Mount Saint Helens Video

Short video of my VFR photo mission to Mount Saint Helens on Friday evening. Unfortunately the new GoPro camera position looking forward did not come out too well. I still need to experiment with the best position.

New Camera Angle

Discovered a new camera angle on my GoPro. Here is a short video of me landing at Sportmans and Twin Oaks last weekend (no audio).

Mt. Saint Helens

Another first. Picked up flight following from PDX TRACON and headed north east on a photo mission to Mt. Saint Helens. The volcano peaks at 8600'. I followed the procedure stated in the AFD and flew counter clockwise at 10500'. 

On the return leg back south, PDX offered me a class charlie transition overhead KPDX and onwards to 7S3.

A great day to fly in Oregon!

Crater @ Mt. Saint Helens

Mt. Saint Helens VFR 10500'

Overhead KPDX VFR 3600'

Long Cross Country

Great flight Saturday visiting another new airport (KEUG). Flew over 210nm. Flight following from PDX DEP/APP, CASCADE APP and SEA CTR. Received flight following the entire way. Great service. No charge!

Great day to go flying in Oregon. Lots of activity at 7S3 yesterday and the surrounding airports. Landed at my 39th airport (KEUG). Aborted an approach at Newport, Oregon (KONP) due to high winds. Had an aircraft be told by SEA CTR to call a landline. Landed back at Sportman on the way back to 7S3. A great day to be a pilot in Oregon.

Video to follow soon.

Planned Route

Busy 7S3

Final 34R KEUG

Flying in Ireland

Here is a 10 minute video of my flight in Ireland last week. 

I will blog about the flight later this week.

#letsgoflyingireland

Logged 1.0hour and 1 landing in Ireland today. First flight in Ireland since passing my FAA PPL in June 2012. Photos and details to follow.....................

Twin Oaks - Runway 20

Here is the video from my flight last week. Great being airborne again. Loved the challenge of landing on runway 20 for the first time. Video quality is rather poor with the evening light fading but hopefully you get to see how much fun this approach was!

Back In The Saddle

First flight in 70 days went well. I chose to fly on a day with a crosswind! Flew to two airports that I had previously visited in Oregon. Wind from a different direction so landed in the opposite direction than on previous flights. Best part was returning to my home airport and landing 20 instead of 02. First time flying this approach. Loved the approach through the tree line. The attached photo doesn't do it justice. Preferred landing direction so that one can land uphill avoiding the trees on the 20 approach!

Happy with my performance today. Took my time with the pre-flight. Flight was fine. Landings were only okay. Key today was taking my time and working the checklists. Happy with my decision making. Didn't push outside my comfort zone and I had the confidence to tackle the 20 approach for the first time. Pitch and power down to the numbers. Wind was light after landing so I probably could have landed 02. Next aircraft behind me landed 02.

Flew with a student pilot who wanted to learn more about talking with Towered airports. He had a blast!

Going to start flying to new airports from next week. Have just over two months left in the US. #letsgoflying

Video to follow soon.

Short Final 20 7S3

SKYHAWK 5440H

One Day!

Boeing Factory Tours

Official @Boeing photos are now available. Hopefully I will blog about my visit to the Everett and Renton factories in the coming days.

#avgeek & 777-300ER

Admiring the 747-8

Photographs courtesy of @Boeing

Someone once told me...................

Someone once told me that I should get IFR rated before moving to Oregon. That has to be the understatement of the decade! Weather has been really poor since New Year which has resulted in me only flying once. Also had to renew my medical which I took care of last week.

Tried to fly at the weekend but a weather system came through from the pacific.

Fingers crossed I get to fly this week.

Refueling 40H Saturday

Ready for #AGF14

I'm all packed for #AGF14. Expect some photos to be uploaded over the weekend.

Attending #AGF14 Sunday

Not flying much due to the really non VFR flying conditions here in Oregon. I'm holding out for March!

This weekend I am attending the Aviation Geek Fest (#AGF14) in Seattle. Tune back in for an update Sunday evening.

Here is a link to the 2013 event. Doesn't it look great? I will be attending the event at KBFI as I couldn't get a ticket for KPAE.

First Flight 2014

Planned to fly this morning over to Aurora State to practice some pattern work. Then heard a pilot friend was in town. The cloud lifted and we set off for a tour of the pacific north west coastline.

Logged 2.2. Fun flight with Flight Following from PDX DEP and SEA CTR. We flew WNW at 6500'. Then stayed north of the airport as a King Air shot ILS approaches into runway 26. After a full stop at KAST, we headed south along the coast line. We picked up a slight headwind of 35kts. Ground Speed dropping to 65kts at one stage!

Then got confused with my runway numbers at KTMK. Landed on the correct runway but I was calling it 01 instead of 31! Whoops! There was no one around to see!!

Enjoyed dusting the cobwebs off for the first flight of 2014. Weather allowing I will be flying with my wife on Thursday. 2014 is going to be a great year!

SKYHAWK 40H and a Beaver!

Overhead KAST on the Pacific Coast

3500' VFR Along PNW Coast

2013 Year

2013 will be my last full year in the US as I am returning back to Europe in July 2014. It's time to look back at what I've written in the logbook in 2013.

PiC Time Logged - 56.3hrs
Airports Visited - 29
Aircraft Flown - C172
States Flown In - AZ, OR, TX & WA

Highlights 
There are lots of highlights for the year but my top five are;
1. Passed through 100hrs PiC,
2. Landed at my first airport >7000' MSL,
3. Class B flying including landing at KPHX (5th visit) in May,
4. Only flying with a empty right seat once,
5. Flying with my Dad for the first time.

Regrets
1. Not camping at #OSH13,

I do have a couple of other regrets, but I can fix them in early 2014 so I am not going to write them down.

Happy New Year. Blue skies and tailwinds for 2014!

Flying With My Dad

Grounded

Grounded due to ice conditions and low vis. This sucks. Happy New Year everyone.

Flying with Hoptown Flyer

Thanks for Hoptown Flyer for getting his version of our flight out on YouTube before me. I don't like watching myself and I did enjoy this one! 

First flight in a month and first flight in cold weather. Was apprehensive but everything worked out okay.

$100 Hamburger - Class Bravo Airport

Nowadays it is difficult to fly that $100 hamburger flight due to the rising cost of rental aircraft/fuel. However on 13th December 2012 I had my first "official" $100 hamburger as a Private Pilot.

I've had many aviation highlights since moving to the US in November 2011. In Europe it can be a challenge flying into a large airport and parking for free! You would think landing a C172 at an Air Force Base (without the F-16 escort) and spending two days with the F-16 pilots would be enough satisfaction in one lifetime. But on the 13th December 2012, ATC gave me clearance to land on 07R at Phoenix Sky Harbor (KPHX) airport in Arizona. 24 months prior to that, learning to fly was still a dream. Never thought I would be doing this in a million years.

Planned Route CHD -> PHX

As most of you know, ATC is my passion. I'd practiced the possible radio calls a million times whilst driving the car to and from work. I had already flown halve a dozen or so class bravo transitions but this was to be my first flight landing. I didn't want to mess this one up. After picking up the ATIS, I was so nervous making that first call to PHX APP. I was prepared for them to say "you want to land a Cessna here?" followed by "frequency change approved, good day!" And this would be followed by my FBO telling me they had a call from PHX Tracon! Thankfully that never happened and PHX Tracon/Twr provided an excellent service. 

Gotta love Cutter Aviation. Leading FBO servicing major airports across southwestern United States. They hold a monthly cook off in the autumn and winter months in order to promote the services at the FBO. Parking fee waived for the day and some great food providing A simple call ahead a few days before is requested to ensure your parking spot on the ramp.

Welcome N54288

For my first visit, flight time was less than 20 minutes. Total distance flown was less than 25nm. In the end, I was very happy with my RT comms. I did mess up the clearance delivery on the way back out of PHX but I was able to fix that on later flights.

SKYHAWK 288 Ramp Photo KPHX

Loggged 0.9hrs there and back. That equated to $90 + tax = approx. $96. This became my first $100 hamburger flight plus I had change!

Ended up flying into KPHX five times between December 2012 and May 2013. Each time was amazing. So glad I was able to experience it in the US. The experience is definitely in ten life experiences. 

Hoptown Flyer @ Twin Oaks

Please join me in congratulating Hoptown Flyer. He flies out the same airport as me in Oregon. Took him flying this weekend in 734KU. He had a taste of what his PPL ticket will enable him to do once he closes our his training in the coming weeks. Lets all wish him good luck!

Follow him on Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/user/TheHoptownFlyer

Back in the saddle

Flew for the first time in a month. Added my 37th airport. Flew north from 7S3 to KCLS (Chehalis-Centralia). Planned to go further north but the wind was 350/20kts at around 4000'. This resulted in only 90kts ground speed in the cruise. Flight following with PDX DEP and SEA CTR on the way. 

On the return leg there was a SCT050 layer. With freezing temperatures I avoided the cloud. Flew back at 3500' MSL. This was too low to pick up flight following with SEA CTR. Once clear of the cloud, we climbed back up to 5500 for the remainder of the journey.

Logged 2.1hrs. Fun flight.

KCLS - Chehalis-Centralia

Inbound UBG VOR Climbing to 5500'

View from KU

Flickr Account

Have created myself a Flickr account to show off my new Canon Rebel T3i photos.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/92868683@N02/