Chicago Aviation Meetup Groups Meets at Pilot Pete's

Another successful Chicago Aviation Meetup Group meeting is in the books. On Saturday I was joined by 12 other aviation enthusiast for lunch at Pilot Pete's restaurant at the Schaumburg Regional Airport. Poor weather prevent anyone from flying into the event and did not leave much to watch out the windows. Luckily the conversation was enjoyable.

The group was a well rounded group including pilots, an airline pilot, a kit plane builder, student pilots, an air traffic controller, prospective pilots and aviation enthusiasts. I had a great time chatting with others about their interests in aviation and their aviation experiences.

After lunch we visited Northwest Aviation the main fixed based operator at Schaumburg. Victor offered to take the group out on to the flightline to look at a few of their planes including a few Diamond Aircraft and a Piper Warrior. For many this was their first time being up close to a small general aviation aircraft Though, I have a feeling many will be back out to try flying one soon.

We all agreed to get together again next month with the specific event and location to be determined. If you are interested in joining visit out Meetup group page.

Attend the Next Chicago Aviation Meetup Event

The next Chicago Aviation Meetup Group event has been scheduled for Saturday, January 26, 2008. We will be meeting for lunch at Pilot Pete's located at Schaumburg Airport in the Chicago suburbs. So far it looks like we will have great turn out for this event.

Those who attended the last event had a great time checking out the control tower at Chicago Executive Airport.

Come join fellow aviation enthusiasts for lunch. We are trying to organize a tour of the flight line with one of the local fixed based operators as well. Visit the Chicago Aviation Meetup Group website today to R.S.V.P. for this event.

MyFlightBlog in The Wall Street Journal

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal's Blog Watch column written by Keith Huang focused on four blogs written by Pilots. MyFlightBlog.com was one of the featured blogs along with PlasticPilot, Sulako's Blog and Yankee Alpha Foxtrot Bravo.

I am sure the other three pilots have seen increased traffic to their blogs as I have see here. I have enjoyed the e-mails from both fellow pilots and student pilots as a result of the article. I created the blog for two reasons, one being that I wanted to keep family and friends up-to-date on my progress while I was learning to fly. The second was that before I started my training, I looked around for advice and information about becoming a private pilot and although there were some great online resources there were few first person accounts; that has changed greatly in the past few years as the blogroll to the right shows.

A week does not go by that I don't get a nice e-mail from someone who is thinking of learning to fly and who asks for advice. I love being able to give back and share my experiences with these prospective pilots. I also get a bunch of pilots who comment or e-mail about their experiences that help me continue to learn and improve as a pilot. One of my favorite e-mails was from an older gentleman who had not flown in over 30 years and said reading my blog brought back the great memories from when he learned to fly, surely a fond memory for him.

Here is the excerpt of my part of the article. You can view the entire article here on WSJ.com (WSJ subscription required).

MyFlightBlog.com
Todd McClamroch always dreamed of flying. About three years ago, the Chicago resident earned his private pilot's license, and he has been blogging about his time in the air ever since -- in part, he writes, to encourage others to pursue their dreams.

Some of Mr. McClamroch's posts offer practical advice to beginners who are interested in aviation, on topics like choosing an aviation school. And he details the time and expense involved in getting a license. But he also takes time to express the joy of piloting: "It's the achievement of making a dream a reality and finally learning to fly after years of looking up at the skies wishing," he writes. "I am sure flying will take me to places I would not have gone, and it may even allow me to travel more efficiently, but in the end it will be for the pure satisfaction of flying."

Save The Red Barons

I was disappointed to learn today that on December 3rd the Schwan Food Company decommissioned The Red Baron Pizza Squadron. The team flew the historic Stearman biplane and has thrilled airshow attendees for 28 years with their acrobatic act.

I have had the pleasure of seeing the Red Baron's fly at least five times at a variety of airshows. Last summer I had the opportunity to take a flight with the team.

The Squadron was made up of four great pilots whose love for flying was evident the moment I met them. They were as disappointed as I was that the weather prevented them from putting me through a full acrobatic flight. Though I still enjoyed my flight in the Stearman with this great flight team

The folks at AirShowBuzz.com are trying to get people to sign a petition to bring back the Red Baron Squadron. You can sign the petition here then Digg the story as well.

You can show your support for the the Save the Red Baron movement with this t-shirt I created for sale at RogerWilcoWear.com. The red short sleeve t-shirt is available for $21.00.

Roger Wilco Wear Line of Aviation T-Shirts Launched

As frequent readers of this site know, I have been mostly disappointed by the lack of quality aviation apparel available through catalogs, websites or at airshows. I decided to do something about it and create a line of t-shirts inspired by aviation.

Roger Wilco Wear was developed with the pilot in mind; our line of t-shirts utilize elements familiar to pilots. After spending hours looking at sectionals I realized that images from the sectional chart would make for great t-shirts and many of our offerings feature those images.

The site currently features airport specific t-shirt designs including Door County Cherrlyand Airport, Lunken Field Airport, New Garden Airport, Palwaukee Municipal Airport, Van Nuys Airport. Each week we release a new airport specific shirt as our Aviation T-Shirt of the Week. Let me know if there is a shirt you would like to see featured.

Additionally, we offer several customizable t-shirts. We have a General Aviation Pilot t-shirt that can be customized to include your home airport three letter identifier. Additionally, we offer custom t-shirts that let you commemorate where you flew your first solo or learned to fly.

One last note, our t-shirts are being sold through Spreadshirt.com. They will handle fulfillment of your order and unfortunately, I will not know specifically who has bought a t-shirt. So please drop me a line if you buy one!

Visit the store today at RogerWilcoWear.com

Win a Free Hat from a Cool Aviation Art & Furniture Design Company

As a pilot and aviation enthusiasts I love pretty much all things plane related. A few years ago Discovery Channel had a show called Wing Nuts that followed two artists who founded a company called MotoArt. MotoArt builds and sells furniture made out of used airplane parts. Their work surely makes any aviation buff salivate. Sadly, because these are functional pieces of art and not just plain old furniture they cost a little more than I currently want to spend on a desk. But, I keep their site bookmarked for the day when I am ready for a slick airplane wing desk.

MotoArt is not the only group that fuses art, furniture and aviation heritage together. I came across InterFlightStudio recently, they create not only aviation furniture but contemporary art and design as well.

I went the cheap wrote a few weeks ago and instead of ordering a desk from IFS or MotoArt I simply bought a few MotoArt t-shirts and a hat. My order was slightly delayed as they had run out of hats. Though they made up for it by sending me an extra hat with my order - thanks MotoArt! So, that means one of my readers lucks out. Leave a comment below or drop me an e-mail via the contact form between now and November 15th and you will be entered to win the extra MotoArt Baseball Cap.

Good Luck!

Letter to the Editor of Pilot Getaways Magazine

Back in August I mentioned that Pilot Getaways Magazine feature Door County as one of their destinations for their July / August issue. Since Door County is one of my favorite places to fly I enjoyed seeing their take on it. For the most part I think they did an excellent job as usual, though they missed out on two of my favorite sites.

So I sent the editor a note mentioning that they overlooked two great aerial sites for pilots flying over the Door County Peninsula, corn mazes and shipwrecks. I just received the September / October issue of Pilot Getaways Magazine and was honored to see my letter to the editor included as well as a photo I shot this summer of the local corn maze.

Door County Peninsula Flight

I was back up in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin over Labor Day weekend. We were blessed with three days of perfect weather with temperatures in the low 80s, light winds and clear skies. I rented the Orion Flight Service Cessna 172 for a flight along the Door Peninsula.

Surprisingly, their was not much activity at the airport despite the beautiful weather. A Civil Air Patrol flight departed as I was doing my pre-flight but was the only other airplane I encountered at Cherryland Airport. I flew northeast from the airport along the lakeside of the peninsula taking in beautiful views of lighthouses and the shoreline. I turned south as I reached the Northern most tip of the peninsula where I had a nice few to the left of the peninsula and a few islands off to my right.

From there I flew south to Ephraim all the way to the tip of the peninsula with a few islands and over-flew the Ephraim airport. I watched an aircraft takeoff and depart to the north as I entered the downwind leg for landing. Other than the departing traffic the airport was all mine. I decided on the asphalt runway due to the wind direction and because I was not sure how much rain the area had recently received that might have made the turf runway a bad option. I made on full stop landing and taxied back along the runway.

After that I flew back to Cherryland Airport this time enjoying the view of the bay side of the peninsula. I logged 1.1 hours of flight time during the flight bringing me just over 99 hours of flight time. I had hoped to break the 100 hour mark by taking my Dad flying on Monday morning. Unfortunately, when I arrived at the airport I learned that the latch on pilot side door of the plane had broken and needed to be replaced so we had to cancel the flight.

Flying in Uncontrolled and Controlled Airspace

On Saturday I toured the control tower of Chicago Executive Airport with some fellow aviation enthusiasts. During the tour the controllers talked about how they use the radar to ensure safe separation of aircraft in their airspace. Then they explained for the non-pilots how pilots interact with each other to ensure safety when flying at the airport after the control tower closes or at uncontrolled fields. This served as a great reminder for my flight that day which was from a controlled field to an uncontrolled field and back.

After the tour I flew in a Cessna 172SP from Chicago Exec. (KPWK) about 20 miles northwest to Lake in the Hills(3CK) airport, a small single strip uncontrolled airport. Here I flew around the pattern six or seven times while working on crosswind landings. At times there were as many as four aircraft working in the pattern. At an uncontrolled airport there is no tower so all radio equipped planes communicate over the Common Traffic Advisory Frequency (CTAF) providing position reports and intentions for the other pilots.

At one point I was at pattern altitude when another pilot announced his intention to over fly the airport and then to enter the pattern on the downwind leg on a forty five degree angle. Nothing strange there other than the fact that he announced his current altitude of approximately 1,900 feet which is the same as the pattern altitude. This put him on a collision course with the plane behind me in the pattern that was currently on the downwind leg. When over-flying a field to enter the pattern you should be flying above the traffic in the pattern to alleviate any potential danger. Luckily the other pilot made the decision to exit the pattern and let this idiot land before resuming his pattern.

As a pilot you always need to look out for yourself and assume that all other pilots are a potential danger to you. But, this becomes ever more important at uncontrolled towers.

Upon returning to Chicago Executive it became quickly apparent that traffic had picked up at the airport since I left. Turns out the up tick in traffic was due to a series of flights that were part of the Young Eagles program were arriving at the same time as I was.

I circled Lake Zurich two or three times just waiting to get an opening to start my communications with the tower. I was told to proceed inbound but that I may need to circle from time to time as I was sixth in the order for landing. Sure enough on downwind for landing the tower asked that I please perform a 360° turn to provide greater spacing between aircraft before landing.

It was fun going from a busy uncontrolled field to a busy controlled field and getting a chance to work on both types of radio communications.

Chicago Aviation Meetup Group Outing: Control Tower Tour

The Chicago Aviation Meetup Group August event was a tour of the Chicago Executive Airport control tower. Chicago Executive (formerly Palwaukee) is a Class D airport with three active runways. Although on Saturday only two runways were active as runway 6/24 was partially underwater from recent storms in the area.

There were five other group members that joined me for the tour. I believe I was the only certified pilot in the group but several members were working on their pilots license while others are thinking about it.

When we arrived there were three tower controllers in the tower one that was on a mandatory one-hour break and the one managing aircraft on the ground and another managing inbound and outbound aircraft. Luckily there was not a ton of traffic so the controllers were able to talk to us and explain what they were doing for the few aircraft that were maneuvering on the field or in the surrounding airspace.

One of the controllers showed us the light gun that is used to communicate with planes that are having radio communication problems. He asked if I had ever seen it in use which I have not. He mentioned that next time I am flying if their load is not to much to ask and he will shine it for me to see from the plane, which supposedly it is very easy to see at day or night. So I have added that to my next flight to-do list.

This was my second visit to a control tower and I have found both visits to be enjoyable and educational. I highly recommend a control tower tour for any pilot or pilot in training.

If you are in the Chicago area and interested in meeting up with other aviation enthusiasts check out our aviation group on Meetup.com.