Being an Eagle Scout, I try to consider myself “prepared” for most situations, especially when it comes to my flying. I have a backpack filled with the necessities for flying (my headset, my logbook and medical certificate, a flashlight, map, batteries), but I also keep a few other things in there… just in case. Things like: a second flashlight and another set of batteries, extra pens, Swiss Army knife (of course), zip-lock bags (for airsick passengers), bottle of water, a few energy bars, and even some duct tape. Yes, duct tape. We used to find all sorts of crazy uses for duct tape when camping with the Boy Scouts, so it’s just out of habit that I like to keep it in my emergency supplies. People may have questioned me in the past why I carry duct tape on flights, but I finally found a good reason why!
Apparently there was an Alaskan bush pilot flying up in Alaska on a fishing trip and mistakenly left some bait/food in his plane. Naturally, a bear smelled it and tore his plane up majorly. Upon returning to his severely damaged plane, this pilot radioed a friend who airdropped some supplies including duct tape. Using these supplies, the pilot was able to repair his plane and fly home. Some awesome usage of duct tape, I must admit! I was hoping to read the pilot had the duct tape on him, but alas he didn’t. So, I don’t know if my one roll in my bag will be enough to ever repair a bear-damaged plane, but it would certainly be useful in the wild nonetheless. You can read the whole story on CNET.
Moral of the story: never leave food out for bears, and always BE PREPARED!
The bear-damaged plane.
The duct tape-fixed plane.
This past weekend I had the opportunity to take three of my really good friends flying. This was the first time for all of them in a small airplane, and my first time taking them up! The stars aligned perfectly to make this day happen… 1) My friend Scott and his girlfriend Angie happened to be in my general neck of the woods due to a race earlier in the day (they are basically semi-professional triathletes). 2) Another flying club member was able to move his booking to another plane to open up the schedule for me to fly that afternoon. 3) The weather was nice – even though the day before brought some of the first snow of the season. 4) My friend Mark who has 2 kids and a very busy December was able to find a few hours free on a Saturday, which is rare.
Scott, Angie, and I started from Westosha (5K6) and flew southbound to DuPage (DPA) airport. Mark met us there since he only lives about 5 miles away from DPA. Timing worked out well as I was able to text him right before we departed. We hung out and chatted at DuPage for a few minutes, then jumped back in plane to head westward. We did a quick landing and takeoff at DeKalb Regional (DKB) then a traveled a bit further west to just putz around in the sky. We had great views of Northern Illinois University and, upon request, performed a brief “zero-g” moment to let them feel what a very steep dive feels like. After that, we headed back to DuPage to let Mark get back to his family and then the remaining three of us flew back home to Westosha.
All three of my friends got to ride in the front and all three seemed to really enjoy it. It was definitely a blast for me to share my hobby and passion for flying with all of them. We are already talking about other times we can get together and go somewhere with a more set destination in mind. All-in-all, it was an awesome day and I can’t wait to fly again with them! You can see pictures from the day on my friend Scott’s Picasa Page here. It was also my first time to DeKalb airport, another airport down on my list!
This flight I logged 2.1 hours of flight time and 4 landings.
SkyCharts
Released Oct 18, 2009
Seller: Heikki Julkunen
(C) 2008-2009 Heikki Julkunen
Price (as of 10/20/2009): $9.99
Rated 4+ as of 10/20/2009 on iTunes Store
Most general aviation pilots know how expensive true aviation-grade portable GPS systems can be. Garmin and Lowerance systems cost upwards of $2,000 for a decent one, even the seemingly awesome Bendix-King AV8OR costs around $700+. In my mind, those are ridiculous prices for the amount of functionality those devices provide. After experimenting with my Mio Personal Navigation Device for aviation use with some success, I was hopeful to find something just as useful on my iPhone. I’m very happy and excited to report about the SkyCharts app…truly a great little gem on the iPhone!
Granted, it’s no fully integrated electronic flight bag (EFB), but it does exactly what it claims to do… it puts your GPS position directly on top of the paper sectionals/charts you’ve grown to know and love. The first versions of the app did ONLY that, but the latest version added some flight planning capabilities as well.
One VERY important feature of this app is that you can cache the various charts to use while you don’t have a data/cellular signal. In other words, you can use this while flying (even though you aren’t supposed to – like any app). Furthermore, it now has a database of all U.S. airports, nav points, and fixes – all of which can be selected and routed direct-to. For each airport, it also will cache and display approach plates and airport diagrams. Overall, very useful stuff! The flight-planning is currently only 1 point direct-to lines, but future versions may include multiple waypoints. The development of this app has been moving quickly, so I wouldn’t be surprised if those features are included in the near future.
Overall, for $10 ($9.99 technically), it’s WELL worth the cost! I’ve used this MANY times in the air already, and think it’s a superb app. I HIGHLY recommend it! Check it out on iTunes here!
AirCheck Aviation Checklist
Released Jan 3, 2009
Seller: Felix Khazin
(C) 2009 Mobile Dev Group LLC
Price (as of 10/03/2009): $1.99
Rated 4+ as of 10/02/2009 on iTunes Store
If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I rent planes from the flying club I’m a member of. All of the club’s planes are older than 2001, some as old as 1982!
As such, the checklists and POH’s are rather tattered and delicate. One of the first apps I thought would work great for my new iPhone was an aviation checklist application. After trying out all of the free checklist apps, I was severely disappointed. Most were crippled in that they only showed a sample of what it could do, or it wasn’t easy to edit/add items to check, and they all started out blank or for planes I would never fly in.
I decided to “splurge” on the $1.99 AirCheck Aviation Checklist app from Felix Khazin and was delightfully surprised. The main feature that I thought was great was that you could edit and download other checklists on the web, not solely on your iPhone. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to type out 100 items directly on the iPhone. From the site, you can also download the checklists that other people have created, and guess what… all the plane types that my club owns were already input…so, set up was a cinch! The app itself is pretty simple and straightforward. You can tap on the screen or shake the iPhone to “check off” an item. That’s a great feature to not have to use both hands – so ultimately it’s as simple as using the POH checklist. It also has both night and day display modes, to not kill your night-vision if it’s dark out. The text is perfectly sized and again, you can make the checklist as detailed or simple as you’d like. I’ve kept all my checklists 100% matched to the checklists in the planes I fly. Overall, this app is the best aviation checklist I’ve come across, and for $1.99 you can’t beat it!
Well, I finally splurged and made the leap to an iPhone….and boy, do I LOVE it! I’m a techie, and I could write 50 blog posts just about the iPhone in general, but I’ll try to make the next few posts focused on the general aviation uses and aspects of the iPhone. Firstly, I would highly recommend checking out a fellow aviation blogger who started a website dedicated to listing out all the aviation-related iPhone apps – www.aviatorapps.com. If you go there, you’ll notice there are a TON of free apps related to aviation. Some weight & balance calculators, E6B’s, electronic checklists, POH’s, airport finder, and even some navigation / sectional apps! Here’s what I’m using so far, and direct links to download them in iTunes Application store:
I’ll do a review on each of these apps in the near future. As you can see, 3 of the 5 that I use a lot are 100% free – and those are just the apps I’ve KEPT after testing out probably 40 or so other free aviation apps. If anyone is on the fence about getting an iPhone, I will say that just the potential aviation uses can help justify the buy (in additonal to the TON of other great uses). Of course, with my Mio C320 portable GPS device, I’ve got double GPS backup sources and I feel pretty confident going on longer and longer trips now! Hopefully I’ll be up in the sky again soon!
It feels like forever since last I’ve posted on this blog, and I apologize for that! Work has been very busy lately (which is good… job security), and although I’ve flown a handful of times, they’ve just been quick jaunts around the pattern or to Pilot Pete’s for a bite to eat. However, this past weekend I went to the furthest airport I’ve flown to…. Sheboygan (KSBM)! Granted, it’s only 76.9 nautical miles away, but it’s still technically the longest straight-line distance I’ve flown from Westosha. My wife and I went up to visit some friends who are living there for the summer. This was actually my third attempt at this flight, the previous two tries we had been rained-out on, so this flight was due!
The flight up to Sheboygan went great. I had a newer plane with autopilot and GPS, so I let the technology handle the mundane stuff. I was diligent to listen to the traffic/tower frequency of every airport I flew over/around, to help keep the flight interesting. Upon landing at KSBM, we picked up our friends flew back down the lake Michigan shore to see a few sites – their college Alma Mater (Concordia) for one. We also flew over their house, which they thought was awesome and I let one of my friends fly the plane a bit, which he absolutely LOVED. I tell ya, it’s great to share the joy of flying with others!
We parked the plane at FBO for the afternoon and had dinner with our friends and flew back at night. The moon was nearly full, so it was rather bright as few travelled back to Westosha. I was tempted to fly into Milwaukee’s Class C airport since I knew it wouldn’t be too busy at that time, but my wife was tired so we went straight back home. All-in-all, a great day of flying.
I actually logged almost three hours of PIC time (2.9 hours to be exact, 1.0 hours of night time too)…one of my longest time and distance flights to date! And since the airport was 50+nm away, all this counts as cross-country time!
July 3rd is my Dad’s birthday. Like last year, we went flying to celebrate his special day. Unlike last year, now I have my license and was able to take him, my mom and my wife for the birthday flight all by myself without an instructor tagging along. The weather was gorgeous and I had a busy flight planned for us. We first headed down the lakefront to view the Chicago skyline, which my parents hadn’t yet seen in the air. They loved it, identifying all the sights along the way and taking tons of pictures and videos (see the pictures here). The skies were fairly busy that afternoon, and two times other Cessnas passed a little too closely for my comfort level – where I altered my heading a bit just to make sure. Obviously everything went fine, but just reconfirms for me how important it is to always stay alert (especially when the autopilot is engaged).
After the skyline, we headed back north, west, and then south around O’Hare’s Class B airspace to get to Pilot Pete’s at Schaumburg Airport (06C) for some early dinner. My Mom hadn’t eaten there yet and we had a great dinner there (the food is always really good). On the way back to Westosha, we flew over my house and even spotted my neighbor outside his house. Later he said he was able to see us from the ground and figured it was probably us.
After the flights, we quickly drove back down to Arlington Park for some horse racing action and fireworks later in the evening. All-in-all, it was a great day for me as a pilot and as a son. I love being able to celebrate special days with my Dad, Mom, Wife (my family) in such a cool and unique way.
This flight I logged 1.7 of pilot-in-command time.
Today marked my 200th landing as a pilot and my first flight to DuPage Airport (KDPA). After getting back in the air yesterday after almost 50 days without flying, today I wanted to fly somewhere new and different for me. I decided upon DuPage Airport because I wanted more practice at a towered airport as well to try the Kittyhawk Cafe there – which I heard is pretty good.
The flight down to DuPage went great as I had both the plane’s (1981 Cessna 172P) old GPS system as well as my new trusy Mio C320 with NavGPS Pro software on it to get me there. Both systems worked great and had perfectly consistent data between the two. The southerly winds today lent to a straight-in approach to runway 20R at DuPage. That runway was absolutely huge and I felt like I landed literally in the first TENTH of it! After taxiing to the ramp I had lunch at the Kittyhawk Cafe. I felt like lighter fare, and in homage to the $100 Hamburger, I had what I’ll call a “$100 Club Sandwich”…even took a pic, what you see pictured here (what was left of it halfway through lunch, anyway). It was great food and the flight center is very modern and posh. I felt like a high roller.
The flight back to Westosha I just enjoyed the gorgeously clear skies and the view. The flight went quickly as those southerly winds helped push me back north a little more swiftly. The landing back at 5K6 marked my 200th as a pilot. It’s hard to believe that less than 1.5 years ago I had never landed a plane, now I have 200 landings under my belt! Time certainly does “fly”!
This flight I logged 1.2 hours of flight time and my 200th landing.
I finally found some time this evening to get back in the air! Almost 49 days since my last flight and I was worried I was going to be rusty. Tonight’s flight was just to get up in the air again and practice takeoffs and landings. I did two quick loops of the pattern at Westosha. I have to admit the first landing was a little snarky but I had everything dialed in by the second. After that greaser, I flew up to Burlington (BUU) for a change of scenery. Apparently a lot of other pilots around there had the same idea I did, because there was a lot of traffic up there (especially for Thursday dusk). Ultimately I was happy for the challenge and the radio work, though…since it had been so long. I did three landings and takeoffs at Burlington (all nice in my opinion) and flew back to Westosha to end my flight.
Man, it was great to be flying again! I know 49 days days isn’t THAT much, but I was itchin’ to fly. I actually have a plane booked for tomorrow as well. I think I’ll fly to DuPage Airport and the Kittyhawk Cafe for lunch.
I logged 0.9 of Pilot-in-Command flight time this flight and 6 landings.
