Scott James Remnant

Continuing my mission to put together a kick-ass team to develop the Ubuntu Desktop, the following position is now up on the website:

Posting Date & ID: September 2007 UDD
Job Location: Your home with broadband. Some international travel will be required.
Job Summary: To adapt and develop the GNOME desktop to improve the Ubuntu user experience.

Key responsibilities and accountabilities:

• Use open source development methods to create, select and adapt software to produce innovative user experiences and address the common problems of desktop computing
• Extend the desktop platform as necessary to support development
• Work with designers, artists and other developers to develop ideas and complete the project
• Involve the community of development projects, teams and Ubuntu supporters to incorporate a range of perspectives and ideas
• Take ownership of many aspects of the desktop user experience (”look and feel”) in Ubuntu
• Follow projects and trends in user interface design in the open source world, integrate the best technologies into Ubuntu and ensure their quality
• Analyse, triage and respond to bug reports

Requirements skills and experience:

• A keen and insightful eye for user interaction
• A passion for intuitive, usable and visually appealing interfaces
• A strong desire to produce distinctive ideas that stand Ubuntu out from the crowd
• Experience with the GNOME development platform and desktop environment and technologies such as GTK+
• Some experience with mainstream graphics technologies such as OpenGL and Cairo in the C programming language
• Ability to be productive in a globally distributed team through self-discipline and self-motivation, delivering according to a schedule
• Familiarity with open source development tools and methodology, especially those in common use for Ubuntu and Debian package maintenance

How to apply

Please send a cover letter and CV with references to hr@canonical.com. Please indicate in your submission the role for which you are applying. We prefer to receive applications and CVs/Resumes in either PDF or plain text format.

Another offer of an extended lesson this morning, due to an earlier cancellation, but unfortunately I had too much work to do so had to decline. Happily traffic was almost non-existent on the drive down, so was half an hour early anyway.

Today’s lesson was the last of the “basics” - turning. Obviously I’ve already done quite a bit of that so far, but this would be the lesson that ticked off the formal exercise in my log book.

Checked the plane while John wrote the briefing up on the board as usual, today we’d be in Victor November again; which is fast becoming my “regular” plane.

No problems with the checks today, they’re starting to become fairly natural and am finding that the procedure is sinking into memory and I’m using the list to check myself as I go rather than following it.

Taxied to the hold for Runway 36, handling the Radio Traffic myself and had a nice shocking surprise when John announced that I’d be doing the take-off today!

Since 36 has left-hand circuits, and there was little wind, our into-wind checks where done facing up the runway. So after finishing them, we turned round to the left so we could scan the circuit before resuming the centre-line to the holding point.

Held while another plane turned onto final, to give me plenty of time to do the take-off and once that was down, the sky was clear so lined up.

I’ve followed John through on take-offs for the last few weeks, so knew what to do; full power, hold the centre line, and then pull back gently on the stick when we reach 65 knots and adopt the climb attitude.

And that was that, up in the air and a turn to 030° to avoid a noise-sensitive village, holding the climb attitude, turned onto the crosswind leg, levelled out and onto the downwind leg before departing the circuit and heading towards Shipton-upon-Stour.

And onto the lesson, turning onto a reference point and then turning onto a selected heading. First John demonstrated a turn to each direction so I could see the nose attitude required, and then I repeated the exercises.

No problems here; already done enough to know the general form and had pretty quickly mastered it with reference points and headings.

At one point, while we were turning, John spotted an RAF Hawk flying below us and had me roll out of the turn so I could see it. Later I found out that there’s a big exercise in Gloucestershire which that must have been heading to.

Turning exercises were followed by some revision of climbing and descending, especially with flaps. No problem with setting the switch the wrong way this time, and was able to observe the effect much easier.

Nearly time to head home, so John decided to try a test for me and asked me where I thought Stratford-upon-Avon was. I checked the compass to see which direction we were heading (East), and out of the window to figure out roughly where we were (south-east of Long Marston); so Stratford had to be ahead and to our left. Sure enough, I could make out a town of the right shape over there, and the white buildings near Wellesbourne airfield, so confidently pointed.

“OK then,” John said. “Take us there.”

Turned to the heading, and as we approached John made the call to request joining instructions from the airfield. I’d been right, yay!

I lined us up to pass over the end of the runway at 2000ft QFE, while John left me to it; in fact, I ended up doing the majority of the join and descent myself with John taking control once we were on final.

Another very good lesson! I’m really starting to feel like I’m in control of the plane.

Two lessons booked next week, so we’ll be covering Slow Flight and Stalling with some revision on turning whilst climbing and descending. Looking at the exercises, it may be only a few weeks before I’m into circuits!

P/UT Hours Today 0:55, Total 5:20

A cancellation opened up a slot with my instructor first thing this morning, which I jumped at to make up for the lost lesson this week. Normally I try not to book the first lesson of the day; you have the disadvantage of not being able to phone in advance to check the weather, and also the general fact that the weather might not be as good first thing as later.

This held true today! I set off early to try and counter the expected bank-holiday traffic, and made it to the airfield with plenty of time before the start of the lesson. John was pinning up the NOTAMs and forecast for the day “Ah, you know what you can do!” he said on seeing me. I knew what was coming, “Check the plane?”

A new plane today, G-WAVI; took my time over the checks, since these really were the first of the day and I wanted to be sure. These are becoming more natural now, and I remembered to remove the (very obvious) guards over the pitot tubes and static sources as well as took some time checking for water in the fuel. John came out to hand me a chamois leather, cloth and bottle of Windowlene to clean the windows and I also took the opportunity to rub the bugs off the leading edge of the wing.

A quick briefing for the lesson plan, which we’d already done the introduction for last week; climbing and descending. Main thing to remember is that pitch controls airspeed, and power controls rate of ascent or descent - and not the other way round as common sense might suggest.

Handled the initial radio traffic myself today and taxied out to the holding point; first time on runway three-six, normally we come back down the other way, and this meant some noise-abatement procedures to be obeyed. Followed through on the take-off again, and round the circuit until we departed heading south.

Unfortunately while I’d been doing the checks, and while being briefed, the clear blue skies vanished and a low bank of murky cloud had blown over. The base of this was just above 2,000ft so there was still some room to do the lesson, but the horizon wasn’t clear or distinct anymore.

Several exercises for the lesson today, entering a climb, maintaining it, adding and removing flap, then leveling off. And the same in reverse for descending. For some reason today, I kept flipping the flap switch the wrong way; when asked to add the second stage of flap while climbing, I removed the first stage instead. Decided to do the sequence again, and got it right the second time.

Then again when descending, added the first stage just fine; but when asked to add the second stage, I took the first stage off again! And to compound the error, I was so busy adjusting the plane for the expected effect of adding the flap, I forgot to check out of the window (and the indicator instrument) to see what I’d done to the flaps; so was pointing at the ground and descending fairly fast before I realised my error. Quickly corrected; and another mental note for not just flipping switches and actually double-check what I’d changed.

Little mistakes aside, I found much of the lesson much easier this time. The handling of the plane is becoming more natural by feel, and am able to hold the attitude and airspeed I want. The occasionally obscured horizon added an extra interesting element, but it’s something I’ll encounter after training so I was glad to have experience of it.

We had a little time and we were a little far out, so a little introduction to turning followed on the way back. First though, an evil navigation question “So, which way is Stratford then?” a quick glance out of the window at our location, and at the compass, I pointed and was only a handful of degrees off. Not bad! I turned towards it and kept control as we performed an overhead join, and then entered the circuit.

First sign of traffic for the day as there were a number of planes in the circuit. Some spare brain power has clearly been made available, since I was able to listen to the radio and identify where aircraft would be based on the R/T traffic whilst still maintaining control and performing lookouts.

John took control into the landing and gave it back for the taxi off the runway, and for the after landing checks. Followed through the list, and forgot to stop at the end and started the closing down checks! Must be because I’m used to doing the pre-take off checks immediately following the into-wind engine checks.

“If I were evil,” John said, “I’d let you finish those and then say ‘Get yourself out of that one!’” Much laughter over the idea of walking back to the school leaving the plane parked on the hold, as I taxied back to the school. Picked a parking spot and brought the plane to a halt, and then did the close-down checks and switched the engine off.

A good lesson today! Next week will be turning, which I’ve already done quite a bit of anyway; and maybe an introduction to slow flight.

Spent the rest of the morning at the airfield; first grabbing a second breakfast at the Cafe and then hanging out at the club and chatting to a few other members, before heading over to the market that takes over Runway 05/23 every Saturday to see what it was like.

P/UT Hours Today 0:50, Total 4:25

First up, an apology; the lesson was a few days ago on Friday and I’m a little tardy in getting it typed up, so I apologise if I’ve forgotten anything.

I’d booked two lessons this week, since I wasn’t sure I’d be able to take one next week and wanted to cover the possibility of bad weather and going without a lesson for a couple of weeks. As it turned out, this was a good plan since Tuesday’s was cancelled.

Happily the weather looked for Friday’s lesson, and I woke up expecting to be flying; I thought that I’d done pretty well so far with only one cancellation due to bad weather and was worried that this run of good luck had to come to an end.

Looking out of the window in the morning left me a little nervous, a dark cloud had settled over Birmingham despite the weather claiming to be quite clear skies for most of the day. And then the phone rang, and was my instructor calling; I feared the worst.

Happily it was good news! The student booked in before me had cancelled and John wanted to know whether I wanted a double lesson. I jumped at the chance; I’ve wanted a little more time in the air and here was the perfect opportunity to get it.

Arrived at the start of the slot, John had already written up the briefing on the board but first sent me out to do the walkaround. Today was in Victor November again, my favourite of the two Robins I’ve flown so far. Took my time doing the walkaround, and found it much easier to remember what needed checking this time. In fact, the only thing I forgot was to check the Stall Vane whilst checking the lights so I had to check that separately before switching the battery off for the external checks.

The briefing went by pretty quickly, having learned the books I was able to answer the questions and follow the plan for the day’s lessons, so John was happy to get in the air and see how things went. Today’s lesson was to be flying Straight And Level, with different power settings and then with flaps extended.

Walked out to the plane and got on with the checks while John got himself strapped in. Full fuel tanks today, so no need to wait for the refuelling. Engine didn’t want to start the first couple of times, since this was her first flight of the day, but was running soon enough. It was then time for the Radio call, which I was to make this time.

“Wellesbourne Information, Golf Whiskey Alpha Victor November, Request radio check and taxi instructions for local. Two people on board.”

The reply came back and I jotted the details down on my kneeboard. The take-off instruction was a little unusual, we were to hold for Runway 05 with Runway 23 in use; John explained that we would be asked to backtrack up the runway and turn around for take-off.

Taxied to the holding point and performed the steering, brake, rudder and into-wind engine checks along the way. We were held at the holding point other aircraft took off and landed, and then instructed, as John said would happen, to backtrack up the runway. He warned that it was very likely that while doing this we’d be asked to get off the runway and hold on the crossing one while another plane landed, and sure enough this happened. He took the controls briefly to taxi us to safety.

Followed through on the takeoff again, a little more hurried this time due to the shorter runway but largely the same as last time; and we headed off to the South again.

Lots to learn today, especially in setting the aircraft’s power, speed and attitude by feel rather than by studying the dials while manipulating the controls. More revision on trim settings and the limitation and operation of flaps.

Several exercises on the main topic of the day, selecting and holding a straight and level flight; various power settings were used, and also the use of flaps. I found the job much easier today, trimming is becoming more natural and I’m having a much easier time judging the necessary attitude for the plane.

Yet more introductions; weaving to clear the space under our wings, FREDA checks and the use of carb heat.

And since we had plenty of time, and I seemed to be getting the hang of straight and level flight, we did some introductory work on the next two exercises; climbing and descending, holding an airspeed while performing both.

Towards the end of our lesson, I spotted a PA-28 off to our right holding position with us; but it shortly disappeared completely. We assumed that they’d seen us as well, and changed direction.

We headed back to the airfield and performed an overhead join, entering the circuit as usual; when I spotted the PA-28 again. Again it was on our right, and seemingly in the circuit except much tighter and faster. In fact, its circuit was so tight that it was in finals before we were, and in the end we performed a go-around to avoid landing on top of it.

A thoroughly enjoyable lesson, not too long or too short and a good amount of material accomplished.

P/UT Hours Today 1:15, Total 3:35

Judging by tomorrow’s weather forecast, I’ll be having my first cancellation. Can’t say that I’m surprised or disappointed, since I’ve been rather expecting this.

EGBB 131647Z 140024 18010KT 9999 BKN025
TEMPO 0018 7000 RA BKN012
BECMG 0306 19018G28KT
PROB30 TEMPO 0312 4000 +RA BKN008
PROB30 TEMPO 1016 19020G38KT
BECMG 1720 22017KT

Cloud at or lower than 2,500 ft all day with rain showers and a 30% probability of heavy rain.

On the bright-side, the week-ahead forecast doesn’t look too bad for Friday right now; so maybe booking two lessons this week was prescient.

Update: as expected, the flight was cancelled.

Another day of clear skies, my run of good fortune with the weather can’t last for much longer. In fact, looking at the forecast for the coming week, it looks like it’s at an end and I’m due some cancellations!

Arrived at the airfield early and had some lunch in the cafe while watching people doing touch-and-gos, go arounds, and other usual bits of circuit practice.

I must admit that I’ve been feeling slightly impatient about getting on with things in the lessons and wanting to be doing circuit practice and even cross-country jaunts myself. Obviously I know that all that’s no good if I can’t even hold the plane in a straight line, and these things have to be done one step at a time.

Today’s lesson was to be the effect of flaps, the control surface on the inner side of the wing’s trailing edge. Having read the first Thom book cover-to-cover on first buying it, and re-reading it before and after each lesson along with the equivalent Pratt book I was given by the club I felt pretty comfortable with the theory of them and was confident about the practical.

John asked how I felt about doing the checks, we’d done them together last week and I’d read up on them again at home so felt fairly confident about being able to do them. So I walked out to check over the aircraft, G-WAVV again this week, while he wrote up today’s lesson on the board.

Interrupted when doing the checks by somebody who’d just booked out Victor Victor and thought they had it; they went back to check, and took a different plane instead.

Had to go around a couple of times as I remembered things on one side that I hadn’t checked on the other, but was pretty happy that I’d checked everything I was told to. Back into the school for the briefing, and all the reading I’d done had set me in good stead since after just a few minutes, John declared that I clearly knew all this and let’s get flying!

Hurrah, a whole hour before the end of the lesson so maybe a good length of flying time this week!

Did the pre-start checks myself, and started the engine while John got himself strapped in. Made a slight error in that I didn’t have the parking brake on hard enough, so we lept forward when the engine started. Mental note to check that harder next time, and keep my feet on the brake pedals just in case.

The plane needed some fuel, so I taxied us down to the bay and parked us by the pumps; carrying out the pre-stop checks and stopping the engine there. Finding taxying easier this time, much more natural feeling holding the pressure on the pedals to hold the line rather than assuming that we’d carry on in a straight line if I release them.

Now just a matter of waiting for someone from the tower to come down to switch the pumps on for us… and waiting, and waiting. Precious flying time being wasted with no sign of anybody. John gave them another call on the radio, and eventually they came down. John filled the plane up, and then I got the pre-start checks underway and even thought to hold the brake pedals down while he climbed in (since we hadn’t had the parking brake on in case of fire).

While we were waiting, the runway direction had changed and we were to take off on 18 rather than 36, so had to taxi all the way back across the airfield again. Still, good practice and I guess it’s no good learning to fly if you can’t get to the start of the runway in the first place. Rudder and steering checks at the start of the dis-used runway and turned into wind to do the pre-takeoff checks.

Lined up for take-off and John asked me to follow through on the controls as he did it. In the end, it turns out that I was moving things in the right direction anyway so he let me direct the control and I did almost half of work myself! Another Robin had taken off just before us and turned to the west for a training flight (our usual direction) so we headed south instead to keep out of his way.

Things seemed much more natural and comfortable today, some of the basic stuff has obviously sunk in so I was more relaxed. Instead of trying to correct every small movement the plane made, I was just keeping the wings level after any major deviation. As a result, a much smoother ride!

Some testing on the throttle, I’ll need to know by feel and sound how many revs the engine is doing so John asked me to set various power settings while hiding the dial. Nailed every single one of them, with no idea how; I guess the previous knowledge of how much the control moves has been remembered since I was able to set the different power settings pretty accurately.

Looped around Shipton-upon-Stour towards Long Marston and some work on the effects of flap; setting them, pitching the nose down and increasing power. Noticed that the plane was much more stable with lots of flap, but much harder to make it change direction!

Turned towards Stratford and did a sneak-peak at next week’s lessons, flying straight and level. I don’t think I did too badly here, nose attitude is definitely becoming easier to judge and I’m finding the trim wheel much less difficult to control.

Three other aircraft in the circuit on landing, the busiest yet. Post-landing checks, taxi’d us back to park and then engine shut-off.

P/UT Hours Today 0:40, Total 2:20

Beautiful flying weather this morning, nothing more than a light breeze and virtually clear blue skies. Didn’t worry about phoning ahead, and set off straight after dropping my partner at work so that I’d be there in plenty of time; mindful of the traffic last week!

Turns out that I didn’t even have to worry about that, the traffic in the air above Wellesbourne was worse than on the motorway down there. Arrived with plenty of time to relax before my lesson, and sat out in the sun while John was up with somebody else.

Todays lesson was on the effect of the controls (elevators, ailerons and rudder), both their primary effect (pitch, roll and yaw respectively) and the secondary effects that they also have (change in airspeed, yaw and roll). We’d also be doing some examination of the different feel of the controls at different airspeeds, as well as some more work on trim.

I’d already got the general hang of it from my previous two lessons, and had been reading up at home, so I was able to ask a few quite specific questions about the different effects.

Flying today was in G-WAVN, my third plane in as many weeks. Same type as Victor Victor last week, but with a standard nav/comm unit rather than the fancy GPS that Victor Victor had.

The lesson started with a walkround of the plane, checking the various surfaces and components to make sure there was no damage, etc. There seems a lot to remember here, but the process was quite methodical and there’s a handy written checklist anyway, so I’m pretty confident that I’ll have that licked.

After the checks, we taxied to the holding point for more checks with me controlling the rudder (though I’m sure John was helping correct my changes along the way) and then a quick takeoff on 18 and we were up in the air.

This is started to almost feel natural now; no apprehension in the takeoff and I found I was much more able to both enjoy it and pay attention to other things going on. I was even able to follow John on the controls to see how it was done. Turned towards Long Marston again and out to the usual training ground. Found I was much more familiar with the area this time, but again was surprised how quickly we covered the distance to it.

The lesson itself was pretty straight forward, I made various changes on the controls and observed the change in attitude of the aircraft and any secondary effect the change had. Some work on trimming, which I’m still finding a little tricky to get right; mostly because I can’t quite get the nose on the horizon properly, but I felt it came together better than last time. And finally on the way back, some demonstrations of the different feel of the controls at different speeds; firm and responsive when going fast, but sloppy when slow.

A moment of radio hilarity on the way home as a passing aircraft reported themselves to be “over Green Farm”, leading to a little argument between them and the tower over where exactly that was (tower having never heard of it). In the end they settled on “3 miles South” and the aircraft passed without further argument.

Followed John on the controls through the landing, and we were down again. A relatively short time in the air, due to the longer briefing and pre-flight checks, with more homework to do on the effects of flaps and on straight and level flight.

P/UT Hours Today 0:30, Total 1:40

After the recent heavy rainfall and flooding, I really didn’t expect to be flying today; especially since the airfield was a little wet a few days ago. The weather forecast throughout the week was quite hopeful, fairly consistently indicating no worse than light showers, and this remained true this morning.

Of course, the sky outside didn’t quite match the weather. Woke up to a dreary grey sky out of the bedroom window, but strangely, a blue sky out of the bathroom window. It was going to be that kind of day. Phoned the school to find out that they were flying this morning, but that the report was changeable so there were no guarantees.

Since I had the day off, and needed to sort out proper membership anyway, I figured that I would drive down and if the weather wasn’t flyable I could at least have lunch in the cafe and pick up my log book, etc.

I set off with what I thought was plenty of time to get there and have a snack or relax before the flight. This didn’t go quite according to plan. It turns out that I need to add another “pre-flight check”; it’s all very well watching the weather and NOTAMs, but it helps to cast ones eye at the ground and read the traffic report! Everyone seemed to want to park on the M42 today, so I made it to the school five minutes late rather than half an hour early like I planned.

No matter, John was ready and waiting so we jumped straight into the briefing. Since my trial flight was in a PA28, and this and future flights were to be in the HR200 Robin, he decided that this would be the same trial flight again to allow me to get used to the different aircraft and controls.

This turned out to be a good idea, since the handling was somewhat different from the Warrior. Even the controls were different, the Robin being a “stick and rudder” plane, rather than the Warrior’s control wheel. I’d also felt not entirely in control of the Warrior, I didn’t like the feel of banking it too steeply and couldn’t get the hang of trimming it at all!

The wind was blowing straight across the main runway, so instead we took off from 23, backtracking up it first. One of the advantages of flying in the week being that there’s no market stalls in the way!

Once in the air, John handed control to me and I tried out some turns in the Robin. This felt much better than last time, I was able to quite comfortably get the plane into a good turn in both directions, and John showed me how to use the rudder to ease the feeling of my bum sliding out of the window.

I then tried a climb, and a descent; again the Robin felt much more like it wanted to go where I put it. Yet to figure out quite where the nose is supposed to be relative to the horizon, but I know that’ll be handled sub-conciously soon enough. Trimming was a doddle, unlike the Warrior where I had to search around the wheel for ages, this was easy to feel the difference with even the tiniest turns of the wheel.

While playing around, John talked about some of the features we might use for navigating. Being a Southern boy, and not knowing the area, there wasn’t much I could name myself so he pointed out various things we might use such as Long Marston airfield and the Fosse Way. “If you’re completely lost, just follow the Fosse Way and turn left at the roundabout. Trust me, it works!”

Did some descending turns, and all too quickly, it was time to finish the lesson and head back to the airfield. I must have seemed much more at ease with this plane since John commented that he thought I’d take to flying and learn very quickly!

Landed on 23 again, and taxied the plane back to its parking spot.

Afterwards, while I had my lunch in the cafe and listened to the radio traffic, I realised I hadn’t noticed it at all during the flight. I’d been concentrating too hard on everything else. Other student blogs have talked about the sheer amount of information you have to process, and how it seems overwhelming at first, but becomes natural after a while.

P/UT Hours Today 0:40, Total 1:10

Havoc’s keynote at GUADEC was extremely interesting, especially for how it polarised the people present.

Several people seemed very upset with the notion that f-spot should be replaced by flickr, but I think that was a problem with the way that Havoc presented the message, and not the underlying idea.

Instead consider f-spot and flickr as sharing the same collection of data, and being two different ways to view and manage it; with changes from one appearing in the other. The mechanism isn’t important.

Consider the following:

• While out and about, I take a picture with my camera phone.
• On coming home, the phone is within bluetooth range of my laptop (with both enabled).
• The laptop sees the new picture, so announces the availability of the new picture.
• f-spot is subscribed to those announcements, and causes the picture to be copied into my local f-spot library, with the meta-data adjusted to indicate the local cache (as well as the origin).
• flickr is also subscribed, so the picture is automatically uploaded to my flickr account.
• At some point in the past, a friend on Facebook changed their mobile number; this was detected and the change announced.
• e-d-s was subscribed, so automatically adjusted my contacts.
• And my phone sync service is subscribed, so now my phone is in range, its contact list is updated too.

Now, isn’t that cool?

Some pictures taken by David during my first flight…