I don’t mean to mislead but I’m not talking about the annual get-together in Galesburg, IL or even the end of season gathering in Jennings or any dozens of other fly-ins where more than one Stearman would be in attendance. No, I’m talking about the first time ever that a couple of us got together…
I enjoyed the opportunity on Saturday evening to attend Youth Aviation Adventure’s annual Hangarfest fundraiser at my home airport of KCMH. This is the national headquarters for YAA and Spirit Avionics graciously opened up their facility to host the event. Rick Ochs and the guys at Spirit are very involved with YAA and it shows, they pulled…
Having flown some formation in my youth, I was familiar with the addictive nature of this kind of flying. Back then I was a mixture of self-trained (read: SCARY and NOT RECOMMENDED) and loosely instructed. My “training” was from a grizzled Vietnam-era F-4 jock. He was in a Pitts and I was in a 2/3rd scale composite…
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…
One my favorite things to do is land on a nice grass runway. There is something about it that almost makes it seem like a guilty pleasure. No TSA, no metal detectors, no sequestration-impacted-control-towers, and rarely any fences, and certainly no barbed wire! It is flying in the most organic sense of the word. My…
7 Habits of Highly Effective Aviators Habit 1 – Seeks perfection. I believe this is a key trait and it should not be limited to the professional. If you always strive to be the best, you’ll need to know how to accept coming up short without being frustrated. If you fall down you just…
Ok, many of you may not be familiar with this curious phenomenon. Jet Jock is my pet name for professional pilots that not only don’t fly outside of their day job, they are actually repulsed by the idea. I first encountered this species of aviator in my youth. The local airport was home base for…
What General Aviation Needs: 8 not-so-easy solutions to GA’s woes When you look across the landscape of General Aviation it becomes apparent that there are some challenges. I took the liberty of writing down a short list of pain-points for you perusal (not in any specific order). 1. We need airplanes that are inexpensive to…
RV NATION: It’s a grass roots thing! Scott Brown, creator of RV Nation, is building a community. A community of like-minded RV folks where they can come together to talk and exchange all-things-RV. The really cool thing that Scott is doing is providing significant value to members. One of the ways is by leveraging the…
Does flying lack value? In talking to a pilot friend I hadn’t seen in a while, the topic of flying came up, of course. He mentioned he wasn’t flying and wanted to buy an airplane, but didn’t want anything he could afford. His tastes were beyond his budget and he would rather go without than comprise….