Flying As Art

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the art of flight

Flying As Art
I sometimes like to refer to flying as a form of art. In fact, I’m not alone in the sentiment; many have written beautifully about our craft.

Frankly I love the analogy. It allows your imagination to take over. You might visualize the sky as a canvas and your airplane as the paintbrush.

Like art, your intention, your actions and your movements need to be deliberate and smooth. I think this subtle point is missed by some of our comrades, who ratchet around the sky with the grace of an air hammer.
Many good instructors will teach in a way that instills this artisan spirit in their students and it shows.

I would suggest that even if you aren’t an instructor you can lead by example. It is always apparent when you fly with someone who uses their right brain a little more than the average joe. These folks can “whisper” to the airplane and it responds.

And just because you are making your flying into an art form doesn’t mean that you are just droning around straight and level, never exceeding 30 degrees of bank. On the contrary, opening up the envelope and exploring the less-used dimensions is where the magic really happens. This type of flying can be aggressive and smooth at the same time and that is truly art.

So the next time you break the surly bonds, take a moment to remind yourself that you are creating something beautiful.

If you want to feed your inner-artisan, here’s some recommended reading:

Air Show Love

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air show love

Air Show Love
One of the unfortunate byproducts of sequestration is the impact it will have on this Summer’s air show season. According the International Council of Air Shows (ICAS), 10s of millions of folks attend air shows annually and it competes as one of the largest outdoor sporting events in the U.S. 

Most of the larger shows use the military to drawn in the big crowds. This year there are no U.S. jet teams flying and I doubt they will even provide static display aircraft. The net effect is less air shows across our great land as promoters cancel fearing big losses. Plus the price to fill up the schedule just went up because the military teams were completely free. It’s a really bad situation for those in this small, family industry. Of course, they don’t have any lobbying power so they won’t get any help in Washington. 
 
F-18 Hornet Air Show

A lucky shot with my crappy 35mm camera – OKC 1989

The individual sponsors may get nervous too, worried that their advertising dollars won’t reach the huge crowds that frequent the shows. This spells disaster for the performers. With less shows and less sponsorship, our air show industry could be a shell of its former self in a few short years. 
 
Frankly, I support pulling back on this kind of government spending when we are $16 Trillion in debt (as of this writing and climbing). But I don’t agree that this industry should suffer so the government has money to ship to “friends” overseas and for our own inflated welfare programs and hugely expensive bureaucracies . This really irritates me that my money is being so misappropriated. I could go on-and-on about this, but I’ll save you the rant. Continue reading →

Batteries included: The simplified future of electric flight

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eflight

When I think about where we will be in 20 or 30 years in terms of general aviation, it becomes apparent that we will need to be adopters of technology. We have thankfully already seen this shift start to occur in GA. The experimental segment has already been on the cutting edge, with electric flight. And experimentals have led the way in terms of avionics, which change so rapidly you would have to redo your instrument panel at least once a year to stay on top. Certified airplanes aren’t far behind in spite of the regulatory noose around their necks. 

The real future will be all about electric power for our airplanes. The fact is fossil fuels just aren’t a viable long term solution. We need a real breakthrough. A game-changer that will propel, no pun intended, us into the future. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Lycosaurous, but I’m respectful of it’s vulnerability to failure, plus it’s expensive and very heavy.  
 nasa eflight research
Safety
Image how our grandkids will cringe at stories about us flying around with highly explosive liquid onboard our airplanes. We don’t think much of it, but in the future this risk will be null and void. Plus electric motors might be so reliable that in the future in-flight engine failures won’t even be a training item – ok I wouldn’t go that far. 
 
Costs
With the escalating costs of flying being almost directly tied to fuel, electric flight will make flying exponentially less expensive – a point that should serve to revolutionize general aviation.

Something Old, Something New…Light Sport Aircraft

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 tecnam versus J3 cub
Tecnam P92 and the Piper J-3 Cub – brothers from different mothers
There are plenty of articles that talk about the very specific niche that is the Light Sport Aircraft (LSA), but I thought it would be fun to discuss it from a little different perspective.

One of the interesting things to look at is the extreme differences between the old and the new LSA aircraft. When I say “old” I would like to go back to 1946, the year after WWII ended. Back then dozens of neat little personal airplanes were built to address the predicted post-war boom in light aircraft. I guess they thought all those warriors coming back to the States would need something to do. The boom didn’t really happen, but the airplanes were built and are still proudly serving us today. 
 
The “new” LSA aircraft is predominately purpose-built for this class or they are repurposed from Europe’s equivalent to Light Sport. Most are modern construction (aluminum or composite) and many have glass cockpits. For this discussion, I’m purposely excluding the experimentals that fall into the LSA category, although there are several really fun airplanes in this group. 

Blogging In Formation Series: My Journey to Flight

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space shuttleMy Journey to Flight

As part of the Blogging In Formation Series this is my post about how I was drawn to flying.

All of us have a different story of how we came to be involved in aviation. For some, you are just starting this journey, for others, it has been a life’s quest.

I came upon this path in a pretty conventional way. Like a lot of kids, Captain Eric Auxier included, I wanted to be an astronaut. Born in 1970, I missed the Space Race, but the Space Shuttle was heating up as I was coming of age and that coupled with sci-fi really got my juices flowing to go beyond our Earth.

At the time, only a few non-pilots flew into space, so it was a natural progression to see myself as a fighter pilot as a first step towards my end goal. As I peeled back the onion on what it would have meant to be a fighter pilot, the excitement of that almost eclipsed the original goal of becoming an astronaut.

I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma and no one in my family flew or even knew anyone that flew. Consequently, announcing I would be a pilot/astronaut some day was akin to saying I was going to join Heaven’s Gate; luckily my parents were really supportive – still are. 

Viper F16

Unfortunately it was for naught as bad eyesight precluded me from flying fighters. So I switched gears. I thought if I couldn’t get my thrills as a Viper Driver, I would go to work as an airline pilot and buy myself a Pitts Special. This was the vision I held in my head for over a decade and that is almost what happened.

The best part was taking this journey with my best friend Shawn. We both wanted to be fighter pilot/astronauts. We embarked on flying lessons in our early teens, but our families couldn’t sustain the costs so we accumulated a few hours and abruptly quit.

N757UB

Shawn is in the left seat and I’m on the right side of the ’78 C-152 that we solo’d.

That proved to be a lesson in life. If we would have just hung around we would have most likely been able to sweep floors and wash airplanes for an occasional lesson or two. I guess we thought if we weren’t paying customers we couldn’t go onto the property.

A couple of years later we did muster up the courage to ask if we could barter for lessons, which is how we got all of our primary training. It wasn’t fast, but as kids in school with regular jobs on top of working at the airport, it was steady progress toward our goal. We also hooked up with another dreamer, named Danny, and then we were three.

As upperclassmen in High School it was awesome training and getting our licenses  - we thought we were studs!

After graduation we all three went to flight school together at Spartan School of Aeronautics. I ended up going to a different school after nine months, which is another story (go here). I graduated from NAIA after only 4 months with all my ratings. Danny quit Spartan a year later. Shawn gutted it out there and graduated. I have regrettably lost touch with these guys over the years; Danny no longer flies, but I hear Shawn is Captain on a Gulfstream in Texas.

I didn’t end up flying airliners, I fly corporate jets. And I didn’t end up with a Pitts Special, rather I have an RV-8 that I built. I guess my crystal ball was just a tad off. If you have seen my RV you’ll recognize that it’s my defacto fighter that I dreamed about in my youth.

rv8 and falcon2000

On that particular day I flew my RV-8 and the Falcon 2000 in the background

I obviously never made it to space, but I’m very happy with where my life has taken me thus far. I’m still a huge fan of manned space flight and I continue to dream!

And as a common theme with the rest of my fellow bloggers, I couldn’t have done this without the support of my parents. They sacrificed a lot and took a big leap of faith to set me on this path and I will be forever grateful.

So what brought you to aviation and has the journey been what you expect? If you are just starting, what’s your plan? I’d love to hear your story. Feel free to put your thoughts in the comments below or send an email. Be sure to check out the rest of the blog series – see more information below.

 

by Brent Owens

Postscript – After getting my CFI, I returned to my home town FBO where a teaching job awaited me – nice that pumping gas and washing airplanes in High School paid off! During my time there, I got the privilege of teaching my dad to fly (article here) in an airplane we restored.

 

Blogging In Formation is a blog series where six aviation bloggers join forces to deliver their personal message about how they were drawn to flight. Each author will create one post that tells their story during the weeklong campaign.

You can see their posts at:

The series runs the May 7th-12th, 2013

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The Last Bush Pilots: A Review

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last bush pilots

I have two constants when it comes to my book-reading life. I read anything written by a fellow pilot, but I almost never read non-fiction. In this case I am really glad I broke one of my rules to read Captain Eric Auxier’s novel titled, The Last Bush Pilots.

The funny thing is it’s hard to tell what is real or fiction and isn’t that the best of both worlds? You see Eric has been there and done that; he was an Alaskan Bush Pilot in his youth dreaming of some day making it to the “show.”  Which he ultimately did as he is now gainfully employed at a major airline.

Continue reading →

12 Ideas You Can Use to Promote General Aviation

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promoting aviation
12 Ideas You Can Use to Promote GA
In the grand scheme of things, most of these ideas won’t really move the needle. We need solutions to several very large issues, but my goal is offer some relatively simple things we can do individually to promote General Aviation.

Incrementally, if we all took up the challenge, we might make a dent, in spite of all the adversity GA faces today.

1
Talk about flying – Testifying about how awesome flying is can really bring out the latent interest in a person. Now you can be obnoxious about this to complete non-believers, but they weren’t going to be converted anyway so who cares. Usually I don’t have to even bring it  up, friends and family routinely ask me questions about flying as small talk. Doesn’t get an easier than this and it costs you nothing.

2
Give rides – This will cost you money, but it will really sets the hook if they are even remotely inclined to explore aviation. My best recommendation is to target the folks who are most likely to convert and then work your way to the fringe. Young Eagles rides are really great and it’s an amazing program, but our local chapter sees a lot of “free amusement ride” patrons who aren’t likely to ever fly recreationally. 

3
Organize an event – This takes some energy, but what better way than to have an open house, or a fly-in to bring Joe Q. Public out to mix with the aviators. Kills two birds with one stone because it gives existing flyers a venue to ply their craft and it potentially introduces newbies to the equation.

4
Youth outreach – Like I said, Young Eagles is awesome, but we should be more targeted. Maybe volunteer to speak for a group of students about aviation or lecture at a scout event. You don’t need to be a professional pilot to talk about flying as long as you do your homework. 

Blogging In Formation: Six Aviation Bloggers, Six Posts, Six Days

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Blogging in formationINTRODUCTION
Starting this week, six aviation bloggers will join forces to provide a series of powerful posts. Think of us as “blogging in formation” for the next six days. These daily posts will describe how the author came to be part of this amazing thing we call FLYING.

You don’t want to miss this. Tune in to the specific blog listed below on the appropriate date and you’ll be glad you did.

And if you like what you see, share it with your friends! #blogformation

 

Karlene P

 

Starting on Tuesday, May 7th is Karlene Petitt at Flight to Success

 

 

Eric A

 

Next up on Wednesday, May 8th we have Eric Auxier of Adventures of Cap’n Aux

 

 

Ron R

 

On Thursday, May 9th Ron Rapp tells his story at Rapp.org

 

 

Dan Pimentel

 

Friday, May 10th, it’ll be Dan Pimentel of describing the journey at Airplanista

 

 

 

Andrew H

 

And on Saturday, May 11th, we have Andrew Hartley of SmartFlightTraining

 

 

Brent

 

To end the series, Sunday, May 12th, we finish off with Brent Owens here at iflyblog.com

 

 

We really hope you enjoy this series and if you want to see more blogging en masse, please share it with your friends and leave us feedback.

Potential ideas for another future collaboration? Let’s hear them!

by Brent Owens

blogging in formationBlogging In Formation is a blog series where six aviation bloggers come together to deliver their personal message about how they were drawn to flight. Each author will create one post that tells their story during the weeklong campaign.

You can see their posts at:

The series runs the May 7th-12th, 2013

Setting Aviation Goals: The SMART Approach

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flying goal setting

Setting Aviation Goals: The SMART Approach

Having goals is something we should always endeavor to do. Not just for flying, but since we are talking aviation that will be the context for this article. Certainly these ideas can be applied to anything else in life.

When President Kennedy announced in 1961 that we would put a man on the moon within the decade, he was setting a goal, a very ambitious goal.

Don’t be afraid to set long-term goals. It’s ok to look out 5 or 10 years. Aviation isn’t a cheap endeavor and I get lots of feedback about the costs being the #1 thing holding potential and current aviators back. If you don’t have the means now, set your goal more long-term and follow through. If you want it bad enough and you hold to your goals, you’ll be amazed at the results.
 
flying goals
Why set goals?
Setting a goal solidifies your intention. It gives power to you desires. Without well-defined goals we are driving without a roadmap. I have encountered lots of folks who never achieve anything significant because they refuse to set goals. 

10 Myths About Learning to Fly

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10 myths about learning to fly

Here are 10 myths that I hear frequently from folks that are interested in flying, but don’t think they can pursue it.

  1. expense of learning to flyI can’t afford it. I despise the word “can’t.” There is simply no such thing. If you really want it, you can find the way. It really comes down to choices. With a limited budget you must simply CHOOSE what things you spend your money on. Everyone reading this has a limited budget.

  2. pilot eyesightI have bad eyesight. It slays me how many people I talk to think you must have perfect uncorrected vision. It is true that it needs to be correctable to 20/40. I have terrible vision without glasses and I fly for a living just using old-fashioned contact lens. Lots of folks now get laser surgery, which seems to work great.

  3. too old to flyI’m too old. Hogwash! You are only as old as you think you are – a quote that is written on the internal structure of my airplane by my wife. I have taught plenty of people after retirement age. How will you really know unless you try? It will be pretty apparent early in the process if you have bitten off more than you can chew.

  4. you are never too young to start flyingI’m too young. Ok there are regulations that limit you from getting certain types of licenses, but you can take instruction at any age. I started at 14, too young to solo a powered plane by a full two years. Remember gliders allow you to be 14 to solo and 16 for the license so that’s a great option to get started early.

  5. getting an FAA medicalI’m not physically fit enough or I have health challenges. You don’t need to be a top athlete, or even an athlete at all. The medical requirements for a Private Pilot are very reasonable. Even if you don’t meet those requirements, you may be eligible for a waiver. Sport Pilot doesn’t even require a medical exam.

    Continue reading →