Archive

November 30, 2012

Balancing Flying with Family

Balancing Flying with Family editorial If you are a family man or woman, you need to balance your flying activities with your home-life. Certainly every situation is different so many of these points won’t apply. If your whole family is into flying, you are probably in the best possible position and the envy of many…

November 29, 2012

Checklist Discipline (updated)

Checklist Discipline  (Update) Fellow pilot and friend Mike Wojcik contributed to this piece. See his work below regarding a checklist he developed for the Tecnam. Ever thought about your checklist? I mean really thought about it? It is much more than a faded and tattered occupier of precious cockpit real estate. It is one of…

November 28, 2012

The Self-Righteous Aviator

The Self-Righteous Aviator One of the phenomena that I have observed in the wild is the self-righteous aviator (SRA). You know the one; they think they know it all and everyone else is beneath them. This curious species usually migrates to local airports where they can work the lobby making sure everyone knows they are…

November 27, 2012

Dreaming of Flight: Flying as a second career (update)

Dreaming of Flight: Flying as a second career There is an often asked question that is batted around in real and virtual hangars across the land – should I chase my dream of flying for a living? In a related article I asked, “Is the romance gone from professional flying?”, but as I stated then…

November 26, 2012

Always learning: a pilot can never learn too much

Always learning: a pilot can never learn too much Learning is defined by Webster as: the process of acquiring modifications in existing knowledge, skills, habits, or tendencies through experience, practice, or exercise. As pilots we always have to strive to get better and never stop learning. It is impossible to know everything there is to know…

November 25, 2012

Old Flight Bag: A glimpse into a flying life

Old Flight Bag: A glimpse into a flying life My aunt was good friends with a Doctor in Alaska during her days living up there. He passed away a few years ago and the family wanted me to have his old flight bag. It was in storage at my parent’s house for a year and…

November 24, 2012

We need more aviation heroes

We need more aviation heroes editorial Ever since Neil Armstrong passed away, I have lamented on the status of our aviation heroes. The number of people who have risen to hero status in the aviation world continues to shrink – we just aren’t making them anymore. The days of the military or NASA pilots going…

November 23, 2012

Why do people live near airports and then complain?

Why do people live near airports and then complain? Editorial Help me out. Why do people move in next to an airport and then complain about the airplanes? This completely blows my mind. Are they so compulsive that they go through the arduous process of purchasing a home and miss the fact that there are…

November 22, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving!

    Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving means something different to everyone. I think for pilots it has a special meaning. As aviators we get to experience something few mortals will ever know; the patchwork of our fragile Earth from above, the beauty of a sunrise from altitude, the playfulness of fair-weather cumulus clouds  –  all from…

November 21, 2012

Reflections of a flight: Flying with a camera under my wing

Reflections of a flight Short Flight from iflyblog.com on Vimeo. For fun I mounted my camera under the wing of the RV-8 and shot this footage on a short flight from Buckeye Executive airport to The Ohio State Airport last week. Most of the flight is sped up 800x to shorten the video. The interesting…