Airspeed

Flying the DHC-6-200 Twin Otter with Dave Schwartz at Skydive Chicago. Don't forget to buy your copy of Airspeed: The First Two Years Aloft at http://www.lulu.com/content/1389586

Buy the new book, Airspeed: The First Two Years Aloft at http://www.lulu.com/stupper or http://www.lulu.com/content/1389586. Thanks!

Ron Klutts and I have carried on a correspondence for more than a year and we finally met in person at AirVenture Oshkosh this summer. Ron and a friend had flown all the way from Palo Alto and had made a two-week ossyssey out of the OSH trip.So when I thought about doing a show on going places (far-away places) Ron naturally came to mind. In this episode, we talk about long-distance GA flying. How to plan, what to take, how to pack, and other lessons learned from two nearly trans-continental trips.Also check out Ron's appearance on The Pilot's Flight PodLog - Episode 9.

We interview pilot, CFI, CFII, MEI (add additional initials until your fingers hurt from typing) Tony Condon. Tony (whose shadow appears in the foreground above) hangar-flies with us to talk about glider operations and his philosophy of flight. He's based at Ames Municipal Airport just south of town in Ames, Iowa, from which he flies and instructs. We caught up with him Wednesday evening and talked for about an hour.

We interview aerobatic pilot and Red Bull Air Racer Mike Goulian. Some housekeeping as well, and a special offer from Gleim.  Be sure to get your Airspeed listener discount of 25% off the price of any Gleim Pilot Kit by using the promotional code "ASPD" for a limited time only.  www.gleim.com or (800) 874-5346.

I passed the checkride this morning! Thanks for the cards and letters. They meant (and continue to mean) a lot.I received approval from the examiner to include audio from the checkride in a future episode, so you can expect to hear the highlights sometime soon. In the meantime, it's back to Airspeed as usual. Upcoming episodes include an interview with Castrol aerobatic and racing pilot Mike Goulian, flying skydivers in the Super Otter with Dave Schwartz of Skydive Radio, and lots more.

Got the oral done today, but ceilings prevented the actual flight portion.  Flight rescheduled for Thursday morning!

Just checked the terminal aerodrome forecast for KFNT for tomorrow. Blech! Not looking good for tomorrow. Got an aircraft scheduled Tuesday as a backup, but I'd really rather just get this done. Not going to cancel until I get the TAF for KFNT tomorrow morning, but I'm not holding out a lot of hope.More later!

Greetings from Jack Hodgson Country!  Ceilings too low on the 11th to do the checkride.  Rescheduled for Friday the 19th.

T-minus 5 days until the IFR checkride!  Flew a lot of sim today and I'm feeling pretty good about things.  Lots of study to do, but I have a program in place and am excited about finishing up this rating!

Got some sim time last night and made up a lot of my flashcards for studying.  Also some ruminations here about backcourses expectations for the checkride.

Checkride Update for 1 October.  9:00 pm EDT at Kirby's Koney at Square Lake and Woodward in Bloomfield Hills.  Off to a slow start. Spent most of the weekend and all day today at work. Went to Kirby's Koney for dinner and edited a bit more of the book.  Going to go fly some sim in the morning. Probably partial-panel approaches to some relevant airports. Trying to get work out of the way so I can spend a few evenings studying my hiney off.

T-minus 12 days to the IFR checkride!  Follow along with this special miniseries of episodes as I prep for the FAA Instrument Pilot checkride!

A little essay that answers the question for me. Music: Jon Schmidt, Prelude - from the Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at music.podshow.com or see Jon's website at http://www.jonschnidt.com/.

We follow up the Cirrus SR22 GTS Turbo demo ride with a conversation with Alan Klapmeier, co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Cirrus Design. We talk about the Cirrus philosophy and the third-generation Cirrus aircraft, as well as Cirrus' entry into both the jet and light sport markets. More information about Cirrus Design at www.cirrusdesign.com. You can contact us at steve@airspeedonline.com, see the website at www.airspeedonline.com, and visit the Airspeed Pilot Shop at www.cafepress.com/airspeedonline.  

Another installment of flying OPA (other people's airplanes)! I took a ride in the Cirrus SR22 GTS Turbo. Cirrus Design and AirShares Elite attended the annual open house a few weeks ago at my home airport, the Oakland County International Airport (called "Pontiac") (KPTK) and brought along three gorgeous Cirrus SR22s, all with the third-generation technology recently introduced by Cirrus.I've see the Cirrus display at Pontiac several times, but have always been on duty with the Civil Air Patrol and unable to go try to get a demo flight. But with Cirrus's introduction of the G3 line this year, I decided to make a special effort and drop in on the Friday prior to the open house for a demo ride.I went with high expectations and I was not disappointed. Contact Information Cirrus Designhttp://www.cirrusdesign.com/http://www.cirrusdesign.com/contact/info@cirrusdesign.com AirShares EliteCreig M. Kelley - Regional Director6230 North Service RoadWaterford, Michigan 48327Office 248-666-5646Mobile 989-859-7650Fax 248

The second of my 2007 aerobatic rides!The show starts out with an update on my instrument training, including cockpit audio. Then we get into the ride, complete with audio from the MicroTrack 96/24 plugged into the Extra's intercom. Contact Information for Michael: Michael Mancuso AirshowsBrookhaven Airport139 Dawn DriveShirley, New York 11967Phone: 516-359-9948e-mail: michael_mancuso@mmairshows.com or nlight4@aol.com.  

NSFW version of the song is at http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/FirstSoloHeyDon.mp3.We're back from AirVenture Oshkosh 2007 and beginning the decompression process. For this episode, I'm hauling out a song I recorded about my first solo a few months after it happened.Many of you have heard the podcast episode about my first solo (the show notes for which are here), but there's a funny side, too. I loaded all of the angst and energy into a song called First Solo and recorded it and gave a copy to Don Fuller, the CFI who soloed me. I don't know why it hasn't occurred to me before now to include the song in an episode of the podcast, but I thought about it on the drive home and decided to do it.It's way too long, contains too many details, and isn't the best sound-engineering job I've ever done (I did all of the engineering in addition to performing all of the instrumental parts and all of the vocals except for two of the radio voices without much help in setting the levels, etc.) but it's a fun tune and y

Pod-A-Palooza 2007 went off without a hitch on Friday. Members of The Flying Pilot, Uncontrolled Airspace, UltraFlight Radio, The Pilotcast, The Student Pilot Flight PodLog, The CFIcast, The Finer Points, and, of course, Airspeed, gathered in Forum No.2 to on Friday, July 27 at AirVenture Oshkosh 2007 to hangar-fly. See the full show notes at www.airspeedonline.com.

We all know that the best formation aerobatics teams fly great formations and match each other's moves with great precision.  But have you listened to a really good team?  The formation maneuvers match pitch beautifully and the series maneuvers not only look the same but sound the same.  Here's some audio from the Aeroshell Team's performance today.Aeroshell Aerobatic Team website:  http://www.naat.net/