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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Jerrie Mock and the Spirit of Columbus I wrote an article for Air Facts Journal on one of the least known, but probably most interesting aviatrix of the last century. She was the first woman to fly around the world solo. One of the fun things about doing this story was that Jerrie lived in…
Flying Young Eagles: My 1st Rally I am ashamed to admit it, but Saturday was my first time to attend a Young Eagles rally. Not only did I attend, but I flew as a volunteer pilot. EAA Chapter 9, based in Columbus, OH, was host to the November 17th event at The Ohio State University…
First Flight: Flight Testing your Experimental Aircraft Flight testing your homebuilt aircraft for the first time is statistically proven to be a riskier proposition than normal flight operations. Of course this makes sense; the first time a bundle of parts are assembled into an airplane and take flight there are going to be opportunities for…