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Glider Rating – Part 1 – Audio Episode Show Notes

May 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

These are the show notes to an audio episode. You can listen to the show audio by clicking here: http://traffic.libsyn.com/airspeed/AirspeedTG7A01.mp3.  Better yet, subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes or your other favorite podcatcher. It’s all free!

If there’s a 350-hour private pilot out there who has a more diverse logbook than I do, my hat’s off to him or her.  I have everything from Cessna 152s to a DC-3 to the mighty F-16D in my logbook and my certificate reads ASEL, AMEL, and ASES, among other things.  I’ve flown for everything from lunch to competition aerobatics.

The key for me is experiencing the broadest possible swath of what aviation offers.

Coming up on three years ago, I got a ride with Mark Grant in a Schweizer SGM 2-37 motor glider.  The aircraft is one of three operated by the Tuskegee Airmen Glider Club, headquartered at Detroit City Airport.  It’s a beautiful yellow longwing bird and the ride was a lot of fun.

I also met John Harte that weekend, who was flying one of the other club motor gliders and I got good footage of him in a gaggle climb.  John and I have since begun to share an aerobatic instructor and we both fly the Acro Camp Pitts at Berz Aviation at Ray Community Airport.

Fast forward to this spring, when John offered me a chance to go up in one of the aircraft for some giggles.  I climbed in and was surprised to find myself doing most of the flying.  It turns out that the whole thing was part of an evil plot on John’s part to addict me to flying longwing aircraft. [Read more...]

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Glider Training: The Emergency Return

April 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I had a great training sortie with John Harte on Friday.  We launched around sunrise and hit three other airports before returning to Detroit City (KDET) around 9:00.

Among the maneuvers was the practice emergency return to the runway.  We did one of these on my first training flight in the right (primary) seat.  I’ve since become pretty good at them for a greenhorn.  I’ve wanted to take up a lot of cameras and film one and I got the chance on this sortie.  The video starts with a landing on Runway 27L at Oakland County International Airport (KPTK).  Then we power up, climb to a little over 300 AGL, pull the power, and come back to 9R.

The video tells the story pretty well.  Enjoy!

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Touching the True Source: CAP NESA MAS 2010 – The Combined Audio Episode with Print Version

October 19, 2011 By 1 Comment


Here it is! The full version of my experiences at Civil Air Patrol’s National Emergency Services Academy Mission Aircrew School in June of 2010. All of the audio and all 30,000 words, among with images!

As you know, Airspeed is primarily intended to be consumed (and is overwhelmingly consumed) through thousands of handheld audio and video devices all over the world. But this is a pretty epic presentation (nearly two hours) and some of the more ambitious of you are going to want a linkable place at which to access the whole thing by means of the web. So here you go!

An MP3 file containing the entire 1:49:19 (100MB) essay is available at http://traffic.libsyn.com/airspeed/AirspeedNESAEssayFull.mp3.

The PDF document with the whole essay and images from the school and the events leading up to it lives at http://traffic.libsyn.com/airspeed/Airspeed_-_Touching_the_True_Source_-_CAP_NESA_MAS_2010_-_v2011-10-10.pdf.

More information about Civil Air Patrol is available at www.gocivilairpatrol.com. More information about NESA is available at www.nesa.cap.gov.

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Zero to Hero – Part 2

December 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment


These are the show notes to an audio episode. You can listen to the show audio by clicking here: http://traffic.libsyn.com/airspeed/AirspeedZero02.mp3. Better yet, subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes or your other favorite podcatcher. It’s all free!

I got together with myTransponder.com founder and fellow CAP officer Rod Rakic to talk about accelerated flight training. Rod has done accelerated programs as a part of both his commercial and instrument training. I did my AMEL, ASES, and DC-3 (SIC) training in accelerated programs. And Rod and I are both graduates of the CAP National Emergency Services Academy’s Mission Aircrew School.

We talked about the benefits and drawbacks of accelerated and/or concentrated training and how best to take advantage of it.

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Airspeed Video Episode – Spins with Barry

July 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment

There are the show notes to a video episode. You can watch the episode in the viewer above or by clicking here: http://traffic.libsyn.com/airspeed/AirspeedSpinsBarry.m4v. Better yet, subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes or your other favorite podcatcher. It’s all free.

It’s time for another video episode!

I wanted to go up with Barry to do some acro to condition for the T-38 ride that happened on the 13th. Unfortunately, the Super D is no longer on the line at Oakland Flight Academy for financial reasons, which leaves only the Citabria. And the Citabria, not having a constant-speed prop, is limited to spins as far as acro goes. (And, even if we flew it fully acro, we’d be limited to positive-G maneuvers anyway.)

No problem. Spins are plenty fine to stimulate my vestibular system.

And, as long as I’m flying, it make sense to take along some cameras, if only to shoot B-roll for Acro Camp. This time, I took up a three-camera system so that I could show not only the view of the cockpit but the control inputs and an unobstructed view of what’s ahead of the airplane.

And it was a chance to try out the Multiclip functionality in Final Cut Pro, which is perfect for this kind of parallel-track editing (three cameras and an audio channel).

Like it says in the intro. DO try this at home. It could safe your life. Or at least improve your confidence in dealing with unusual attitudes. But be sure to do it in a duly certified airplane with a qualified instructor and in compliance with all of the regs.

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