This corrugated stuff intrigues me. The best I could come up with is a co-relation with the standard corrugated boxes. The corrugation gives boxes structural rigidity and end-to-end strength along the "flutes" (go to wikipedia and search for "corrugated box"). This same concept applied to the ailerons would make sense. If you get another answer, please do share with me.

With this article, I've made a few changes on the website. The most obvious are the blue shaded links on the top of the page, a new entry "NA Weather", and some other minor cosmetic changes. The Weather page has some images and links commonly used to get the weather around Vancouver, and we check these before every flight.

A major change is the introduction of "categories". I use the words "categories" and "topics" inter-changably. I can now segregate my articles into different topics. All existing articles go into a topic called "General". For now, I've added only 1 new topic : "Aviation Tidbits". In the future, I will be able to add any number of new topics. The topic to which an article belongs is highlighted with the article. This article belongs to "General", and the same is highlighted on the green bar above, to the left of the date and time this article was published.

On the main page, all articles will be displayed, irrespective of the topic they belong to. It is possible to view articles from a particular topic alone, by selecting appropriately from the list on the top right of the page (just above the calendar). So currently I have 2 topics, General, and Aviation Tidbits.

If you only want to see a particular topic each time you visit, you can bookmark a direct access to that topic instead of having to open the main page and then selecting the topic. For example, if you only want to see the Aviation Tidbits topic, then you should first select the topic from the list, and bookmark the resulting page. This new bookmark will take you directly to the respective topic page, bypassing the main page.

The main page and any topic page displays upto 10 articles written during the current month. Older articles can be viewed by navigating from the calendar section - just below the topic selection list.

I made these changes in an attempt to enhance the website, by giving it better structure and usability. If while using this website, you should find any cosmetic or functional deficiencies, please do write to me (use the link above).

Cheers
Mayur Poddar

It's official, my partial flight test is now scrapped. I have to do the entire flight test all over again. With another examiner. And who is it going to be this time? Aha! My CFI of course! He has agreed that my case is twisted, and will give it priority now. We're planning it out, and because he IS busy all the time, and the weather is not giving us any good day in the next week, we may spread it across 2 days - for the ground section and the flight section. The flight section will be an ad-hoc thing, any day the weather gives us 2-3 hours, we'll go up and get it done.

Anyways, I've been getting lazy with the cooking now. Last week was super, with some delicious Kadhai Paneer. Somehow it turned out good. So I've got 2 more blocks of paneer, and I'm going to give Paneer Tikka a shot. This involves a lot more than my typical cooking abilities, but I'm positive I can make it work. I love paneer.

Monday morning I woke up with a tremendous stiff neck and upper back. I got a hot pack, 15 minutes in the hot tub, 15 in a sauna, and 15 in a super hot shower. That gave me enough to be able to move around. Then I got a chance to test my acupressure skills on myself. It worked surprisingly well. What the heck, it's supposed to. By bedtime, I was so much better. I tell you, acupressure is such a neat thing. There's only some lingering stiffness, another round of hot pack and acupressure tonight and it'll be gone.

The one other development is that I've started to consider a winter break, go back to India, study and write the CPL exams in India, and then come back and complete the license here in Canada. As of now, I can do this. DGCA (India's civil aviation authority) allows me to write the CPL written exams to convert my Canadian license to an Indian license, even before I actually have a Canadian license. So I can go and write the exams in India now, without having completed the CPL in Canada. Later, I can come back, complete the CPL in Canada, and go back to India. This allowance is scheduled to change, come April-2007. After which, I will not be allowed to write the exams unless I have the CPL. There are other time constraints, cash-flow issues, license expiry and medical validity situations to be considered. Overall, it's a playoff between the most efficient use of my time over the next year, and the least expense that will have to be borne. And my choices are: stay in Canada till I complete the CPL then go to India and do the exams there OR go to India now to write the exams and come back and finish the CPL. Lots to think about, lots to consider, and then decide.

In the meantime, I completed an online Weight and Balance Calculator for the aircrafts at our school, Pro IFR. This is useful only for those who are in aviation. If you are, do have a look at this website:
http://pro.poddu.com

I'm now going to start writing about my flights and any aviation tidbits that I come across. Yes, I should have written about my flights from the beginning, I've had such a time, so many exciting experiences, but I was just too busy or plain lazy. But it's better late than never.

Cheers
Mayur Poddar