been fortunate enough to be able to take an observation flight here (which, by the way, if it is at all possible that you come and do this, I strongly recommend it), I am going to describe a few of the things that make Embry-Riddle’s flight department so professional.

For starters, if you have never seen the ramp, take a look at the picture above, it was taken by a good friend of mine, Tony Ports. There are hundreds of training aircraft parked on it, including Cessna 172’s, Piper Arrows, and Diamond DA42 L-360’s. The picture just shows a sampling of these. Additionally, you must ramp in and out with flight dispatchers before and after your flights, much like at an airline. In the sky, you can call the operations frequency and speak with the flight supervisor to request a longer flight, report a problem, etc. The checklists and their usage as well as the callouts used in flight are closely paired with those that airlines use. This is just a sampling, though. You will experience the rest for yourself soon.

The first flight that I did this weekend was to St. Petersburg/Clearwater International Airport (PIE) with my friends Eric and Jeff. We departed from Daytona Beach at around 1930L, and arrived in St. Pete at around 2045L. We then went out for dinner and flew back to Daytona, landing around 2300L. It was a very nice flight, especially because it was at night. I have found that Florida is a very pretty state to fly in at night due to all of the activity happening below you. For our approach into St. Pete, we were vectored directly over the top of Tampa International Airport (TPA), which was also very cool. A picture of one of the terminals is also in this entry.

The second flight I did was to Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) with my roommate, James. This is always a fun flight and one that I enjoy doing very much. Flying up there affords very nice views of historic downtown St. Augustine as well as downtown Jacksonville, Florida. Perhaps my favorite part of flying into JAX though is the fact that it is a relatively busy commercial air carrier service airport. As a result, you always land in a mix of 737’s, 757’s. A320’s, MD-88’s, etc. The FBO we use at Jacksonville is one of the nicest FBO’s that I have visited, and there are plenty of places to grab lunch or dinner nearby the airport. Thanks to James for the use of the pictures from the JAX trip.

Well, that’s about all I have for you guys! Talk to you soon. As usual, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me with any questions you may have.

Pete

Hi everybody! I hope all is going well with you. I have had a great few weeks since I last wrote for you—busy, but fun nonetheless! From schoolwork, to flying, to the Wings and Waves Airshow, it certainly has been a good month.

One thing that you will find about Embry-Riddle when you start classes is that the work comes in cycles or “waves,” at least for me. You will find periods of time where the workload is very light and there is not much going on at all, and then all of a sudden you will have tests and papers and other things all come into play all at one time. The best way to handle this, I have found, is to plan ahead. Use a planner and take advantage of those periods of light work to get ahead so that when the assignments do start piling up, you are already ahead of the game. As I write this, I am in one of those periods where assignments are piling up, but, by thinking ahead and getting some other assignments done early, I can better manage everything going on.

But, hey, you don’t want to hear about that! You want to know what’s going on in Daytona Beach and at Embry-Riddle, so let’s get into it.

A large portion of my time, since I last wrote, has been spent with clubs and activities. At the beginning of the semester, the Legacy Walk (a large pathway in the middle of campus) is lined with all types of different clubs and student organizations in hopes of recruiting new members in a large Activities Fair. At the beginning of the semesters, all of the clubs want to meet at once, which causes a few scheduling conflicts and lots to do! Of course, as the semester continues, this settles down a bit. This has prevented me from doing all of the things I usually do on the weekends, but now that everything has settled down, I am sure I will get some more interesting stories for you!

One thing that I did with some friends one weekend was the VIP Tour of the Daytona International Speedway. You may or may not know that the speedway is about a mile from the campus, just on the other side of the Daytona Beach International Airport. At the Speedway is an attraction called the Daytona 500 Experience, and it offers a bunch of different tours and activities. However, once a month, they offer the VIP tour which takes the guests everywhere, including in the towers, infield, the exclusive “Daytona 500 Club,” and all the places usually only the drivers can go. Particularly with the track repaving project still underway, it was very interesting to be able to see things close up. From the viewing towers and VIP lounges, I found it interesting that Riddle was clearly visible, as was the ocean and coastline 3 miles away. It was really a great experience and I would recommend checking it out.

You probably heard that Riddle hosted the Wings and Waves Airshow this past weekend in Daytona Beach. Over 20 different exhibitors attended, including the Canadian Snowbirds, the F-22 Raptor Demonstration Team, the GEICO Skytypers, and more. While I was able to experience the airshow from the beach as a spectator on Sunday, it was on Friday and Saturday that I was able to see it a different way. In my previous writing, I mentioned about my interaction and employment at home in Airport Operations.Here at Riddle, at the Daytona Beach International Airport, I am also involved with the Operations department. The task of monitoring all of the parked planes for Wings and Waves, coordinating where they would park, when they would depart, which runways and taxiways would be closed, etc. was the responsibility of airport ops. I was on the airfield with ops on Friday and Saturday helping with these things. I was able to talk to the F-22 pilots and Snowbirds a lot and even got to look around all of their aircraft. It was definitely an awesome opportunity. On top of all of the activity going on at the airport with the Wings and Waves Airshow, three charters came in to Daytona on Saturday. One charter was an Allegiant Airlines McDonnell-Douglas MD-82, and the captain was nice enough to let me and an operations agentride up in the cockpit as they repositioned the plane to the gate to pick up their passengers. As I write this, 3 F-16’s are departing the airport over my dorm room, heading home after the airshow. It was a great weekend and I look forward to the next airshow in two years.

Other than everything I’ve mentioned, not all that much else has been going on. I have been continuing my flight training for my instrument rating and anticipate a checkride for that in early November. I am looking forward to going home in a few weekends for fall break. It will be nice to go home for a weekend and see my family and my dog!

I guess that’s about it! As usual, don’t hesitate at all to ask me any questions! Talk to you soon.
Pete

I finally had the chance to do something I had wanted to do since I became interested in attending Embry-Riddle, observe a flight. Yes, for a student like me, who was attending school for Communications, something about flying still intrigued me and I had made it a personal goal to go on an observance flight before the end of my semester. I walked over to the flight line and, with a little fear and hesitation, proceeded to go to the flight desk and ask about observing a flight. Of course, I had to have to permission of the pilot, but, thankfully he allowed me to fly with him and his instructor. His name was James and he was quiet yet friendly. After I received my visitor’s badge and a loaner pair of ear muffs I was more than ready to go. We walked out to the gate and were let in by a security guard then we proceeded through the other gate. We were picked up by a golf cart and brought down to the plane that he would be flying. I stood in one place trying to be out of his way but still so interested as he cleaned down his windows and checked over the plane thoroughly. He told me it may be awhile since he still had yet to get topped off with fuel and wait for his flight instructor. At this point though I didn’t mind at all, I knew I was going to observe this day and I was so stuck on the idea the nothing could bring me down. His instructor walked up after he had gotten more fuel and introduced himself to me, his name was Daniel. He told me he had been flying for six year and was a graduate from Embry-Riddle as well. His dream job was being an instructor at Embry-Riddle and after four years of college and a few months of waiting for an open position he had become an instructor. An hour nearly had passed but it was worth the wait because there really was no room for error when flying and having a guest passenger (who did want to return safely). Finally though, the time did arrive, we boarded the plane buckling up and going over different safety procedures while waiting to get clearance from ATC (Air Traffic Control) so we could begin our flight. We taxied down the flight line and after a brief propeller check between the student and instructor we rode down the runway, faster and faster we went and slowly ascending into the air nearly hovering into a higher altitude. I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was in the air, I had flown so many times before but it was much more different with being in a smaller aircraft. I have lived in Daytona Beach basically all my life and as we flew towards New Smyrna I saw just how much of this place I had actually ever seen. It was breathtakingly beautiful and I was honored to have been able to go on a flight as such. Since he was practicing landings we landed and took off multiple times from the flight deck in New Smyrna. With each take off I noticed more about the surrounding land and how beautiful it was to be up seemingly weightless and seeing how the sun shone through the plane’s windows and the beach down below that looked endless, I never wanted to leave from the air. Unfortunately, the flight did come to an end (an hour total not including prep time) and though happy we made it back safely, I had wished it could’ve been a longer flight to see the beauty that every pilot has the opportunity of witnessing everyday on our campus.

It gave me a whole new outlook on the pilots at our school, each one of them takes a risk every time they fly but it was an experience that most people would never experience or some would be too afraid to. Honestly, the flight made even me want to change my major so that I could fly to be a daredevil and see that captivating view once more, however, I did make a promise to myself before leaving to take at the least one observance flight each semester (though secretly I dared myself to go once a week or four times in a month since there are NO LIMITS to how many observance flights a student takes believe it or not). I would suggest to every student to take an observance flight at some point in your college experience. Sure you may have been on so many other flights but unless you’re a pilot, well, you shouldn’t want to miss out on flying in the sky with Embry-Riddle finest. Who knows maybe you will have a change of heart and want to fly, or maybe you will see what the drive for the pilots that we see flying above us as you walk to class every day. A beautiful experience that I can barely describe in words it’s much better to be seen in person. Since I will be taking more flights up (hopefully really soon) I plan on trying to take pictures and maybe even some video of my trips up. If you would like to view them please feel free to add my facebook page (you can also ask me questions about campus and I will try my best to answer for you) or you can contact me via email at: gatorg12@yahoo.com Pictures to come soon so keep looking out!

A month has gone by already? It’s so unbelievable to think that just over 40 days ago, I was back home in California. I loved my life back home, don’t get me wrong, but it feels like this is where I belong. Last blog, I just introduced myself, so let me say a little about what’s been going on since I got here.

AdrianaMove-in day was August 25th. Knowing how hectic things can be during this time, settling in was relatively a breeze! Anywho—I live in Adams Hall, 5th floor (i.e the penthouse). Honors program got me here. See, if you apply early enough (by the beginning of the Spring), you might get an invitation from Dr. Kain, the honors program coordinator, asking you to apply for the honors program. Not everyone gets it, but if you have enough AP/IB credits and a good SAT score, all you have to do is send in an essay and your resume, and hope for the best! For those of you who think that it’s more work (and therefore a waste of time), don’t fret!! Actually, we get many credits waived just for taking honors courses. For example, since I already had most of my general education credits out of the way from high school courses, the honors seminar replaced my Speech credit! Such a great feeling, especially since I’m not a very good public speaker. Did I mention the material perks too? Well, this year we all got free iPads. We thought it was a joke, too, until we opened our gift bags at the Honors Banquet the eve of move-in day. We also get priority registration for next semester, which is a great perk, considering freshmen are usually the last to pick.

Next big event was Orientation week. It was definitely a lot more pumped up than I would have thought. The highlight of the week was the O-team, who is in charge of easing us through all the activities and to-dos of the week. Saturday morning, I was sitting quietly in my room when I hear a mob of screaming maniacs coming down the hall. I open the door slowly to see who is outside, and a hand reaches in and drags me outside. We are paraded down to the elevators where packs of people are stuffed inside, and the O-team starts screaming ‘O, O, O, O’, which is their motto. Although I was a tad taken back at first, they took us to the ‘Food Dude’, who is a former “The Next Food Network Star” contestant, who taught us how to stay healthy while in college. Trust me it is a lot better than it sounds. We also had a quite humorous skit by our RAs (Residence Advisors) about safety, then a nice re-make of Deal or No Deal—aptly named Beat the Banker for copyright purposes. When it came time to say goodbye to my parents, I was glad I had a few friends with me.

The second week of school, the University Diversity Office set up a scavenger hunt for women only, where we had to run around the school for a good hour looking for clues. It was so tiring, but I got to meet my mentors. The program is called FIRST (Female Initiatives: Reaching Success Together), where Freshman girls in Engineering, Space Physics and Engineering Physics are set up with older girls, who will act as their mentors throughout the year.

AdrianaSpeaking of clubs, the Student Activities office organized an Activities Fair on Legacy Walk (between the school buildings), which showcased all of the possible ways to get involved around campus. As I walked down the path, I couldn’t believe how many things to do there are! I found clubs anywhere from Airsoft to several different cultural groups, to a club for gamers to even a Civil Air Patrol! I guess it does make up for our lack of a football team…. Come on, how many schools can say they have their own air acrobatics team?? Or a skydiving club?? Like many would say around here, ‘Only at Riddle’.

I joined a few clubs (a few too many some would say). Right now, I’m sticking with only a few: Touch N Go Productions (they’re amazing. They are in charge of organizing all the activities. Check them out @touch-n-go.org), the women’s Baja team (which is the only all-women’s mini-Baja team in the world!), and, of course, the FIRST program.

Two weeks ago, when I wrote my first journal, was my birthday. I was feeling very down, since I wouldn’t get to spend my 18th birthday with my family. However, at exactly midnight, my roommate Bharvi and the rest of my good friends threw me a surprise birthday party in my room. I can honestly say that I’ve never been more grateful to someone before. Later that day, we went to my friend’s grandmother’s vacation home, where they baked me a cake and had a Pixar movie night just for me (I absolutely love anything Disney and Pixar). A great tip, which came up on the Facebook c/o 2015 page, was to meet people before you get to college. Embry-Riddle has two open houses in October and April. This is a fantastic way to meet up with the people who will potentially be your best friends in college.

AdrianaWhen it comes to the academics, college is much simpler than I would have thought. Most teachers make us have a schedule to manage our time and so far, it’s worked like a charm. I got through 3 tests for far, and right now, my team and I are working on a satellite for EGR-101 (which is an introduction to engineering). What amazes me the most is that at this school is that most teachers use airplanes or rockets when explaining concepts. In physics, for example, half of our problems deal with an alien and a rocket ship. Again, only at Riddle.

Before closing for now, I would like to send out sincere congratulations to the Navy Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) freshmen on their graduation this week. They are now midshipmen, and a step closer to becoming officers! They work very hard (Physical training 5 days/week, 10 hours tutoring mandatory/week) and deserve our thank you for serving our country.

I’m all done for this week! Remember you can always e-mail/contact me on facebook if you have any questions.