Review of One Six Right & One Six Left

I think it would be hard to find a pilot who has not seen or is not atleast familiar with the movie One Six Right: The Romance of Flying. One Six Right is an exceptional aviation documentary about the Van Nuys Airport. Although, I had seen One Six Right I was not aware of a companion DVD, One Six Left until about a month ago.

Netflix delivered One Six Left to my home in time to view it over the weekend. If you enjoyed One Six Right I highly recommend you check out One Six Left. The DVD features the beautiful trailer "Into the Clouds" which features music by Enya, a 12 minute movie montage of amazing aerial shots of a wide variety of planes that fly in and out of Van Nuys. Additionally, the video has interviews with the Director and the videographer and a few other features.

This was one of those films that just connects with a pilots love for aviation. The cinematography is spectacular and should be used by any pilot that is trying to convince a friend or family member to learn to fly. The great news is Brian Terwiliger the Director of One Six Right is actively working on another yet to be named aviation documentary.

I am shipping the DVD back to Netflix so another pilot or aviation enthusiast can enjoy the film and will be ordering a copy of both One Six Right and One Six Left for my personal DVD collection.

Aviation Town Meeting Spurs Passion for Flight

I enjoyed a great night of aviation at the AOPA Pilot Town Meeting tonight. Aircraft Owners and Pilot Association President, Phil Boyer, spends about a week each month traveling around the country to meet with pilots and to talk about issues that are near and dear to pilots. I remember attending a Pilot Town Meeting several years ago and was excited to see Phil was bringing his show to Chicago.

I arrived nearly an hour early so that I could save some seats for fellow members of the Chicago Aviation Meetup Group who were going to join me for the event. As is often the case at any pilot get together or at a local airport it is nearly impossible to be alone long around pilots. Within seconds of sitting down I was engaged in a conversation with several fellow pilots. One of which was a remarkable man, Clarence (Clancy) Hess. Clancy was one of the first members of AOPA when he joined for the price of $3 in 1940. He was a Marine Aviator in WWII and also was a co-founder of Wings of Hope, a non-profit organization that delivers food and medical assistance to third world countries. He shared with me and a few fellow pilots some amazing photos including one of him with Jimmy Doolitle who inspired Clancy to pursue aviation. Clancy was recently inducted into the Illinois Aviation Hall of Fame.

In looking around the room it was obvious why AOPA is working so hard to bring new pilots into aviation as the median age had to be close to if not over 50 years of age. I knew that this particular AOPA event had both presentations for current pilots and for prospective pilots. I was excited that three of the six members of the Chicago Aviation Meetup Group who were able to attend were interested in learning to fly. Mid-way through the evening those interested in learning to fly were taken to a separate room to learn about the steps it takes to learn to fly. As a special gift, AOPA presented them each with a voucher for a free introductory flight. It was great hearing from the three future pilots after the meeting, each of them sounded very excited about taking the introductory flight. A.J. commented that he always knew he wanted to fly, he even was close to attending Embry Riddle to learn to fly but chose another career path. He now wants to get into aviation and stop putting off his dream of flying. He said this event just fueled his interest in learning to fly which was great to see.

Another fun story was from Mark, a private pilot who has not flown in several months. He mentioned this weekend he was outside when his young daughter pointed to the sky and said "airplane". He was so excited he took her to the local airport and showed her the planes up close as they watched from the fence line as planes came and went. He is looking forward to getting current again this spring and taking his daughter flying.

Tonight my eyes were opened once again to what I already knew but just needed a reminder of; all of us pilots are very passionate about aviation. In most cases it is a love affair we have had since we were children. It is our duty as pilots to be good ambassadors for aviation. We need to be vigilantly looking for the twinkle in one's eye when the topic of aviation comes up or one's attention is drawn to an overflying plane and we need to seize that moment to share our passion for flying with that person. I know I find great joy in helping people step away from the fence line and cross over to the tarmac to take an introductory flight or simply to visit an FBO or look at the inside of a General Aviation plane.

Tonight was one of those great nights where I enjoyed the camaraderie of other pilots and remembered again what a joy it is to have the privilege of flying. Thanks AOPA for looking out for the interests of pilots and offering this great forum to bring fellow aviators together for a great evening!

The photo above is of several Chicago Aviation Meetup Group Members along with the President of AOPA Phil Boyer and Clancy Hess. (Left to Right: Rob, Catrina, Phil, Clancy, A.J. & Myself.)

Completing Another Biennial Flight Review

On Saturday the rain cleared and the clouds rose high enough to allow me to go flying. I was flying with a CFI performing my Biennial Flight Review. When you earn a private pilots license there is no expiration on it. Though to fly as pilot in command you need to periodically prove you still know what you are doing. There are several ways to satisfy the FAA including earning a new certificate, participating in the FAA Wings - Pilot Proficiency Program or completing a Biennial Flight Review.

Since I needed to perform a check out ride anyways to rent aircraft from Windy City Flyers I decided to make it a BFR as well to fulfill that requirement in advance of my deadline later this year. We flew up to Lake in the Hills where we performed a wide variety of takeoff and landings including: short field, soft field and a simulated engine out emergency landing.

After that I performed many of the maneuvers on the private pilot check ride like an simulated off field emergency landing and stalls. The flight went smoothly. We also did a review of aviation knowledge. To prepare for that portion of the BFR I used Biennial Flight Review Flash Cards by James Spudich. They were very thorough and great for refreshing my knowledge.

At the end of the day I had passed my second BFR.

Flight Training Blogs

In February I posted about an artcle in AOPA Flight Training Magazine in which several aviation blogs were showcased. That article came on the heels of an article that promoted MyFlightBlog.com and several other aviation blogs in the Wall Street Journal.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that when Mike Collins wrote a follow-up article on blogs for the April issue of Flight Training Magazine. In "Blogs for Reading: A Summary of Reader Recommendations" Mike featured seven aviation blogs including MyFlightBlog.com. For those that don't have a subscription to the magazine I scanned a copy of the article that you can read here. This website was in great company with several other blogs that I read on a frequent basis.

Mike Collins wrote "We've all seen 'information' on the Internet that wasn't worth reading, but I was impressed by both the quality and variety of aviation blogs." When I started this blog in the Spring of 2004 there were only a handful of other aviation blogs. One of which was David West's Flight Lessons Learned which was also mention in this article. It is great to see that several years later there are an abundance of blogs to help educate and inspire aspiring pilots.

Also featured in the article was fellow Illinois based student pilot Evan Krueger of The Flying Toga. I was glad he was featured as I had not stumbled upon his blog yet. I have really enjoyed following Evan's experiences learning to fly. He is learning to fly out of Lake in The Hills airport a small airport Northwest of Chicago.

Also mentioned were Finally Learning to Fly, Signal Charlie and Roger's Soaring Blog.

AOPA Pilot Town Meeting Coming to Chicago

Phil Boyer, President of Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) is coming to Chicago for an AOPA Pilot Town Meeting. The event is at the Sheraton Chicago Northwest in Arlington Heights a suburb of Chicago on Tuesday, April 22.

Three years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Phil Boyer at an AOPA Town Meeting in Cincinnati. I am an advocate of AOPA and appreciate all the hard work Mr. Boyer and his staff put in every day to protect the rights and interests of private pilots.

If you are a pilot and live anywhere near the Chicago area, I encourage you to come out to this event.

Top Five Mistakes Pilots Make

I am heading out to AOPA's Air Safety Foundation meeting tomorrow night at the Crown Plaza Chicago O'Hare. This seminar is the "Top 5 Mistakes Pilots Make". This seminar takes aim at the five most common pilot mistakes.

It is well known that 75% of all accidents are a result of pilot error and of the many errors pilot make, five stand out as frequent mistakes.

I look forward to learning more about these common pilot mistakes and learning how to avoid them.

Preparing for A Biennial Flight Review

I had my first back to back weekends of flying after completing a flight yesterday. I am working with a CFI to prepare for a Biennial Flight Review either next weekend or the weekend after that. I wanted to take two flights to prepare for the review. In the first flight last week we worked on landings and crosswind landings.

On Saturday, I was blessed with a beautiful day to fly. The goal of the flight was to work on maneuvers we did not practice on the first flight last week. Those maneuvers included power-on and -off stalls, 45 degree turns, and emergency procedures. I performed all the maneuvers well except the 45 degree turns to the left which were a little sloppy but improved the more of them I performed. Both emergency landing maneuvers went well with my CFI and I both being confident I could have safely landed on some poor farmer’s field had it been necessary.

Either next weekend or the weekend after that I will go in for the BFR which will consist of at least one hour of ground verbal review followed by at least an hour of flight review in which I need to perform all maneuvers to test standards. I last successfully performed a BFR in September of 2006. I am looking forward to getting this one behind me.

Aviation Meetup Group Fly-In

Today was one of those rare days in which I was able to devote an entire day to aviation. I took a brief break for Breakfast after my morning flight. Then I met John of FlyingChicago.com at the Old T Hangers at Palwaukee where he keeps his 1967 Mooney M20F.

We departed Palwaukee and headed east for a flight down the Chicago Lakeshore en-route to Lansing on the South side of Chicago. We had a beautiful view of the city of Chicago on our way down and on the way back. We were heading to Lansing for the March meeting of the Chicago Aviation Meetup Group. We had a smooth flight to Lansing that only took about 25 minutes due to a nice tailwind.

We met four other aviation enthusiasts at Shannon's Landing, the on airport restaurant where we enjoyed a bite to eat and sharing some aviation stories. After lunch we met Luke from Sun Aero who talked to the group about the helicopter operations and training they offer at Lansing. I learned there are hobbies more expensive then flying, flying helicopters that is. It was cool checking out the inside of some of the smaller helicopters that although small did feel less cramped the then the Cessna 152 I trained in.

After an enjoyable time learning about Helicopters we jumped back in the Mooney and flew back up the lakeshore to Palwaukee. The return flight took a little longer as we were flying in the wind but the Mooney still made great time and appears to be a great trip plane.

Check out some photos from the event below.

One Hundred Hours of Flying

Normally, I am not an early riser or at least not a fan of rising early. Though, this morning it was easier because I knew I had a day of aviation in front of me. I got up and quickly checked the weather and verified that it looked like the weather would cooperate with the flights I had scheduled for the day.

I started off the day flying out of Chicago Executive Airport in one of my flight clubs Cessna 172SP. Forest a CFI, joined me for the flight as I need to rebuild currency with Windy City Flyers. We flew north to Waukegan Airport where I worked on landings. I conducted six landings there and one go-around which the tower requested when they spotted a coyote on the runway. That was the first time I had ever performed a go-around for that reason.

Total flight time for the morning flight was 1.7 hours which pushed me over the 100 hours of flight time mark. It was great to be back in the plane and I am looking forward to flying more regularly this Spring. I made sure of that by scheduling my next flight in about two weeks.

The Best of Aviation Blogs

I have enjoyed reading about aviation blogs in traditional print media as of late. In mid-December MyFlightBlog along with three other aviation blogs( PlasticPilot, Sulako's Blog and Yankee Alpha Foxtrot Bravo.) were featured in the Wall Street Journal's Blog Watch Column. Additionally, the February issue of AOPA Flight Training Magazine includes an article dedicated to Aviation Blogs. The article in Flight Training made mention of several blogs that I read on a regular basis including: JetWhine, Flying in Shawnee and Student Pilot Blog.

Those two articles showcased just a handful of the great blogs dedicated to aviation. Where can you find more aviation blogs? Sure you can troll through the blogroll lists on your favorite aviation blogs like I do on a regular basis. But, now there is another great resource for you to find the best of aviation blogs. Check out Blogged, a site dedicated to helping users find better blogs. To their credit they have very focused categories and instead of tossing aviation blogs in a broad category like transportation or hobbies they have an Aviation category. It currently lists over 60 aviation blogs that have been critiqued by the Blogged staff and each is ranked on a 10 point scale.

MyFlightBlog is proud to be in the top five, currently ranked number 3 with a "Great" rating of 8.6. Also high on the list are several blogs written by pilots I keep in touch with regularly and that I recommend: JetWhine (#2 with a 8.7 score), Av8rdan's World of Flying (#4 with an 8.6 score) and CAPBlog (#16 with a 8.2 score). If you enjoy MyFlightBlog please visit Blogged and give us a review. While you are there check out all the other great aviation blogs.