What the heck happened to our fabulous summer weather? It seems like August was pretty much a bust for flying. I had planned to spend the weekdays at the lake so that I could be in town for the weekends to enjoy the flying. It seems that the weekend weather simply sucked! Oh well, at least I got a good chunk of flying done in July.

I was able to get a little flying in, including a couple of nice evening flights last week. Unfortunately, with school now in full swing and work still required on the cabin to prepare it for the freezing temperatures to come, September looks like it will be a pretty slow flying month as well. Fortunately, there are a few good events going on this Saturday morning that I should be able to partake in, and the forecast looks good…

By the way, if anyone is interested in a Saturday or Sunday destination, I’d be happy to pick up folks from the Bashaw airstrip for a breakfast run or even a round of golf. Be sure to give me a shout first to make sure I’m there. Also, I believe that Bashaw requires prior permission before flying in.

As I mentioned, last week I started back to school after an 18-year hiatus! Wow, what an experience. Unfortunately, it didn’t get off to a great start. An orientation session was scheduled for Thursday, August 23. I showed up about 20 minutes early for the 9 AM start, only to find out I was 40 minutes late.

As I sneaked into the back of the presentation, I couldn’t help but notice the eyes of all the instructors tracking me to my seat. JUST GREAT! I’m late, and everyone knows it… after all, there are not a lot of 40-year-old students to confuse me with. I double-checked the postcard that informed me of the orientation and, sure enough, it said the start time was 9 AM.

Fortunately, the presenter later informed the group that there had been two sets of postcards sent out, one stating 8 AM and the other 9 AM, which meant that those who arrived “late” were really on time.

Time seems to be a big deal at the SAIT Art Smith Aero Center. Transport Canada will remove 20 months of the 48-month apprenticeship if you complete the training with a 70% or better in all courses and a 95% attendance record. This means that attendance is taken at the start of every class and recorded. It amounts to a total of only 100 hours of time that can be missed over the four 16-week terms.

After only a week of school, we’re already into sheet metal and machine tools projects. The instructors seem to be a great crew and are very interested in helping students succeed. This is quite a difference from my experience at university, where they simply don’t seem to care. With small class sizes, the instructors are keen to learn everyone’s names and backgrounds. It certainly fosters a feeling of teamwork.

The course is a fairly even mix of hands-on and classroom work. There are 10 hours of sheet metal and composite labs per week, as well as a 3-hour lab on metalworking (we’re building a C-clamp), plus a 2-hour electrical workshop.

The air regulations course and applied mathematics are self-paced, computer training courses. The courses are well designed to provide the skills needed to work on aircraft.

In addition to the book list (which amounts to about $400), there is also a tool list. To help with the tool requirement, SAIT hosts a “tool day,” which occurred last Wednesday. Vendors such as MAC and Snap-On come on-site with special deals available to students to help outfit their kits. Although I have plenty of tools to meet the requirements, I didn’t think it would be practical to truck the tools back and forth to school. MAC had put together a nice package that met all the course requirements at a very reasonable cost, so I opted to go that route. Besides, it’s always fun to buy new tools.

Safety is also a big part of the training. The school provides all students with their own coveralls, respirators, ear plugs, and safety glasses at no cost (OK, I’m sure we pay for it in our tuition).

We also do a course dedicated to shop safety, including WHMIS (Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System).

To say that I was a bit nervous going back to school with a bunch of kids would be an understatement! Although I am the oldest person in my class, there are a number of other mature students in the school. After only a week, I’m already starting to get into a comfortable routine. In fact, last week was the first time in over two years that I worked a 5-day week, so the transition will take a bit to get used to…

As you may have noticed, we’re a bit light on articles this month. It’s been a busy month for everyone, but I hope that we can get some interesting articles and stories covering the summer’s flying season in the next few issues. See you all next week for the September 13 meeting!