Air Traffic Control Tower- WMKM

Drebar : "Malacca Tower, Academy 123 ready for departure,
runway 03"

ATC : "Academy 123, cleared for take off"

Drebar : "Cleared for take off, Academy 123"


Hmmm, these are among the communication that you can hear day in and day out at the Air Traffic Control tower, virtually anywhere in the world.

The main purpose of ATC is to provide smooth running of the air traffic and the most important thing - to prevent mid-air collision of the aircraft. You don't want to fly in uncontrollable airspace do you? It's like driving in a city without any traffic lights =)

So, let's take a look at the job, of the men and women behind the scenes whose responsibility is to maintain the safety of the aircraft (apart from pilots and engineers) whenever you board one to travel from point A to point B.

In WMKM (location indicator for Malacca aerodrome), the ATC officers are to provide a safe environment for flight training especially to the MFA cadet pilots, not to mention other various flight operations.

Actually i've never been to any ATC tower before, so this is my first time to visit an air traffic control tower,hehehe =)


The newly-built ATC tower of WMKM.



The boys loitering around the control panel while disturbing the 'akak' ATC, hehehe.



Panel indicating the pressure setting (QNH). Too complex? Okay, basically it's meant for the pilots to have a correct altitude (height) meter setting =)

The slips used by the ATC officers to record the aircraft identification, location, height, destination and so on.

The runway lighting is controlled by this touch-screen monitor. Cool huh? (erkk..can i have one of these for my birthday?) =P

ATC : "Adik-adik, kalau nak belok ke kanan jangan lupa bagi signal"

A29 : (Huh..Sejak bila kapal terbang ada lampu signal ni??)

Happened to see a twin-engine aircraft, the Piper Seneca III on touch down.

Me with my batchmate, Acad.

Visual Control Room

The boys then started to bombard the ATC guy with questions. You can hear so many types of questions, even which is not related to aviation. Trust me. =P

Me with the Chief Ground Instructor (CGI) Lt. Col. (rtd.) Lawrence. The coolest instructor around, hehehe =)

From left : Azman, me, Fahmy, Gary and Shad

We got bored since there's nothing else to do at this time, so we came up with the pose, hahaha

Well, we definitely couldn't miss our tea time =)

Fahmy and his chilli sauces, hahaha~

I'll post some other pics of our second visit to the ATC tower and also the Department of Meteorology later, see ya =)

Batch A29 Photography Session =)

Hello guys, we meet again =)

Today we have been scheduled to have our batch's photography session and our contract signing ceremony (sounds like corporate signing of the MoU, hahaha) and we were looking forward to it.

So, while waiting for Ms. Chua Airin (the "lady boss" here =), we spent some time in the hangar checking out on the aircraft and acting like we are one of those aircraft engineers ~hehehe.

One of the staff came and he voluntarily briefed us regarding the aircraft particularly on the airframe system,engine and also the aircraft propeller, very nice guy though =)


One of my batchmates, Fred was listening attentively during the briefing...(or was he sleeping?) ~hehehe, kiddin'...kiddin' =)



Staff : "Adik-adik, benda alah ni namanya kipas..."

A29 : "Ohhh...kipas..."

The cockpit a.k.a the flight deck of the Piper Warrior PA-28 aircraft. The one that looks like the car steering wheel is called "Control Column".

To pitch up the nose of the aircraft you have to pull back on the control column and push forward to pitch down. Got it? =p

Hmmm...the twin engine aircraft - Piper Seneca III. Wish could own 2 of these...one for daily use and another one for weekend...huh!

It's called twin-engine aircraft coz it has 2 engines, one on its left (referred as "Port") and another one is on its right (referred as "Starboard").

Can u see the propeller on each side of the aircraft? They are driven by the crankshafts of the engines to create propulsion/movement of the aircraft.

Oh yeah, we have one subject on Piston Engine and u don't want me to write about it as there's a long long long story behind it. Trust me. "Magneto? Potato?" =p

Ms. Airin has arrived and now it's time to take some batch photos. While walking on the apron (again, u're not gonna wear this in the kitchen), we saw one PA-28 on final to land. Time to take some photos =p

Three aircraft, two Warriors and one Seneca III holding short on Taxiway Charlie, waiting for Air Traffic Control's instruction to line up before they are cleared to take-off.

Before i forgot, a Taxiway is like a path that connects to a runway and it's numbered in Alphabets. For example A for "Alpha", B for "Bravo" and C for "Charlie". In Malacca, we have 4 taxiways including Taxiway D (or "Delta") =)

A29/09's Batch Photo! We're gonna keep this photo and hang it on the wall, kitchen, garden, toilet, bathroom whatsoever, for the rest of our life. Which one is me? Find yourself. huhuhu~

"Lady bosses" - Ms. Airin and Pn. Sarina in action, calling names to sign the contracts.

From left : Siavash (standing), Fred, Khalif and Remy.

From left : Arvind, Marshall, Hafiz, Mueiz, Fahmy, Segaran, Azman and Rahman ("u'll never improve machaa...")

Afiq, Gary and Adrian =)

Japanese Carp Story

Hurmm...it's been a week now in MFA. It seems that everything starts to settle down and we managed to get ourselves accustomed to the new environment and surrounding, finally.

So, it's time to have some Teh Tarik! Hehehehe~ We decided to go outing somewhere nearby and ended up in one restaurant not far from MFA campus :P

However, a week before, each of the cadets in our batch was requested by the Principal of MFA to bring one Japanese Carp fish to be put inside the fishpond which is just opposite of our hostel.

The purpose is to prevent the disease-carrying mosquito from breeding near the pond as the pond's location is just adjacent to our football field.

The reason why the Principal asked us to get the fish ourselves is for it to have its aesthetic values when we come back and visit the campus in 10-15 years time.

So, with the help of my roommate we finally got the fish (only RM4 each) and it's time to release them into the pond.Huhuhu~ =)




Teh Tarik session! From left, A29 batch Leader - Shad, Khalif and Rashad --> Tiga Teruna Terhangat Di Pasaran, hahaha~

Fahmy Zool and me of course =)



Heading to the pond in the darkness and cold of night...jeng, jeng, jeng.

Bought 3 fish, one for me and another 2 on behalf of the 2 "roses" i.e. Batch A29's "Kajol" a.k.a Hazel and also Deena. Shad bought himself even a larger fish - a 6-foot Japanese Carp! (erkkk.. was it 6-inches?)

"Time to go, bebehh!"

"1...2....."

"There u go!"

Finally, the hypoxic fish are free! Luckily, we managed to have em' released on time otherwise they'll be swimming in 'kuak lentang' (back-stroke). Hahaha~

Seems that mission accomplished and our job is done, at least for now. Well, there are so many more things to experience in life, isn't it? =)

Part 2 : Flight Simulator

Well, let's continue with the 2nd part,alrite? :)

After we've been briefed on the maintenance and technical aspect of the aircraft and hangar walk-about, we were brought to the Simulator room which is located in one of the MFA new buildings.

No, it's NOT the same as the Microsoft Flight Simulator FSX/2004 that u can fly anytime u want. It's the real Flight Simulator whereby the flying hours clocked in the simulator will be recorded in the pilots log-book as flying in the real world.

Flight simulation serves as hands-on experience of every possible events that could occur during flight, such as bad weather conditions, emergency procedures etc. as well as the way to deal with such situations.

It also serves as a mean to develop the flying skills of the cadets without compromising the safety aspect of flight training. Be it known that, 30 hours of flying in the simulator is equivalent to 90 hours of flying in the real world! :)




Waiting for the instructor outside the building :P



"Come, let's go" - the CGI's famous tagline. Hehe~ Inside the classroom, we look forward to hear these words at 12 noon everyday, which indicates - early lunch!! :)



RULES ARE RULES and this is the reason why we have to wait for the instructor instead of dashing off into the room by ourselves

One of the simulators (sims). We have to clock 30 flying hours in the sims and contrary to popular belief, we're going to do real flying first before we start flying in sims :)

The flight simulation's instructor briefed us about the simulator

I reckon this is the sim's manufacturer - Ascent. Hurmm, no "Descent"? What goes up must come down, isn't it? :P

We went back to the classroom shortly after the visit. Got nothing to do so i took some pics of the Piper Seneca III, the twin-engine aircraft on its final, to land =)

Above the runway threshold, like i said before, the sound produced by the engine is soooooo sweettttt, hahahaha

Well, more and more stories to come, stay tuned! ~hehehehe~ adios =)

Part 1 : Hangar Walk-about

Hi, i'm back again :)

Today we had opportunity to visit the "nest of the birdies" i.e. the MFA hangar. Hehehehe~ This is the place where the MFA aircraft, Piper Warrior PA28 and the Piper Seneca III undergo their routine maintenance check, ground servicing and so on.

For ur info, Piper Warrior is a single engine aircraft with only one propeller blade mounted on the nose of the aircraft. We are going to fly this bird for almost 160 hours throughout the 18 months course duration.

On the other hand, the Piper Seneca III is the twin-engine aircraft. The Seneca III design is more sleek and the engine is more powerful (and got nice sound too, hehe) as compared to its younger brother, the Warrior.

Enjoy da pics :)


This is called a Techlog a.k.a technical log. All the preflight and postflight data will be recorded in this techlog such as the takeoff and landing time, the Pilot-In-Command and the occurance of defect on the aircraft (if any) during the flying sortie.



Niner-Mike-Kilo-Sierra-Alpha : Registration number of one of the Piper Warriors

The fuselage a.k.a body of the aircraft

The landing gear underneath the wing of the Warrior. It's also a place where a tube known as Pitot-tube is fitted =P

Maintenance schedule

Status of the birdies...single and available,huhuhu~

Hmmmm.....wannabe :x

The Chief Ground Instructor. He's COOL, trust me =)

Niner-Mike-Sierra-Kilo-Quebeq on the apron

The flight deck of the Warrior...olskool rulezz!! =P

Well, a bunch of cadets calling themselves "Pilots". Nonetheless, these are real pilots, no 'mugup' version here! ~hahahaha~

And the journey to be continued... :)